“YOUR Medical Device Industry networking forum” !

For info: www.meddevgroup.org

Wednesday, July 21, 2004 at 5:30 to 7:30 PM, Pizzeria Uno, 287 Washington St., Newton Corner

Title:"New Therapeutic Indications of Cytokines in Biodefense (Protection against dirty bomb and virus infection)", Grace Wong PhD, Founder & Chief Scientific Officer of ActoKine Therapeutics, Founder of Student Vision

ABSTRACT:

ActoKine Therapeutics has identified ActoKine 1 (AK-1) that protects cells against acute radiation damage. AK-1 enhanced the recovery of blood cells and the survival of bone marrow and gut cells. AK-1 has shown no toxicity in mice and monkeys. At this time no marketed drugs are available capable of radioprotection. Therefore, AK-1 has the potential to fill an urgent need for the protection of Homeland Defense, Military, and Disaster Response personnel from radiation.

The successful development of AK-1 would represent a significant and unique improvement in the area of radioprotection. ActoKine has the proprietary knowledge and capability to make a difference to Defense capabilities by developing AK-1 into an effective radioprotective drug for use in humans exposed to radiation from terrorist attack or nuclear accident. Key milestones for AK-1 will include completing clinical studies, filing for approval under the FDA Animal Rule that allows for accelerated approval of biodefense countermeasures without Phase II and Phase III efficacy clinical data and initiating a rapid and gene specific screening program for AK-1 mimetic. ActoKine will also develop a novel and sensitive medical diagnostic for detecting radiation or dirty bomb before terrorist attack. ActoKine has also identified AK-2 for prevention of virus infection. Most importantly, AK-2 is effective against a wide spectrum of viruses and possibly emerging new viruses.

Actokine has an experienced management team, strong advisory board, committed angel investors, respected customers and the principal investigator is a noted expert in cytokine research. Actokine is well positioned to undertake this program due to our strong proprietary knowledge of AK-1 and AK-2, their regulated pathways, an assembled team of innovative scientists and close contacts with the biotech and pharmaceutical industry.

SPEAKER BIO:

Dr. Grace Wong has worked for Genentech, Millennium, AstraZeneca and Serono on new drug discovery in a variety of therapeutic areas. She earned a PhD at The WEHI Institute of Medical Research in Australia. In the US, Dr. Wong performed a PostDoc with Dr. David Goeddel at Genentech and she advanced basic research discoveries to product development in 1993. In 1996, she became the Head of Apoptosis Research at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and identified potential drug resistance genes using chip microarray and functional genomics.

In 1998, she joined AstraZeneca as a Section Head of Molecular Genetics and identified genes for Alzheimer's disease. In 1999-2003, she was the Director of Reproductive and Cytokine Genomics and discovered genes for fertility biomarkers and discovered novel functions of cytokines for obesity and women's health. She has been awarded 13 scholarships and received 5 Recognition Awards from Genentech. She was invited to present at 137 international conferences including the Nobel Symposium (Sweden, 1994). She has published 87 papers and filed 27 patents (11 issued). Seven of her publications (3 Nature, 1 Science, and 3 Cell) have been cited >600 times.

Dr. Wong has recently founded Actokine Therapeutics (http://www.actokine.com) which will focus on (1) drug rescue (2) drug indication switch and (3) drug advancements for biodefense projects. She has also founded Student Vision for helping growth of students of all ages in biotech science (http://www.studentvision.org).