Fusion Antibodies welcomes 20th Human & Hybridoma conference
Fusion Antibodies ltd has the great honour and privilege to welcome the 20th Human Antibodies & Hybridoma conference to our home city of Belfast this November.
It continues to be a great time of hope and optimism in the knowledge of the immune system since the first report of the immortalisation of monoclonal antibodies by Kolner & Milstein in 1975. By my last count there were 49 antibody approved drugs to date with 15 approvals since 2015.
In 2015, twenty approvals (39%) went to biological drugs, up from 35% in 2014 and 22% in 2013, which confirms the growing importance of biopharmaceuticals in the industry pipeline. Twenty drugs (39%) featured ‘first-in-class’ modes of action—about the same as in 2014 (39%) and 2013 (37%).
From the beginning of the HAH conference series in April 1990 in Orlando Florida, the event has been all over the world. Over the past 26 years the Human Antibodies and Hybridomas conference has tracked the advances in the knowledge of antibody engineering and humanization, expression of industrial quantities of antibodies and both followed and met the challenges of developing new drugs for many different disease indications. Scientists continue to improve methodologies in screening and production of antibodies to an ever increasing range of disease indications, with the precision we all dared to hope many years ago.
I welcome to Belfast all the scientists, companies and entrepreneurs from across the globe to share their talents, knowledge & experience to find ways of overcoming the barriers and the challenges we face to make the next generation of medicines. The journey continues as we look to improve and share the knowledge and advances.
– Paul Kerr, Managing Director, Fusion Antibodies
Notable Northern Irish Scientists
- Frank Pantridge – Inventor of the portable defibrillator and known as the ‘Father of Emergency Medicine’. – Hillsborough, County Down, Northern Ireland
- Lord Kelvin – . Pioneered studies in thermodynamics and contributed to the development of the refrigeration. – Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland
- Jocelyn Bell Burnell DBE FRS FRSE FRAS (born 15 July 1943) is a Northern Irish astrophysicist. As a postgraduate student, she discovered the first radio pulsars
- Hans Sloane – Creator of Chocolate Milk. During a trip to Jamaica, Hans discovered cocoa. Finding it nauseating to drink mixed with water, he brought it home and mixed it with milk. – Killyleagh, Co Down, Northern Ireland
- Harry Ferguson – Inventor and developer of the modern agriculture tractor. – Growell, Co Down, Northern Ireland
- David Bates – Mathematician and Physicist. His contributions to science include seminal works on atmosphere physics, molecular physics and the chemistry of interstellar clouds. – Omagh, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland
- John Stewart Bell – Physicist. Originator of Bell’s Theorem, an important theorem in quantum physics regarding hidden variables theories. – Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland
- William C. Campbell Biologist – 2015 Noble prize winner “for discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites” Ramelton, Co Donegal
- Ernest Walton Physicist – 1951 Noble prize winner ‘splitting the atom’ Methodist college, Belfast
