Antibody Power Meets TIDES Precision: The Future of Biologics

Dr Vllasaliu is a pharmacist and gained his PhD at the University of Nottingham. His research interests center around understanding and overcoming biological barriers to improve drug delivery, with a key focus on enabling injection-free administration of biotherapeutic drugs (peptides, proteins, nucleic acids). As part of this, he has specific interests in drug delivery systems, including nanomedicines and extracellular vesicles (exosomes), that potentially enable injection-free delivery. He is also interested in drug delivery for diseases of, or linked to, the gut.

Finally, aspects of Driton’s research relate to the creation of improved (more predictive) in vitro models for use in medicines development, including organoids. Much of his current research focus is on oral delivery of RNA using exosomes.

Fernando Albericio is a globally renowned chemist and entrepreneur specialising in peptide synthesis, medicinal chemistry, and nanomedicine. He is currently a Research Professor at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Barcelona, where he previously served as a Full Professor for nearly three decades.

With an extensive career spanning academia, industry, and scientific leadership, Prof. Albericio has held influential positions worldwide, including Rector at Yachay Tech (Ecuador), Visiting Professor at King Saud University (Saudi Arabia), and Group Leader at the Institute for Research in Biomedicine of Barcelona. His impact on the field is further demonstrated by his numerous editorial roles in leading scientific journals.

Prof. Albericio has authored over 1,100 publications, secured 63 patents, and supervised 81 PhD students. His research contributions have earned him prestigious accolades such as the Vincent du Vigneaud Award, the Meienhofer Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Gold Medal of the South African Chemical Institute. He has also been recognised among the world's top 2% of scientists in the Stanford ranking.

Beyond academia, he has founded multiple biotech companies, including Medalchemy, DiverDrugs, and BioDurban, bridging the gap between research and industry. His work continues to shape the future of peptide science, drug development, and green chemistry.

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David Gilot, PhD, is an enthusiastic molecular biologist with over 26 years of experience in the oligonucleotide therapeutic field & therapy resistance in oncology. His combined academic and industry background allows him to build essential networks with external partners, contract research organisations, and medical experts to advance patient-centred innovations.

Focused on discovering potent, durable, and safe RNA therapeutics, he thinks that successful projects rely on robust basic science. He leads RNA-based research and clinical programs, with extensive expertise in RNA mechanisms, including pioneering work on masking oligonucleotides. He has significantly contributed to IP generation and innovative strategies for oligonucleotides (conjugates), supporting an expanding portfolio across various therapeutic areas, including cardiovascular diseases, rare diseases, and oncology.

Vusala Ibrahimova obtained a cotutelle PhD in Organic and Polymer Chemistry from UCL/UBx in Belgium/France and pursued three and half years of postdoc in Nanomedicine at UBx in France. After working in a Biotech company as a Formulation Scientist she has joined the R&D Formulation team at CureVac as a Research Scientist in 2022.

Dr. Anders Gabrielsen, MD, DMSc, FESC, Ribocure Pharmaceuticals, Vice President and Head of Global Clinical Development, is an experienced physician-scientist with almost 15 years of industry expertise in the cardiovascular, renal, and metabolism therapy area. MD, DMSc at University of Copenhagen, translational research and trained as a cardiologist and internist at Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital, Sweden, Dr. Gabrielsen specialises in heart failure and has played key roles in core clinical teams across all aspects of cardiology and internal medicine, with a focus on translational cardiovascular science and clinical development. Prior work spans multiple mechanisms of action and modalities, indications and product launches, with global industry and executive director experience from leading pharmaceutical companies such as Bayer, Novartis, and AstraZeneca.

Nathan is Director of the Biologics Discovery and Development team at LifeArc, focusing on delivering antibody therapeutics and bridging the gap between early-phase discovery to the clinic.

