Monrovia, CA -- (SBWIRE) -- 01/02/2012 -- John C. Lin, Vice President of Experimental Medicine at Pfizer will give a featured presentation on “Anti-amyloid Beta in Age-related Macular Degeneration” at the 4th Ocular Diseases and Drug Discovery Conference taking place on February 27-28, 2012 in Las Vegas, NV.
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of blindness in the elderly, with no approved therapies for the dry form of the disease. Dr. Lin will discuss how, independent of their clinical value for treating Alzheimer’s disease, Amyloid beta-targeting drugs could be considered for preventing and treating AMD.
Dr. Lin’s presentation will review:
- Presence and pathogenic role of amyloid beta in macular degeneration
- Design of therapeutic strategy toward amyloid beta
- Efficacy in a preclinical animal model of macular degeneration
- Potential effect of amyloid modulation on complement activation
- Implication of a novel therapeutic target in the future management of AMD patients
John C. Lin is Vice President of Experimental Medicine at Rinat, Pfizer inc. Dr. Lin joined the biotech start-up Rinat Neuroscience Corp. as a spin-off from Genentech. He then joined Pfizer inc. in 2006 when Pfizer acquired Rinat Neuroscience. His main interest is on discovering and developing novel antibody based therapeutics for neural degeneration, cancer, metabolic and autoimmune disorders.
GTC’s 4th Ocular Diseases and Drug Discovery Conference will bring together a 50-50 mix of academic and high-level industry experts from leading affiliations to discuss and collaborate on the latest research and discovery, safety assessment, and development of drugs for combating and curing age-related macular degeneration (AMD), diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, uveitis and other eye diseases. Leading scientists and researchers include key experts such as M. (Ken) Kengatharan, Barbara Wirostko, David Woodward, Henry F. Edelhauser, Ken Mandell, Bala Ambati, etc. The last annual conference was well attended with representation from key R&D professionals from GSK, Pfizer, B&L, Allergan and Alcon and this year is showing promise of being even bigger and better.
This conference is part of the Targets and Strategies in Drug Discovery Summit and runs concurrently with three other tracks:
1) 3rd Cancer Targets and Therapeutics
2) Oncology Partnering & Deal-Making Conference
3) 2nd Ubiquitin Research and Drug Discovery
For more information, please visit http://www.gtcbio.com