UW Bioengineering’s second BioEngage Symposium was held February 24, 2016. The event provided a forum for industry partners to learn about research, design and other capability in BioE. Event participants had the opportunity to discuss mutual research interests and project needs. The event also helped inform the BioE community about hiring needs and internship opportunities in industry.

At this full-day event, students, faculty and representatives from local biotechnology companies presented short talks focusing on applications and technologies in the field of molecular recognition and immunotherapies. The talks covered diverse topics under the event’s overarching theme, including:

  • Antibody-drug conjugates
  • Computational protein enzyme design
  • Methods for disrupting biofilm formation
  • Potential vaccines for urinary tract infections
  • Designing protein inhibitors
  • Improved T-cell receptor sequencing
  • Developing peptides to fight tumors
  • Anti-infective agents.

The event featured two panel discussions. The first panel, Protein Design Towards Therapeutics, addressed advantages and challenges of traditional protein design versus de novo computational protein design. The second panel, Academia/Industry Collaborations, discussed strategies academia and industry could employ to demonstrate openness, build connections and establish productive collaborations.

Event participants gathered for small-table discussions during lunch, which helped facilitate new relationships between academia and industry, and focused on student involvement.

The BioEngage team sincerely thanks all attendees who presented talks and posters, and who made the event a success. Upcoming BioEngage events are being planned for 2016. To learn more about program benefits, to be invited to future events and help BioEngage plan activities that would benefit the community, contact the BioEngage team.

UW Bioengineering’s BioEngage program seeks to build mutually beneficial relationships with biomedical industry, with the goal of increasing engagement of BioE students and faculty with the biomedical translation-commericalization sector (for-profit companies, nonprofit organizations, entrepreneurs and investors). Learn more about BioEngage.

BioEngage Molecular Recognition and Immunotherapies talks:

Seattle Genetics – Antibody-Drug Conjugates (Chris Neumann)

Thomas Lab – Engineering Adhesive Proteins in E. coli Towards Improved Vaccine Design (Wendy Thomas)

Arzeda (Alex Zanghellini)

Daggett Lab – Designed Peptides for Inhibition of Amyloid Fibrilogenesis in Medical Biofilms (Alissa Bleem)

Adaptive Biotechnologies – High-Throughput Pairing of T Cell Receptor Alpha and Beta Sequences (Bryan Howie)

Baker Lab – The Computational Design of Protein Binders Targeting PD-1 for Cell-Based Immunotherapies (Cassie Bryan) 

Just Biotherapeutics  – Transforming Biologics Manufacturing for Low Cost: Integrated Design from Molecule to Plant (Dean Petit)

Pun Lab  – Identifying Synthetic Targeting Ligands for Cancer Immunotherapy Applications (Brynn Livesay)

Ratner Lab – Molecular Recognition via Carbohydrate-Protein Interactions(Daniel Ratner)

Presage Biosciences – A Precision Oncology Diagnostic with Cancer Drug Development Applications (Alicia Moreno-Gonzalez)

Carothers Lab – RNA Aptamer Nanosensors for Profiling Metabolic Output on a Massive Scale (James Carothers)