Mike Gait, PhD

Medical Research Council

Talk Title: A Life’s Work in Oligonucleotides: From Chemical Synthesis to Peptide-PMO For Treatment of Neuromuscular Diseases

Past Award Recipients:

Keith Gagnon, PhD

Southern Illinois University

Talk Title: A ‘Guided’ Tour of an Early Career in RNA and Nucleic Acid Therapeutics

Biography: Dr. Keith T. Gagnon earned his Ph.D. from NC State University under the direction of Dr. E. Stuart Maxwell. His thesis investigated the structure-function relationship of archaeal box C/D small RNA-guided enzymes. Keith then joined Dr. David R. Corey’s research group at UT Southwestern Medical center for a postdoctoral fellowship. While in the Corey laboratory, Keith investigated ASO-based and RNAi-based therapeutics for Huntington’s disease, with an emphasis on molecular mechanisms. Read More

Past Award Recipients:

Past Scholarship Recipients:

Authors: Richard Finkel, MD, Nemours Children’s Hospital

Talk Title: Treatment of Infantile-onset Spinal Muscular Atrophy with Nusinersen: a Phase 2, Open-label, Dose-escalation Study

Biography: Richard S. Finkel, MD is Professor of Neurology at the University of Central Florida School of Medicine, and Chief, Division of Neurology at Nemours Children’s Hospital in Orlando, USA. He received his medical degree from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and completed his Pediatrics, Neurology and Neuromuscular training at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. Clinical practice and research interests have focused upon pediatric neuromuscular disorders, especially spinal muscular atrophy, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, inherited neuropathies and neurometabolic disorders. Dr. Finkel has participated in numerous clinical trials, natural history genotype-phenotype studies, development of outcome measures, clinical trial design, standard-of-care topics and biomarker identification for neuromuscular disorders. Interest in SMA has included a focus on infants with type I – from natural history studies and the development of the CHOP INTEND motor scale to clinical trial topics and ethical issues. He has published over 120 peer reviewed manuscripts and book chapters and is an associate editor of neuromuscular journals and a pediatric neurology textbook. Dr. Finkel is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Neurological Association, and is a member of the World Muscle Society, TREAT-NMD, American Academy of Neurology and Child Neurology Society. He serves as an advisor to Cure SMA, SMA Foundation and SMA Europe.

The Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society offers Travel Grants for outstanding doctorate graduate students and post-docs. The grant includes a stipend to offset travel expenses for the OTS Annual Meeting.

Brooke A. Anderson
PhD.,The Scripps Research Institute, Ramanarayanan Krishnamurthy Lab

Annabelle Biscans
PhD., UMass Medical School, RNA Therapeutics Institute

Melina Christou
PhD Student, The Cyprus Institute of Neurology and Genetics

Annika de Jong
MSc,PhD Candidate Leiden University Medical Center

Alexandre J. Debacker
PhD Student, University of Massachusetts Medical School

Mahdi Ghavami
MSc, PhD Student, University of Copenhagen

Maud-Emmanuelle Gilles
PhD., Institute for RNA Medicine, BIDMC, Harvard Medical School

Alejandro Gonzalez Torres
BSc, MSc, Cinvestav

Roun Heo
PhD., Sungkyunkwan University

Hasan Issa
MSc, PhD Student, Newcastle University

Nachiket Kamatkar
MSc, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Socheata Ly
PhD Candidate, UMASS Medical School, RNA Therapeutics Institute

Shouta Miyatake
PhD., National Institute of Neuroscience

Maria Montiel
PhD., The Marine Biological Laboratory

David Porciani
PhD., University of Missouri-Columbia

Karyn Schmidt
PhD., Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Takenori Shimo
MSc, PhD Student, Osaka University

Maaikevan Putten
PhD., Leiden University Medical Center

Daniel Vasconcelos
PhD.,Stockholm University

Faouzi Zarrouki
PhD Student, Université de Versailles St Quentin

The Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society grants a number of Poster Awards to outstanding students and post docs presenting posters at the OTS Annual Meeting. The posters are judged onsite at the meeting and award winners are chosen based on exceptional and promising science as well as presentation of the data.

2017 Poster Award Winners

001 Brooke Anderson, The Scripps Research Institute

019 Annika de Jong, Leiden University Medical Center

035 Francois Halloy, ETH Zurick

063 Socheata Ly, UMass Medical School, RNA Therapeutics Institute

068 Liliana Matos, National Health Institute Dr. Ricardo Jorge

076 Maire Osborn, UMass Medical School, RNA Therapeutics Institute

082 Hannah Pendergraff, Roche Innovation Center Copenhagen A/S

086 Irina Randrianjatovo-Gbalou, Institut Pasteur

089 Fernando Romero-Palomo, F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd

092 Shruti Sasaki, Ionis Pharmaceuticals

098 Ryan Setten, City of Hope: Irell& Manella Graduate School of Biological Science

110 Maaikevan Putten, Leiden University Medical Center