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October 10th, 2009. Dr. Dharminder Chauhan (Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Boston, MA) will present exciting new data on the activity of Progenra’s USP7 inhibitor, P5091 against cell based and in vivo models of multiple myeloma at the 51st ASH Annual Meeting and Exposition. Dr. Chauhan’s oral presentation entitled “Deubiquitylating Enzyme USP-7, a Novel Therapeutic Target in Multiple Myeloma” will be presented in the Myeloma – pathophysiology and preclinical studies excluding therapy: targeting intracellular proteolysis and the cell surface session at 3:30pm on Monday December 7th, 2009.
October 6th, 2009, Progenra announces sponsorship of the second annual Ubiquitin conference, October 4th, 5th, and 6th, 2010. Progenra Inc is one of the sponsors of the second conference series focused on ubiquitin, ubiquitin-like proteins, and drug discovery (Ubiquitin Drug Discovery and Diagnostics 2010), to be held in Philadelphia in October, 2010. The conference will bring together researchers and pharma business experts from academic and industry sectors to report on recent progress in developing drugs and diagnostic/prognostic technologies based on the ubiquitin pathway and to chart the course of further progress.
July 6th, 2009. Progenra licenses UBL-CHOP reporter assay platform (formerly known as IsoPRO) to LifeSensors, Inc. Progenra’s proprietary Ub-CHOP deubiquitylation assay is unique in that deubiquitylation liberates a reporter enzyme. Upon liberation, the reporter enzyme acts on its substrate, designed to yield a fluorescent product. Progenra has licensed the CHOP reporter technology to LifeSensors, Inc. Attachment of different reporters to the C-terminus of ubiquitin enables Progenra’s technology to mimic most closely the physiological ubiquitylated DUB substrates. This feature of Progenra’s platform is single-handedly responsible for the discovery of novel and selective molecules that target DUBs. CHOP is superior to off the shelf assay technologies, which measure the cleavage of a small molecule from a protein and thus do not probe all of the structural features of DUBs, which in nature cleave fusions of two large proteins. Thus, the chemical space discovered by such assays has been limited, as demonstrated by the lack of selective compounds reported. Currently, two different CHOP reporters are available, CHOP1 (PLA2) and CHOP2, via LifeSensors Inc.
June 15th, 2009. Progenra enters second year of medicinal chemistry service collaboration with Jubilant ChemSys, Ltd. Progenra has completed its first year of a medicinal chemistry services agreement with Jubilant ChemSys, a full service contract research organization based in Noida, India. “The Jubilant agreement represents an important step in establishing an internal medicinal chemistry program at Progenra; we recently in-house medicinal chemistry and our chemists are now working jointly with Jubilant to achieve synergy and scale of operation in moving Progenra’s drug discovery programs forward,” stated Progenra CEO Tauseef Butt. Significant chemical optimization has been achieved in Progenra’s lead anticancer program, testifying to the success of the collaboration.”
April 20th, 2009, Progenra announces sponsorship of the first annual Ubiquitin conference, October 13th and 14th, 2009. Progenra Inc is one of the sponsors of the first in what is intended to be a series of conferences focused on ubiquitin and ubiquitin-like proteins and drug discovery (Ubiquitin Drug Discovery and Diagnostics 2009), to be held in Philadelphia in October, 2009. The conference will bring together researchers and pharma business experts from academic and industry sectors to report on recent progress in developing drugs and diagnostic/prognostic technologies based on the ubiquitin pathway and to chart the course of further progress.
March 15th, 2009, Progenra to present updates on their deubiquitylases drug discovery program at Target World Congress, August 4-5, 2009. In a podium presentation, Dr. KG Suresh Kumar, Senior Scientist will present updates on Progenra’s isopeptidase drug discovery program, in particular he will discuss preclinical proof of concept of data for the prototype USP7 inhibitor P5091 and related analogs.
February 2009, Progenra to present a review on the development of their ubiquitin pathway inhibitors at Thomas Jefferson University. Dr. Craig Leach, Assistant Director will discuss Progenra’s advances in targeting the ubiquitin pathway for drug discovery. The seminar will take place at 3:30pm on February 12th in the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics.
December 24th, 2008, Progenra announces the publication of detailed protocols for the SUMO-PLA2 assay platform. To enhance the utility of Progenra’s novel isopeptidase assay platform, Dr. Leach and colleagues provide four detailed protocols utilizing the SUMO-PLA2 assay platform to measure SUMO protease activity, perform kinetic analysis of SUMO proteases and profile modulators of SUMO proteases in a high throughput compliant assay platform. For more information please see Detection and characterization of SUMO-protease activity using a sensitive enzyme-based reporter assay, Leach, CA et al Methods in Molecular Biology: SUMO protocols 497: 269-281.