Nathan’s previous roles were Director at LabGenius focused on the discovery and engineering of T-cell engagers using AI/machine learning to generate non-intuitive antibody designs for immune-oncology, following a role as Head of Antibody engineering at MiroBio discovering antibody agonists against checkpoint receptors for autoimmune diseases. Prior to this Nathan lead the Antibody Discovery team at OXGENE developing a proprietary mammalian display to screen naïve antibody libraries against integral membrane proteins and 11 years at Heptares Therapeutics engineering and facilitating/solving the atomic structures of GPCR co-ligand complexes by x-ray crystallography.

As Head of Antibody Engineering, Michael oversees lead discovery and high-throughput antibody expression platforms at LabGenius. Michael applies his extensive experience to the production of multispecific antibody formats to advance the discovery of next-generation biologics. Michael has over 20 years of experience in protein engineering and protein expression, previously leading the Protein Technologies group at GSK, where he established a high-throughput mammalian expression platform assessing the production of challenging targets, including ion channels and GPCRs.

Dr. Petra Disterer is a Lecturer at Brunel University London, UK and has been working in the field of nucleic acid therapeutics for over 25 years. Her focus is on translational research of nucleic acid therapeutics - specifically splice-switching oligonucleotides.

Dr. Angel E. Santorelli V. began his academic journey in Venezuela, earning a Licentiate in Chemistry from Universidad Central de Venezuela and a Master of Science in Chemistry from Universidad Simon Bolivar. He further advanced his expertise with a Ph.D. in Nanoscience from Aarhus University in Denmark. During his doctoral studies at Aarhus University, supported by a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship, he developed methods for oligonucleotide modification and integrated photo-responsive molecules into DNA-oligonucleotides.

Currently, he is a researcher specializing in oligonucleotide therapeutics and synthetic chemistry, serving as a Postdoctoral Researcher at ETH Zurich. His work focuses on the synthesis and purification of stereopure phosphorothioate oligonucleotides, along the development of mixed modality constructs for drug delivery and novel oligonucleotide purification methods. His professional experience also includes research in DNA-encoded RNA-library technologies at Eleven Therapeutics.

Dominik Brücher, CTO of CIS BIOPHARMA, is a recognized expert in protein engineering with a strong focus on biologics, including antibodies, antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) and gene vectors. His career spans both innovative biotech ventures and large pharmaceutical organizations, where he has developed novel ADCs, particularly in the field of oncology. He also scaled a gene therapy company to over 40 employees, driving forward advanced therapeutic platforms.

Currently, Dominik leads the development of a first-in-class ADC targeting a novel oncology marker and drives the advancement of CIS BIOPHARMA’s proprietary linker-payload technology.

Dr. Jonathan Taylor joined AstraZeneca in 2019 as a post-doc, focusing on developing biologics-based degraders as both research tools and future therapeutics. His research explored the utility of E2 enzymes as a complementary platform to E3 ligases, addressing the question: “What makes a good bioPROTAC?” Since 2022, Dr. Taylor has served as a Senior Scientist at AZ, developing masking strategies to improve the safety profile of T-cell engagers within oncology. His work spans both areas, utilizing early phenotypic screening of combinatorial domain libraries to drive biologics development. Previously, Dr. Taylor obtained his PhD at UCL studying fragment-based drug discovery, followed by structural biology projects at Imperial College London.

Joost Uitdehaag is head of Biology at Crossfire Oncology B.V. After concluding a Ph.D. in Groningen, the Netherlands and a postdoc at the University of Oxford, he has worked for large pharma companies such as Organon, MSD and Astra-Zeneca, before shifting gears to biotech, where he worked for Oncolines, LAVA Therapeutics and now Crossfire Oncology B.V. The many projects to which he has contributed in the past include the BTK inhibitor drug acalabrutinib and the anti-PD1 antibody pembrolizumab. He currently combines his extensive discovery experience in small molecules and antibodies to generate novel protein degraders for use as payloads in antibody drug conjugates (ADCs), which have the potential to revolutionize the ADC field.

