Annette G. Beck-Sickinger

Leipzig University
Faculty for Biosciences, Pharmacy and Psychology
Institute for Biochemistry

The research group of Annette G. Beck-Sickinger, Professor of Biochemistry, has a broad experience in peptide synthesis, peptide modification, design and synthesis of mimetics, as well as in many cellular assay systems, which is documented in more than 170 peer-reviewed publications. Neuropeptides and hormones have been synthesized, structurally characterized and modified.

The team of A. Beck-Sickinger has gained much experience in national and international collaborative research projects. It recently participated in a HFSP project and was already coordinating an EU project during FP5 on carrier peptides (QLK2-CT-2001-1451). The team currently has projects funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in two research units and Beck-Sickinger is Speaker of the special research cluster “Protein Conformation”, SFB 610. Furthermore, she is area speaker of the BMBF funded cluster of excellence “Translational Regenerative Medicine”.

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Ralf Bergmann

Forschungszentrum Dresden-Rossendorf e. V.

The research group of Ralf Bergmann at the Institute of Radiopharmacy has a broad experience in radiopharmacological characterization of new PET and SPECT probes, which is documented in more than 75 peer-reviewed papers.

Members of the institute participate in joint scientific research projects like EU-projects of FP6 (e.g. BioCare) interdisciplinary tumour research centre Oncoray “Centre for Innovation Competence”, DFG grants, and industry cooperation.

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Helen Cox

King's College London, Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases

Prof. Helen Cox has a national and international standing in the field of pharmacology and peptides in general, as indicated by her current membership of the MRC College of Experts (UK), British Pharmacological Society Executive and Council, and regular plenary speaking at International Peptide Symposia. The Cox group have long-standing interests in elucidating how neurohumoral peptides alter intestine function at tissue, cell and molecular levels and more recently in understanding how these mechanisms can predispose to weight gain and obesity. Our primary aim is to provide a rational basis for receptor-targeted drugs that could be used to treat specific bowel disorders and obesity. The research group of Helen Cox has long-standing proven experience in peptide-receptor pharmacology that has resulted in more than 75 original publications in this area alone.

The Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases is a new ‘state of the art’ Research Centre opened in 2005, based on the Guy’s Campus and comprises of 23 principal academic staff each heading research groups and with 40 Ph.D. students. Prof. Cox belongs to one of 3 broad research groupings within this Centre, namely the Receptors and Signalling Group. The major common research interest of this Signalling Group is to understand neuronal and epithelial receptors, with a view to developing novel strategies for directly modulating either synaptic transmission or epithelial target-associated cascades.

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Christian Elling

7TM Pharma A/S

Dr. Christian E. Elling is an internationally recognized pioneer in the characterization of the molecular mechanism of action of endogenous ligands and drugs on 7TM receptors. He is a co-founder of 7TM Pharma and serves as Vice-President, Biology and Development. His responsibility includes discovery biology, pre-clinical and clinical development including CMC/pharmaceutical sciences. His current research and therapeutic interests include obesity and related co-morbidities, targets for use in the obesity space and GI-tract hormones.

7TM Pharma A/S is a privately owned biotech company, founded in 2000, devoted to drug discovery and development within the area of 7TM Receptors. The therapeutic focus of the company is metabolic diseases, i.e. especially obesity and diabetes. 7TM has several projects within obesity and diabetes including two peptide compounds in clinical Phase I/II and Phase II a development, respectively. Both peptide compounds are based on gut hormones, i.e. satiety hormones from the GI-tract to the CNS.

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Thue W. Schwartz

University of Copenhagen
Laboratory for Molecular Pharmacology

Thue W. Schwartz is Professor of Molecular Pharmacology at the University of Copenhagen. He has worked on gut peptide hormones/neuropeptides for 33 years and has published more than 240 scientific papers mainly on various aspects of the biochemistry, physiology, pathophysiology, molecular and in vivo pharmacological aspects of these peptides and their receptors. Over the last 5–6 years the Schwartz laboratory has expanded strongly towards establishing a number of transgenic knock out as well as tissue and time specific over-expression animal models for 7TM receptors as well as expertise and logistics for testing relevant metabolic parameters. Previously, he held positions as Research Professor at the Danish Medical Research Council and Research Director in corporate research at Novo Nordisk A/S, where he was leading the departments of computational chemistry, molecular genetics, and molecular pharmacology.
Since 1994 he has been a member of the Royal Danish Academy of Sciences. He has been on the editorial board of various high-profile scientific journals including Journal of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology.

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Michael Stumvoll

Leipzig University
Faculty for Medicine
Medizinische Klinik III

Prof. Stumvoll is an internationally recognized scientist with long standing experience in clinical physiology in the field of obesity, glucose metabolism, insulin sensitivity, adipokines and type 2 diabetes. He is heading the clinical research unit KFO 152 “Atherobesity” at the Leipzig University.

The research group of Prof. Stumvoll focus on the study of obesity on several levels: human adipose tissue, cell and animal models, human cohorts, metabolism and neuroimaging.

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Neil Thompson

PolyPeptides Laboratories A/S

Neil Thompson is Business Manager, Custom Development, at PolyPeptide Laboratories A/S. He has been working with the manufacture of peptides for research and clinical use over 20 years. His background is in the manufacture of peptides by chemical synthesis for research purposes and more recently assisting institutions/companies with their peptide drug development. Neil Thompson has extensive experience with process development, scale up, manufacturing, quality assurance and regulatory issues related to successful peptide drug substance development, coupled with an outstanding knowledge of GXP peptide manufacturing from research scale through to commercial introduction.

PolyPeptide Laboratories A/S in Hillerød, Denmark is part of the PolyPeptide Laboratories Group. The PolyPeptide Laboratories Group is one of the world’s top manufacturers of peptide-based drug substances. Located in manufacturing sites that span 3 continents, and with a history that goes back over 50 years, PolyPeptide Laboratories focus is exclusively on peptide manufacture. Its portfolio of products and services encompasses both proprietary and generic pharmaceutical peptide manufacture as well as small-scale lead and pre-GMP development.

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