From the 16th of October 2024 to the 18th Kemijski Inštitut hosted the 1st CTGCT Conference. The first scientific conference organised by the CTGCT project to discuss its progress with advanced partners and attract the Slovenian biotech ecosystem to discuss about medicinal translation.
On the 16th, the members from teams of the advanced partners arrived to Slovenia and during the afternoon Dr Mojca Benčina did an introductory overview during which presented the work done for the different work packages. Our partners from UCL, UMC Utrecht, TU Dresden and Charité Berlin also presented their progress in the different work packages. This session was followed by presentations where the CTGCT team presented the progress done so far in our goals regarding translational and scientific research together with the preclinical work currently being done and how we are approaching the biotech ecosystem in Slovenia to take the CTGCT project beyond its initial goals.
On the 17th, the focus was on the science and translation of science into therapies with an emphasis on how to plan, execute the plan and achieve the goals. We had several talks on cell therapies focused not only on CAR-T but also how to engineer T cells for next generation therapies.
We also had the opportunity to learn about how translational science is done by our colleagues at UMC Utrecht and how valuable academic research is for pharma together with strategies to develop drugs. We will all remember how important it is to focus on a few leads, 1 or 2, to make sure our efforts are concentrated in taking promising results into useful therapies for the patients. Something that is at the core of the CTGCT project.
We also had time to discuss about potential collaborations with all the partners and heard about the regulatory challenges in order to develop a new first-in-class product from our colleagues at Charité Berlin. Additionally, heard from our colleagues at UCL about their stories and the long path that translational gene therapy can take.
On the last day, the 18th, the conference was open to everyone. Researchers, patients, clinicians were invited to hear the talks done by some of our advanced partners together with invited speakers from biotech companies, and clinicians and how the play a key role in bringing research to the patients. The last session was dedicated to the Expert Panel that focused on cooperation along the translational path. There Marko Hawlina, from University Medical Centre Ljubljana, Mateja Urlep, from NIBA Labs, Tanja Španić, from Europa Donna Slovenia, Janko Burgar, from Roche Slovenia, Nina Dremelj, from Vesna Venture Capital and Roman Jerala, from National Institute of Chemistry discussed about their point of views of the ecosystem, how to create an environment that foster collaboration and the importance of having patients involved in medicinal translation. A recording of the expert panel can be watched in this link.
To summarize, the 3-day event was a success, participants and attendants found the topics interesting and relevant and conversations during coffee break and lunch are leading to what we hope will be very successful collaboration for new research and translation of drugs into new therapies.
Photos from the event can be viewed here: https://photos.app.goo.gl/d9bDWFCUqdKMQADF8.
Photographers: Jernej Stare, Andrej Perdih and Damjan Makuc