4th International Conference on Molecular Diagnostics and Biomarker Discovery
4th International Conference on Molecular Diagnostics and Biomarker Discovery
Theme : Antibody Technology
Venue : Equatorial Hotel Penang, Penang, Malaysia
Date : 25th – 26th of September 2019
Molecular Diagnostics and Biomarker Discovery (MDBD) is an international conference held annually by INFORMM since the year 2016, with support from the Ministry of Education. The conference provides a platform for scientists and postgraduate students locally and internationally to share their new findings, and deliberate on the current topics, as well as to network and initiate collaborations. The three research clusters at INFORMM take turns to organize the annual MDBD conference. This year, the ART cluster led the organization of the 4th MDBD with the theme of “Antibody Technology.” Universiti Sains Malaysia is also celebrating its 50th anniversary; thus, the organization of this conference with minimal registration fees showed the university’s commitment to advancing science and technology.
Antibody technology is a platform that transcends various areas of research, whether Diagnostics, Vaccines, or Therapeutics. With the recent breakthroughs in immunotherapy, biologics are set to lead the way in the treatment of diseases. As one of the most dominant biologic format, monoclonal antibodies stand ready to capitalize on this. Building on two decades of research, it offers exciting advancements in the treatment of communicable and non-communicable diseases ranging from cancer to autoimmunity to infectious diseases. The development of antibody technology also benefitted the development of diagnostics, especially in reducing the time required for an antibody to go from bench to bedside and increasing the test specificity. The conference also focused on alternative binders that mimic antibodies such as DNA/RNA aptamers and other non-antibody scaffolds. The size of these non-antibody scaffolds and its specificity rivals that of an antibody and could potentially be used hand in hand with antibodies for both diagnostics and therapeutics.
In this conference, key speakers on the theme were invited from all over the world to provide the latest insight into the field of research. The list of speakers included Prof. Dr. Micheal Hust from Technische Universität Braunschweig, Germany; Dr. Lucas Chan from Cellvec Pte. Ltd, Singapore; Dr. Sang-Bing Ong from Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore; Dr. Mohamed Boudjelal from King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, Saudi Arabia; Dr. Andreas Latz from Novatec Immunodiagnostica, Germany; Prof. Dr. Pongrama Ramasoota from Mahidol University, Thailand; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Andreas Laustsen from Technical University of Denmark, Denmark; Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hyunbo Shim from Ewha Womens University, South Korea; Prof. Dr. M. Jack Mphahlele from University of South Africa, South Africa and Dr. Man-Wah Tan from Genentech, USA. The 2019 MDBD also attracted 95 participants, including international participants from Thailand, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Arab Saudi, and India. There were ten invited speakers from eight countries, i.e., Germany, Singapore, Thailand, Arab Saudi, Denmark, South Africa, Korea, and the USA. A total of 46 abstracts were also accepted to be published in the BMC Proceedings, reflecting the diversity and quality of the research papers presented. The conference also saw 3 best oral presenters and 3 best poster presenters all receiving recognition for their hardwork and research
The organising committee would like to take this opportunity to thank all Kementerian Pendidikan Malaysia through Higher Institution Center of Excellences for supporting the conference and the 17 individual company who sponsored to make this event a success. We would also like to thank the speakers for taking their time to share their latest insights and also to all participant who without them would not have made this event a success. Thank you again and see you all soon.
