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Embracing Team Science in Pure Academic and Academic-Pharma Alliances

23rd October 2015
 | Katy Alexander

Laura WheelerDigital Science Webinar, Community Manager at Digital Science will be hosting our forth webinar, Embracing Team Science In Pure Academic and Academic-pharma Alliances.

The webinar will be taking place on Thursday 5th November at 4pm BST / 11am ET. If you wish to tweet about the webinar the hashtag to use will be #DSwebinar.


There are two major trends in research productivity and they both revolve around increased collaboration beyond a single lab:

  1. International collaboration is increasing

A Royal Society study has demonstrated that increased international collaboration leads to higher quality research outputs as measured with the accepted proxies of publications and citations. Under shared funding structures, lab groups from different institutions in different countries are conducting experimental work across decentralised sites.

  1. Academic research labs are also developing closer research relationships with their counterparts from industry

As federal and governmental R&D spending reduces, and the drug pipeline narrows, academic labs and their commercial R&D counterparts are increasingly incentivised to participate in strategic research clustering for symbiotic benefit. Open innovation is creating a common strategic framework for academic labs to partner with R&D centers on a range of activities – from early stage identification of drug targets to validation of disease models – that leverage different areas of expertise towards a common goal.

In this webinar, our guest experts will elaborate on the following:

  • What are the typical types of successful academic-academic lab collaborations, and academic-pharma collaborations?
  • What are the key challenges to making extra-institutional collaborations work and how can those challenges be overcome?
  • How can enterprise-level digital platforms improve the management, efficiency, productivity and governance of academic-academic, and academic-pharma research collaborations?

The panel will include:

xavier2Xavier Armand , BioData (Moderator) 

Xavier joined BioData in 2014. He holds a BA in Chemistry with Honors & Interdisciplinary Honors from the City University of New York at Hunter College. As a researcher, he studied the synthesis of inorganic materials with a focus on the effect of nanoparticle morphology on conductivity. Most recently, he co-founded a small creative agency that focused on building quality digital experiences for companies and organizations.

Screen Shot 2015-10-23 at 14.20.55Davide Danovi – Director, HipSci Cell Phenotyping Programme, Centre for Stem Cells and Regenerative Medicine, King’s College London

Davide Danovi holds an MD from University of Milan and a PhD in Molecular Oncology from the European Institute of Oncology where he demonstrated the causative role of the HdmX protein in human cancer. He completed his postdoctoral training working with Prof. Austin Smith and Dr. Steve Pollard at the University of Cambridge and at University College London where he developed a screening platform to isolate compounds active on human neural stem cells from normal or brain tumour samples. Prior to his current role, he worked as principal scientist at a novel biotechnology company founded to isolate drugs for regenerative medicine using innovative stem cell technologies.

JK AddgeneJoanne Kamens, Executive Director of Addgene, a mission driven, nonprofit dedicated to helping scientists around the world share plasmid reagents

Joanne received her PhD in Genetics from Harvard Medical School then spent 15 years at BASF/Abbott working on both small molecule and antibody therapies for immune disease. In 2007 she joined RXi Pharmaceuticals ultimately serving as Senior Director of Research Collaborations. Dr. Kamens founded the current Boston chapter of the Association for Women in Science. In 2010, she received the Catalyst Award from the Science Club for Girls for longstanding dedication to empowering women in STEM and was named one of PharmaVoice’s 2013 100 Most Inspiring Commanders & Chiefs. Dr. Kamens serves on a number of other nonprofit boards and speaks widely on career development topics in person and via Webinar. She currently blogs at blog.addgene.org

jonathanJonathan Gross, Founder, Labguru
Jonathan founded BioData out of his passion to integrate technology and science. Jonathan holds a B.A. in Computer Science from the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzliya and a Masters degree in Biotechnology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. As a scientific researcher Jonathan worked on enhancing the nutritional value of plants through molecular engineering and plastid transformation. Jonathan is also one of the founders of The BioExecutive Forum, a non-profit organization founded by and for executives from the Israeli Biomed industry.

scott TDr. Scott Tenenbaum, Associate Professor of Nanobioscience at the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering of the SUNY-Polytechnic Institute

Dr. Scott Tenenbaum previously served as the Acting Vice President for Research and Associate Head of the Nanobioscience Constellation at CNSE. He received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from Tulane University Medical Center and did his post-doctoral training at Duke University Medical Center, where he helped pioneer RIP-Chip/Seq technology and the field of “Ribonomics,” which is the genomic-scale study of post-transcriptional gene regulation. Dr. Tenenbaum holds 19 issued or pending patents which have served as the basis for three biotechnology start-up companies including his most recent, HocusLocus LLC in the NY Capital Region. He has been awarded numerous honors, including The James A. Wilson, M.D. Fellow in Cancer Award; The Robert M. and Barbara R. Bell Basic Science of Cancer Award; The SUNY Golden Apple Teaching Award; The SUNY-Research Foundation Rising Star Award; and most recently, The SUNY Excellence in Research Award. Dr. Tenenbaum is funded by the NIH and the NSF through traditional and SBIR/STTR mechanisms. The focus of his research project is RNA and RNA-bindng protiens. Most recently, he is focused on developing an RNA nano-switch technology called sxRNA to be used as a molecular tool, a dignostic and as a therapeutic.

After the panel, Xavier will tie the discussions together and open up to an audience Q&A. Attendees will also be able to submit questions within the webinar or on Twitter via the #DSwebinar hashtag.

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