After 35 years in the pharma industry, mainly in large (BMS, Fresenius Kabi; Farmitalia Carlo Erba/Pharmacia; Sigma tau) and medium size companies, with different responsibilities in R&D, Walter Cabri joined, as Full Professor of Organic Chemistry, the Projects for Green Innovation Lab of the University of Bologna. The main areas of interest are in the fields of drug discovery, pharmaceutical development, green chemistry, catalysis, TIDES and complex drugs. He brought several NCE and generic products from bench to market. Co-author >150 papers and >120 patent families; two books “From Bench to Market” by Oxford University Press, Oxford 2000. “Sustainability in TIDES Chemistry” by Royal Society of Chemistry, London 2024.

Dr Kerstin Hofer is a Senior Scientist at Roche Pharma Research and Early Development, where she leads the bioconjugation lab. She has extensive experience in the delivery of oligonucleotide-based therapeutics to target tissues, such as the brain.

Eef Dirksen is a protein characterization aficionado. He obtained his PhD in biomolecular mass spectrometry in 2006. Subsequently, Eef moved to Philips Research and in 2010, he was hired by MSD (Merck) in Oss, The Netherlands, where he managed a team focusing on the characterization of biopharmaceutical proteins. In this role, Eef was, amongst others, involved in the successful late-stage development of Keytruda®.

In 2015, Eef joined Byondis to work on elucidating the in vivo biotransformation of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs). Currently, he is heading the Department of Analytical Development and Quality Control that is responsible for all analytical activities in support of early-stage CMC development of monoclonal antibodies and ADCs, providing substantial contributions to Byondis’ regulatory submissions.

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Peter Ellmark joined Alligator Bioscience in 2008 and serves as Chief Scientist. He holds a PhD and a professorship in Immunotechnology at Lund University and has more than 20 years’ experience of developing antibodies for immunotherapy of cancer. Dr. Ellmark´s research interest is focused on developing mono- and bispecific antibodies, in particular CD40 and 4-1BB targeting therapies, for tumor directed immunotherapy of cancer.

Lindy is Professor of Cancer Immunotherapy and CSO of Scancell Ltd and has developed a panel of monoclonal antibodies recognised tumour associated glycans and has pioneered an new antibody engineering technology which enhances the avidity of monoclonal antibodies, termed AvidiMab®. This has been applied to the anti-glycan monoclonal antibodies resulting in direct killing monoclonal antibodies. These monoclonal antibodies are also good at activate T cells as T cell redirecting bispecific antibodies and also for drug delivery making strong ADCs. She has developed two cancer vaccine platforms ImmunoBody® and Moditope®which induce potent killer CD8 T cells and cytotoxic CD4 T cells respectively. The first ImmunoBody®, SCIB1, has completed a phase I/II monotherapy clinical trial in which 14/16 patients with melanoma have been disease free for five years. SCIB1 is now in a clinical trial (SCOPE) in combination with checkpoint inhibitors and is showing clinical responses in 85% of patients. The first product from the Moditope® platform, Modi-1, which targets citrullinated vimentin and enolase is in a phase II clinical trial (ModiFY) as either monotherapy or in combination with checkpoint inhibitors. A neoadjuvant trial of Modi-1 in patients with newly diagnosed head and neck patients has just started. Lindy has over 150 peer reviewed publications and is also the inventor on 66 patents.

Dr Rafael Grochot is a Medical Oncologist at The Sarah Cannon Research Institute in London, UK (part of HCA International and ESMO Designated Centre of Oncology and Palliative Care), currently leading the breast cancer trial portfolio. He has over 10 years of experience in drug development and clinical trials, including the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Centre’s drug development program (NYC, USA), and The Royal Marsden Hospital (London, UK). In addition to his experience in the field, he is an Expert Member of the Health Research Authority (HRA) Research Ethics Committee (REC). Dr Grochot’s career to date has cultivated a drive to comprehend tumour biology and to further translate it into meaningful advances for patients through hypothesis-testing clinical trials.

