7:30 am Morning Coffee or Breakfast Workshop (Sponsorship Available)
8:30 Chairperson’s Opening Remarks
8:40 Tackling
the Challenges of Proteomics
Henry Rodriguez, Ph.D., MBA, Director, Clinical Proteomic Technologies for
Cancer, Office of Technology and Industrial Relations,
Office of the Director, National Cancer Institute
Proteomics have revolutionized cell biology and biochemistry by providing
powerful new tools to characterize complex proteomes, multiprotein complexes
and posttranslational modifications. Although proteomics technologies could
address important problems in clinical and translational cancer research,
attempts to use proteomics approaches to discover cancer biomarkers in
biofluids and tissues have been largely unsuccessful and have engendered
considerable skepticism. The National Cancer Institute has taken a leading
role in facilitating the translation of proteomics from research to clinical
application, through its Clinical Proteomic Technologies for Cancer initiative
(CPTC) (http://proteomics.cancer.gov).
The goal of the CPTC is to accelerate discovery and clinical research in
cancer using an integrated approach that assesses and optimizes proteomic
technology measurement capabilities and develops universally accepted metrics
that identify and minimize experimental variability from run to run,
instrument to instrument, and lab to lab. This program will enable the
transition of proteomics technologies from basic research tools to reliable
and robust clinical research platforms.
9:20 Pharmacogenetic Testing in the Clinical Practice
10:00 Coffee Break, Exhibit and Poster Viewing
10:45 Cost vs Quality: Opposing Forces in SNP Genotyping?
Steven Dodsworth, Ph.D., Director of Molecular Genetics, Genotyping, Tepnel
Life Sciences PLC Demands for higher throughput and lower costs are
characteristic of the developing SNP genotyping market. Stringent procedures to
support the generation of high quality data are essential but may reduce
efficiency of the genotyping process unless carefully planned. Strategies for
designing highly efficient quality based processes are discussed and
illustrated.
11:15 Role
of microRNAs in Colorectal Cancer Jingfang Ju, Ph.D., Head, Cancer Genomics Laboratory; Assistant Professor
of Pharmacology and Medicine University South Alabama -Mitchell Cancer
Institute
Translational control mediated by non-coding miRNAs plays a key role in
tumorigenesis. To realize the potential of using miRNAs as potential
prognosis biomarker, the expression and stability of miRNAs in FFPE samples
were systematically investigated. Our results show that miRNAs are relative
stable in FFPE samples compared to mRNA transcripts and they can be used for
biomarker discovery. We discovered a number of miRNAs was de-regulated due
to the loss of tumor suppressor gene p53 in colorectal cancer. Some of them
are associated with chemoresponse or patient's survival. We also identified
important chemotherapeutic targets that are regulated by our candidate
miRNAs
11:45 Solution Showcase
(Sponsorship
Available)
12:15 pm Luncheon in Exhibit Hall
Sponsored by
1:30 Maximizing Target Recovery for Nucleic Acid Detection in Clinical
Specimens
Bernhard Kaltenboeck, DMV, Professor, Director, Molecular Diagnostics
Laboratory, Pathobiology, Auburn University The sensitivity of many assays for detection of low numbers
of pathogenic agents in chronic diseases has remained unsatisfactory, despite
nucleic acid amplification techniques that consistently detect single target
copies. A main reason for this failure is the lack of robust extraction methods
that efficiently recover rare copies of the target nucleic acids from large
sample volumes and concentrate these targets into small assay input volumes.
This presentation will describe approaches for highly effective preservation,
extraction, recovery, and concentration of low-copy nucleic acid targets. A
streamlined combination of these methods increases detection sensitivity by up
to 100-fold as compared to standard methodology.
2:00 Precise and Sensitive mRNA and miRNA Measurement from Archived FFPE
Without Extraction using Lysis-only qNPA™:
Application as a Prognostic Clinical Assay for Diffuse Large
B-Cell Lymphoma Bruce Seligmann, Ph.D., Chairman & CSO, HTG, Inc. Measurement of mRNA and miRNA without the use of extraction
or gene amplification is possible using the quantitative Nuclease Protection
Assay (qNPA™), which delivers the precision to detect changes less than 20%
(<1.2-fold) on a multiplexed array platform. qNPA measures the total mRNA and
miRNA in fixed tissue (FFPE), both cross-linked and soluble RNA, without the
need to reverse cross-linking, and thus is insensitive to variability in the
fixation step or length of storage after fixation. Data presented will include
the retrospective validation of an assay that predicts survival following
treatment with chemotherapy plus the anti-CD20 antibody Rituximab (CHOP-R) using
clinical samples stored for an average of over 15 years.
2:30 Refreshment Break
Optimization for Microarray
Applications
3:00 Cancer DSA™ – Disease Focused Microarrays Optimized for Use with
FFPE Tissue
Austin Tanney, Ph.D., DSA Programme Manager, Diagnostics, Almac To a backdrop of increasing evidence of the complexity of the
human transcriptome, this presentation covers the rationale and development of a
range of custom gene expression microarrays designed to better reflect the
complexity a variety of human disease transcriptomes. The work presented
highlights the complexity of the transcriptome of disease such as breast, lung
and colorectal cancer and demonstrates the discovery of unique/novel
transcripts, including extensive, previously undiscovered, endogenous antisense;
that could play functionally important roles in the underlying biology of these
diseases.
Examples will be shown of the use of these tools in the
development of prognostic/ diagnostic signatures from formalin fixed and
paraffin embedded samples.
3:30 Laser Capture Microdissection and Microarray Analysis of Rat Neural
Progenitor Cells
Ulf Gurok, Ph.D., Technical Leader, Abbott Molecular changes during disease are specific to different
cell types. These changes are difficult to detect in tissues with multiple cell
types. A new protocol enabled the identification of neural progenitor cells in
the rat brain with a rapid immunohistochemical staining procedure. This protocol
employs RNA-preserving conditions and allows the preparation of RNA from the
cells after isolation by laser capture microdissection. Such RNA was used for
microarray analyses to reveal molecular changes associated with an
4:00 QA for DNA Microarrays
Lynn Bernd-Weis, Biologist, Carleton University, Environmental Health Centre
4:30 Panel Discussion:
Influence on Sample Collection Parameters on Functional Assays
