The organizing committee is proud to announce the participation in the Symposium of international renowned researchers who are active in the fields of medicines and bioactive molecules extracted from marine organisms and who accepte to spend the whole 3 days of the Symposium exchanging ideas with participants and sharing their views on the future of Medicines from the sea.

Distinguished Professor William Fenical

Distinguished Professor of Oceanography, Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego (UCSD), La Jolla, CA, USA

fenical.ucsd.edu/Fenical%20Home.htm

William (Bill) Fenical was born in Chicago in 1941 and moved to Palo Alto, California at the age of 12. Bill did his undergraduate work, in chemistry and biology, at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo. After graduation in 1963, he attended San José State University where he received his MS degree in organic chemistry studying the pigments in abalone shells. He then moved south to UC-Riverside, where he received his Ph.D. degree in organic synthesis in 1968. After a short postdoc, Bill joined the Shell Development Company in Emeryville, CA for one year. After this industrial experience, he sought an opportunity to develop an academic program in the field of marine natural products chemistry and ecology, a new direction accommodating his long term interest in the ocean. In 1973, Bill joined the Scripps Institution of Oceanography (SIO), University of California, San Diego, where he has resided ever since. Bill is currently Professor of Oceanography and Director of SIO's Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine. Bill's past interests have involved the chemistry of marine plants and tropical soft-corals, a topic in which he gained a strong appreciation of the roles secondary metabolites play in the chemical defenses of marine life. More recently, Bill's interests have focused on the undeveloped field of marine microbiology and the utilization of marine microorganisms as a source for new drug discovery. As in the past, the ecological roles of marine microorganisms as symbionts and in interspecies interactions continue to be a topic of strong interest. Bill's most important recent work involves the discovery of new, drug-producing actinomycete bacteria residing in deep ocean sediments. Bill serves on the editorial boards of 7 major journals of natural products chemistry, and has co-authored more than 325 papers in these fields. Bill is the recipient of the Paul Scheuer Award in Marine Natural Products Chemistry (1996), the International Society of Chemical Ecology's Silver Medal Award (1997), the Burroughs-Wellcome Visiting Professor Award (2002) and the National Cancer Institute's Merit Award (2003).Bill is the co-founder of Nereus Pharmaceuticals, a pioneer in drug discovery and development from marine microbial sources.

About Nereus Pharmaceuticals
In the past three years Nereus Pharmaceuticals has created a pipeline of two pre-clinical candidates and an additional three new chemical entity (NCE) leads currently in development. Nereus intends to file an IND for both preclinical products in 2005. Nereus Pharmaceuticals is an innovative drug discovery and development company pursuing untapped sources of chemical diversity. With unmatched expertise in marine microbiology and structural elucidation, Nereus is using its integrated platform technologies to identify novel biologically active compounds. The company believes that its marine microbes will be the next great source of drug discovery for the pharmaceutical industry. Nereus aims to develop and optimize drug candidates to treat cancer, infectious diseases and inflammation. The company is privately held and based in San Diego, California.
For more information, visit www.nereuspharm.com.

Dr. Jose Jimeno

Vice-president Scientific Development, PharmaMar, Spain, Madrid

Jose Jimeno graduated as an MD Cum Laude at the University of Zaragoza (Spain) in 1981. Jose holds a PhD in Molecular Pharmacology (Cum Laude). He did his fellowship in Medical Oncology at the National Cancer Institute in Bari, Italy. Furthermore he joined the pharmaceutical industry and has had relevant positions in the R & D area at Farmitalia Carlo Erba (Milan, Italy) and at US Bioscience (Watford, UK): He has published over a hundred papers in the field of cancer research, holds the European Certification of Medical Oncology (Copenhagen 1990) and is an active member of the ESMO, AACR and ASCO. Dr Jimeno joined PharmaMar in late 1994 and work until 2002 as VP for Clinical Research and Development. Since March 2002, Dr Jimeno was appointed as VP for Scientific Development. He has been fully involved in the integrated development of YondelisR (ET-743), Aplidin and Kahalalide F: 3 marine compounds active and feasible in advanced pretreated cancer patients.