Jacques FIESCHI, PhD in immunology (University of Aix-Marseille/CNRS) and former postdoctoral fellow at the French Atomic Energy Commission, worked at Beckman Coulter on the specificity of anti-steroid antibodies and the development of diagnostic tests. After joining QIAGEN-Marseille as head of project management, he helped found HalioDx, a pioneer in immuno-oncology diagnostics, where he headed R&D and initiated contract research activities for the pharmaceutical and biotech industries. His teams' innovations include Brightplex® technology (multiplex IHC), the application of AI to the discovery of biomarkers on histological section images, and the development of original high-throughput DNA/RNA sequencing methods. These tools are used to monitor clinical trials. Jacques is currently Scientific Director at MImAbs SAS.

Dr. Manel Kraiem Merabet is Chief Development Officer at Skymab Biotherapeutics, where she leads the development of next-generation antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) targeting GPCRs. With over nine years of experience in translational oncology, including six years at Innate Pharma managing ADC programs from lead optimization to IND, she brings deep expertise in drug development. Dr. Kraiem Merabet holds a PharmD and PhD in Oncology and Immunology (CRCM), along with degrees in Radiopharmacy (CEA Saclay) and Organic Chemistry. She is a recognized expert and recurring speaker at the World ADC Congress.

I am a CMC regulatory affairs professional with over fifteen years of experience in pharmaceutical research, development, and manufacturing. My journey began with a PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Leeds; this led to an early career in Chemical Development, focusing on commercial manufacturing route design for Pfizer’s portfolio of synthetic APIs. I have since held CMC regulatory roles at AstraZeneca, Amgen, and GlaxoSmithKline. My expertise spans synthetic products, monoclonal antibodies, biosimilars, and other complex therapies (antibody-drug conjugates, radioconjugates, bi-specific antibodies, fusion proteins) for which I have successfully led regulatory submissions and navigated global health authority requirements for both clinical and commercial assets.

Marie-Eve Beaulieu, PhD, is the Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Peptomyc, a biotech company developing mini-protein therapeutics for cancer. With a PhD in Pharmacology and a strong background in protein structural biology, she led the preclinical development of OMO-103, the first direct MYC inhibitor to show safety and clinical activity in patients, now in ongoing Phase 2 trials. Marie-Eve currently oversees Peptomyc’s pipeline expansion, CMC and biomarkers activities, including efforts in antibody conjugates, radioligand therapies, and mRNA delivery. She also co-leads the company’s strategy and business development activities. She co-authored 8 patent applications and over 30 scientific publications, and secured > €40M in public and private funding. Peptomyc has been recognized with multiple awards, including BioFit, EIT Health, J&J Startup Slam, and EIC Accelerator.

Philip Beer is a physician scientist, cancer biologist and oncology drug developer. He started his professional career as a haematologist with over 16 years frontline healthcare experience including clinical haemato-oncology, pathology and molecular diagnostics. This was followed by 8 years in academic research in Cambridge, UK and Vancouver, Canada, focussed on the development of improved cancer models. For the last 11 years, Philip has worked in the oncology biopharma sector, focussed on biomarker discovery and early phase oncology drug development, leading scientific and clinical development of small molecule and antibody programmes. In addition to his biopharma roles, Philip sits on a molecular tumour board for patients who have exhausted standard of care therapies, and supports biomarker development projects through membership of the International Cancer Genome Consortium, the Indian Cancer Genome Atlas, and as the Chair of the Genomics Working Group at BIVDA, The British In Vitro Diagnostic Association.

Kevin began his career at Cambridge Antibody Technology (now part of AstraZeneca) when CAT was still in its start-up phase. He went on to found and manage Isogenica Ltd and has since held CEO positions with PhosImmune Inc., Activiomics Ltd and F-star GmbH. Kevin studied for his PhD in the laboratory of Sir Gregory Winter at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, Cambridge and for his MBA at Aston Business School.