MONROVIA, CA – William Shakespeare, Vice President of Drug Discovery at ARIAD Pharmaceuticals to speak at GTCbio’s 5th Protein Kinases in Drug Discovery conference May 27-28, 2010 in Boston, MA.
William Shakespeare will give a presentation on “Discovery of AP24534, a Pan-Inhibitor of BCR-ABL including the T315I Gatekeeper Mutation for Chronic Myeloid Leukemia” at the 5th Annual Protein Kinases in Drug Discovery conference to be held this year in Boston, MA on May 27-28, 2010 by GTCbio. Resistance to the BCR-ABL kinase inhibitor imatinib in patients with chronic myeloid leukemia (CML) is associated with emergence of BCR-ABL point mutations that preclude effective drug binding. Although most mutants are effectively inhibited with the second generation compounds dasatinib and nilotinib, neither compound inhibits T315I which represents 15-20% of all clinically observed mutants. ARIAD has identified AP24534, a potent orally available multi-targeted kinase inhibitor active against the T315I gatekeeper mutation and other BCR-ABL mutants.
William C. Shakespeare, Ph.D. has served as ARIAD Vice President of Drug Discovery since April, 2009. Previously, he served as Senior Director, Chemistry from January 2007 to March 2009, Research Director from September 2004 to December 2006 and Principal Scientist from August 2000 to August 2004. Prior to joining ARIAD in July, 1996, Dr. Shakespeare was a Senior Research Scientist at Astra AB where he focused on CNS research. Dr. Shakespeare received his B.S degree in Chemistry from Gettysburg College and his Ph. D. degree in Organic Chemistry from the University of New Hampshire. He received his postdoctoral training in Organic Chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania.
Also presenting at the Protein Kinase conference are prestigious organizations including AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dana-Farber, Dartmouth, Genentech, GlaxoSmithKline, Harvard, Roche, Merck, Pfizer, Tufts, UCSD, Wyeth and other leaders in the kinase industry.
The 5th Protein Kinases in Drug Discovery conference features presentations on new technology for kinase target and inhibitor identification and screening, kinase selectivity, kinase drug design, kinase targets & inhibitors in oncology, kinase targets & inhibitors in CNS disorders, and kinase targets & inhibitors in inflammatory disorders. For more information, visit www.gtcbio.com.
