More than 100 medicinal chemists from Australia, New Zealand, China and academia and industry gathered at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences for a two-day masterclass led by Dr. Nicholas Meanwell from Bristol-Myers Squibb. The well-received event provided an opportunity for the Australian medicinal chemistry community to learn from an industry leader, covering topics like physicochemical properties and compound success. In addition to presentations on HIV and HCV research, Dr. Meanwell held open Q&A sessions for students. Organizer Dr. Rachel Lagiakos hopes to plan similar symposiums in the future to continue providing valuable international learning for Australian chemists.

1. Bulletin - Monday 16 February
Med Chem Masterclass at MIPS
More than 100 Australian, New Zealand and Chinese Medicinal Chemists from
academia, government institutions and private bio-techs converged on Parkville
for the ‘Tools for the Medicinal Chemistry Symposium’, held at the Monash
Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences in mid January.
Dr Nicholas Meanwell, Executive Director of the Department of Discovery
Chemistry: Virology at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) lead the symposium and
Symposium Chair Dr H. Rachel Lagiakos said that with such a high profile and
experienced speaker, the event was always going to be well received.
“We don’t get many industry-based scientists out to Australia to speak, but
thankfully Dr Meanwell is committed to educating the next generation of
medicinal chemists, as is evidenced by his extensive teachings across the
globe,” she said.
Lagiakos met Dr Meanwell at a Medicinal Chemistry course in the USA and
was impressed by his talks and the wealth of knowledge he had to share.
“I knew that most people here would not have the chance to attend such an
invaluable course and wanted to find a way for Australian Medicinal
Chemists to have the opportunity to learn from him and further develop their
skillset.
“Our geographical location makes it hard to attend such international events, so
I thought I’d bring the information here,” she said.
The two day course provided an opportunity for the Australian Medicinal
Chemistry community to learn from a seasoned industry leader and sessions
covered physicochemical properties and compound success, applications of
bioisosteres, the role of sulfur interactions in drug design and designing around
toxicophores.
In addition to the Symposium, Dr Meanwell presented pioneering work from his
group at BMS in the fields of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) and hepatitis
C virus (HCV), and held open Q&A sessions, which was a particularly
enjoyable opportunity for the students in attendance.
The event was Sponsored by the Cancer Therapeutics Cooperative Research
Centre, Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences and RACI (Medicinal
Chemistry and Chemical Biology Division) and Dr Lagiakos said she hoped
similar symposiums would be planned in the future.
“Thanks to the generous sponsors and the fact that Dr Meanwell did not charge
any speaking fees for the symposium, we could ensure there were few barriers
for participating.”
“I am confident that with the support of MIPS and the strong partnerships in
industry, such events will continue to hold a valued place on the MIPS
calendar.”
Medicine enters the nano world
Nanotechnology is on the verge of giving doctors the ability to
treat disease with cell-by-cell precision.
Cancer chemotherapy is far from subtle. It effectively means carpet-bombing
the body with a toxic regimen that kills cancer cells, but also obliterates a lot of
healthy cells in the process. The ultimate hope with this approach is that the
cancer surrenders before the patient does.
Read more about this in Delivering Impact Monash Magazine
Monash Pharmacy Education Symposium:
Transforming practice through education
5-8 July 2015, Prato, Italy
There has been an enormous response to the call for abstract submission
which closed last week. Ninety nine abstracts have been received under the
general headings of “Education research” and Teaching innovation/Sharing
practice”. The number of submissions received has almost doubled since the
last symposium in 2013 indicating increasing interest in this event.
Dan Malone has a team reviewing the abstracts and we are currently
determining how to maximize the number of paper and poster presentations
we can include in the program.
For more information visit
http://www.monash.edu/pharm/about/events/education-symposium/
Rachel Lagiakos <rachel.lagiakos@monash.edu>
Fwd: Pharmacy Bulletin, 16 February 2015
Rachel Lagiakos <rachel.lagiakos@monash.edu> 3 October 2015 at 16:39
To: Rachel Lagiakos <rachel.lagiakos@monash.edu>
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Iliana Findikakis >iliana.findikakis@monash.edu<
Date: 16 February 2015 at 13:33
Subject: Pharmacy Bulletin, 16 February 2015
To: Parkville Campus <parkvillecampus@monash.edu>
Page 1 of 4Monash University Mail - Fwd: Pharmacy Bulletin, 16 February 2015
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