September 10th, 2008, Progenra and Temple University establish a collaboration to study modulators of Praja 1. In order to characterize potential inhibitors of ubiquitin E3 ligase Praja1, Progenra has established a collaboration with Temple University Medical School’s Dr. Fayez F. Safadi, an expert in bone formation pathways. Cell-based secondary assays are being developed as part of Progenra’s NIH-funded SBIR project “Functional Assays for Osteoporosis Therapeutics.”
August 2008, Publication of work describing a role for ubiquitin in the regulation of PEPC in castor oil seeds. Progenra announces the publication of a journal article describing the effect of mono-ubiquitylating phosphoenolpyruvate carboxylase. In collaboration with Dr. William Plaxton of Queen’s University, researchers discovered that mono-ubiquitylation of PEPC influences the kinetic and regulatory properties of the enzyme. Please see Uhrig, RG et al J Biol Chem (2008) 283: 29650-29657.
April 18th, 2008, Publication of paper describing a new highly sensitive isopeptidase reporter assay platform. In paper published today, Progenra describes a readily quantifiable novel isopeptidase assay platform consisting of ubiquitin (Ub) or ubiquitin like protein fused to the reporter enzyme phospholipase A2 (PLA2). Direct comparisons with the ubiquitin-AMC assay demonstrated that the Ub-PLA2 assay is an effective tool for characterizing modulators of isopeptidase activity. For further details please refer to Characterization of ubiquitin and ubiquitin-like-protein isopeptidase activities, Nicholson, B et al Protein Science (2008) 17: 1035-1043. The entire paper can be accessed for free via PubMed Central.
April, 2007, Publication of a review highlighting the importance of deubiquitylases in cancer. Progenra announces the publication of a comprehensive review detailing the crucial role that deubiquitylating enzymes play in neoplastic disease. In particular, the oncogenic roles of USP2a, USP7, USP20, USP33 and AMSH are discussed as well as the tumor suppressor role of CYLD. For further information please see Deubiquitylating enzymes as novel anticancer targets, Nicholson, B et al Future Oncology (2007) 3: 191-199. The full paper can be accessed for free via PubMed Central.
Previous conferences
June 26th, 2009, Progenra invited to speak at Drug Discovery Partnership Conference, October 28th-30th. Dr. Seth J. Goldenberg will discuss the advantages of startup – academic partnerships and how they can foster the drug development process from target validation through pre-clinical development.
Progenra to present exciting new data on their USP7 drug discovery program at the 2009 Keystone Ubiquitin conference, January 11-16th, 2009. Dr. Ben Nicholson, Director of Biology will present data on recent progress in Progenra’s USP7 inhibitor program.
Progenra to present exciting new data on their antimicrobial drug discovery program at the 11th Symposium on Proteinase Inhibitors and Biological Control, August 30-September 3, 2008. Dr. Craig Leach, Assistant Director will present new data on Progenra’s progress towards applying their ubiquitin expertise to the search for novel antimicrobial agents.
Progenra to present the latest data on their USP7 drug discovery program at the 6th Annual Cancer Drugs Research and Development conference, February 19-20, 2009. Dr. Craig Leach, Assistant Director will present the latest advancements Progenra has made on the preclinical development of their selective USP7 inhibitor.
Progenra presentation at the 4th International Ubiquitin, Ubiquitin-Like Proteins, and Cancer Conference, February 7-9, 2008. Two Progenra scientists, David E. Sterner and K. G. Suresh Kumar, will attend the ubiquitin conference at the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston and present a poster, “Novel, HTS-Compatible Ubiquitin E3 Ligase Assay for Inhibitors of Praja1 Activity.”
Progenra to present data on their ubiquitin E3 ligase drug discovery program at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Meetings 2009, The Ubiquitin Family, April 21-25, 2009. Jeffrey Marblestone, Senior Scientist will present the latest advancements Progenra has made on their ubiquitin E3 ligase screening platform.
4th Meeting of the Intracellular Proteolysis Network. May 27-29th, 2009. Dr. Seth J. Goldenberg will share recent advances in the Progenra’s drug discovery effort targeting deubiquitylases and ubiquitin ligases.
SMi’s Global Proteins Summit. June 1-2nd, 2009. Jeffrey Marblestone, Senior Scientist will share recent advances in the Progenra’s protein expression effort using the SUMO and SUMOstar technology, targeting difficult to express proteins in prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems.
Gordon Research Conference, Combinatorial Chemistry and Chemical Biology. June 7-12th, 2009. Dr. Ping Cao will present the recent lead generation medicinal chemistry efforts on the design and optimization of a novel small molecule USP7 inhibitor as cancer therapy.
 Archive of News (2007 and earlier)
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