Speaker: Dr James L. Hedrick, PhD, Distinguished Staff Research Scientist, IBM Research, Almaden, San Jose, CA, USA

Multi-drug resistant diseases are one of the biggest healthcare challenges society is facing today. The rapid resistance development in microbes, for instance, has completely eviscerated the current antimicrobial drug pipeline. Likewise, resistance onset in cancer renders treatment with a single therapeutic agent completely ineffective, requiring a combination therapy of at least four drugs. To broadly address the multi-faceted problem of drug-resistance as well as other important concerns in disease treatment, we have exploited polymer science to (1) develop novel macromolecular therapeutics for treating infectious disease and cancer, (2) targeted macromolecular delivery agents for poorly soluble drus and (3) organic macromolecular MRI imaging agents that can be either used alone as a diagnostic or as a concurrent therapeutic delivery agent (theranostics).

Registration & Breakfast at 7.10am, talk begins at 7.40am.