Invitation to SCI’s Free Public Evening Lecture:
Sir Gregory Winter FRS – Fellow of Trinity College Cambridge and former Master of the College from 2012 -2019
The antibody revolution, its origin, propagation and impact on the pharmaceutical industry
Diary date: Wednesday 25 March 2020 SCI headquarters 18:00 for 18:30 start
- Genetic engineering technologies have led to the development of antibodies as a new class of pharmaceutical drug.
- These drugs have application across a wide range disease area.
- Start-up companies were responsible for the early developments in this area, but big pharmaceutical companies were slow to get involved with the new science.
The application of genetic engineering technologies has led to the development of antibodies as a new class of pharmaceutical drugs. Many of the best selling drugs are now antibodies, particularly for the treatment of auto-immune inflammatory conditions such as rheumatoid arthritis and cancer.
Continuing scientific advances are opening up new prospects for antibody therapeutics and for other peptide and protein-based drugs. These pivotal developments had their genesis in academia and biotechnology companies, but uptake by the large pharmaceutical companies was slow.
During this Public Evening Lecture Sir Gregory will discuss the way in which this technology originated and was propagated. He will also discuss the impact of start-up companies and licensing strategies on the development of this market, the pharmaceutical companies and on the potential for further improvements.
About the speaker
Awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry along with George Smith and Frances Arnold, Sir Gregory Paul Winter FRS is a molecular biologist best known for his work on protein engineering and developing technologies to make therapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs). He is credited with inventing techniques both to humanise rodent mAbs (1986) and to create fully human mAbs (1990). Sir Gregory was specifically cited in the Nobel Prize for ‘the phage display of peptides and antibodies’, the technology that led to the fully human antibody Humira, which is now the world’s top selling pharmaceutical drug.
Sir Gregory’s research career has been based almost entirely at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology and the MRC Centre for Protein Engineering in Cambridge, England. He founded three Cambrigde-based start-up companies to help develop therapeutic drugs based on his discoveries.
Date for your diary: Wednesday 25 March 2020
Venue: SCI HQ Belgrave Square, London SW1X 8PS
Reception opens at 18:00 and the lecture starts at 18:30. This is a free event. Registration will be opening soon!
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