About PharmaMar

PharmaMar is the world's leading biopharmaceutical companies in advancing cancer care through the discovery and development of innovative marine-derived medicines. PharmaMar's clinical portfolio currently includes: YONDELIS® (co-developed with Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development) in Phase III clinical trials; it is also designated Orphan Drug for Soft Tissue Sarcomas by the European Commission (E.C.) in 2001 and by the FDA in 2004, and Orphan Drug for ovarian cancer by the E.C. in 2003 and by the FDA in 2005. It also features Aplidin®, in Phase II, designated Orphan Drug for acute lymphoblastic leukaemia by the E.C. in 2003 and by the FDA in 2004, and for multiple myeloma by the FDA and the EC in 2004; as well as Kahalalide F in Phase II, and ES-285 and Zalypsis® in Phase I clinical trials. PharmaMar, based in Madrid, Spain, is a subsidiary of the Zeltia Group (Spanish stock exchange, ZEL).

PharmaMar can be found on the Web at www.pharmamar.com.

Professor Peter Karuso

Assistant Professor, Head of department, Department of Chemistry, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia

www.chem.mq.edu.au/~vislab

Professor Peter Karuso obtained his PhD (1985) under the supervision of W. C. Taylor at the University of Sydney, achieving the first total synthesis of the aporphine alkaloid eupolauramine and the isolation and structure elucidation of 16 new marine natural products. Post-doctoral appointments at Auckland (Dame Patricia Bergquist), Hawai'i (Paul Scheuer) and Texas A&M (A. I. Scott) were followed by an Alexander von Humbolt fellowship at TU Munich (Horst Kessler) and assistant Professorship at Macquarie University in 1990. Dr Karuso was tenured in 1992, promoted to Senior Lecturer in 1993 and became Associate Professor in 2001 and Head of Chemistry in 2002. He is also the founder and Chief Scientific Officer of a start-up biotechnology company (FLUOROtechnics Pty Ltd) that is commercialising natural products from fungi. Recent accolades include election to the Royal Australian Chemical Institute (RACI) as a Fellow (2000), award of the Archibald Ollé Prize in literature from the RACI (2004) and a Macquarie University Innovation Award (Commercialisation; 2004) and an outstanding teacher award (2000). Key research areas include marine natural products chemistry, NMR spectroscopy and reverse chemical proteomics.

About FLUOROtechnics

FLUOROtechnics was incorporated in December 2001, as a spin off company from Macquarie University. Fluorotechnics was established with the support of Macquarie University to finalise the development of and to commercialise a core discovery made by the Research Team at the University. The FLUOROtechnics Research Team developed by Macquarie University is one of the world's leading research teams in the area of fluorescent labelling and detection. Their core discovery will enable the development of numerous labelling and analysis products for the different market segments of the biotechnology industry.

For more information, visit www.fluorotechnics.com

Dr. David J. Newman

Natural Products Branch, Developmental Therapeutics Program of the National Cancer Institute, Frederick, Maryland, USA

dtp.nci.nih.gov/branches/npb/staff.html

David Newman was born in Grays, Essex, UK. Initially trained as a chemical analyst he received a M.Sc. in Organic Chemistry (Liverpool) and then after time in the UK chemical industry, a D. Phil. in Microbial Chemistry from Sussex in 1968. Following postdoctoral studies at the University of Georgia, USA, he worked for SK&F (now GSK) in Philadelphia, PA, as a biological chemist predominately in the area of antibiotic discovery. Whilst at SK&F, he obtained an MS in Information Sciences in 1977 from Drexel University and following the discontinuance of antibiotic discovery programs at SKF, he worked for a number of US companies in natural products-based discovery programs in anti-infective and cancer treatments, joining the Natural Products Branch of the NCI in 1991, where he is responsible for the marine and microbial collection programs and for the Open and Active Repository programs.

His scientific interests are in the discovery and history of novel marine and microbial natural products as drug leads in the anti-infective and cancer areas, in novel delivery methods for such agents and in the application of information technologies to drug discovery. In conjunction with Dr. Gordon Cragg (now retired), he has established collaborations between the NCI and organizations in many countries promoting drug discovery from their natural resources. He has published over 80 papers, presented over 60 abstracts, holds 16 patents that are related to these interests, is both an UK Chartered Chemist and an UK Chartered Biologist and is also an adjunct full professor at the Center of Marine Biotechnology, University of Maryland at www.umbi.umd.edu/~comb/