Steve Coats at MedImmune to speak at Cancer conference Oct, 20-22, 2010 CA-SF
Dr. Steve Coats, Director of Oncology Research at MedImmune, will give a presentation on “Development of a Novel Human Therapeutic Antibody That Targets the PDGF Signaling Pathway for Cancer Therapy” at the 2nd Annual Cancer Targets and Therapeutics Conference, part of the 6th Modern Drug Discovery and Development Summit, held in San Francisco, CA Oct. 20-22, 2010 by GTCbio.
[USPRwire, Wed Aug 25 2010] Dr. Steve Coats, Director of Oncology Research at MedImmune, will give a presentation at the 2nd Annual Cancer Targets and Therapeutics Conference, part of the 6th Modern Drug Discovery and Development Summit, held in San Francisco, CA, Oct. 20-22, 2010 by GTCbio.
Dr. Coats will speak on “Development of a Novel Human Therapeutic Antibody That Targets the PDGF Signaling Pathway for Cancer Therapy.” The Platelet Derived Growth Factor Receptor alpha PDGFR pathway plays an important role in the regulation of cell proliferation, survival and migration. Activation of PDGFR stimulates signaling pathways in both the tumor cells as well as the stroma that supports tumor growth and survival. Small molecule drugs which target multiple receptor tyrosine kinases, including PDGFR, have demonstrated clinical activity in cancer patients. MEDI-575 is a novel fully human IgG2 monoclonal antibody that selectively targets human PDGFR and competes for the ability of PDGF ligands to bind and activate the receptor. In vitro and in vivo treatment of tumor cells with MEDI-575 significantly inhibited PDGFR activity but had no measurable activity against PDGFR. Non-clinical studies have demonstrated that MEDI-575 can inhibit in vivo tumor growth by directly targeting either the tumor cells or the surrounding stromal cells. MEDI-575 is currently being evaluated in a phase I clinical trial in patients with solid tumors.
Dr. Coats serves as MedImmune’s director of oncology research. His group is currently focused on biological targeted therapies for a number of receptor tyrosine kinases, ligands and extracellular matrix receptors. In particular, growth factor receptors that regulate tumor cell survival and tumor associated vasculature are being targeted by fully human antibodies as well as toxin conjugated antibodies. In addition, his group supports a number of programs in late preclinical development and clinical development that are focused on angiogenesis and growth factor receptor signaling as well as immune-mediated killing mechanisms.
Prior to joining MedImmune in 2005, Dr. Coats worked at Amgen, Inc. starting in 1996 and helped initially set up a cell cycle group and then became one of the first scientists in the newly formed cancer biology department.
Also presenting at the Cancer Targets and Therapeutics conference are prestigious organizations including Genentech, Harvard Medical School, AstraZeneca, Roche, Amgen, National Cancer Institute, Novartis, MedImmune, Boston University, Pfizer, and other leaders in cancer targets and therapeutics. The three-day meeting also includes a plenary keynote session with speakers from Theravance, Roche, Human Genome Sciences, and Novartis. For more information, visit www.gtcbio.com.
