Session: Disease Therapies and Diagnostics I

Molecular and cellular science and engineering efforts over the past decade have given rise to numerous novel approaches for detecting and treating disease. These approaches have substantial potential for early detection and to provide highly specific and efficacious therapies for challenging disease targets (e.g. persistent pathogen infections, neurodegenerative disease and cancer). This session will highlight these creative approaches, including but not limited to biosensors, combination drug therapies, novel drug delivery systems (e.g. mechanisms to cross the blood-brain barrier), catalytic (e.g. proteolytic) therapies, nanotherapies, nucleic acid and RNA interference therapies, gene therapies, oncolytic viruses, cell and stem cell based therapies. Both discovery and development efforts, including therapeutic design approaches based on systems-level modeling, will be covered. Furthermore, translation of these ‘next generation’ therapeutics for the detection and treatment of specific disease targets will be emphasized.