July Biomed/Biotech SIG Meeting  

"Gene Therapies � Dogs as Models for Humans"

Presented by

Tomislav Modric, DVM, PhD
Veterinary Medical Officer, Division of Surveillance
Office of Surveillance and Compliance, Center for Veterinary Medicine, FDA

Thursday, July 9, 2009

at
The Kelly�s Deli Conference Room
7519 Standish Place, Rockville, MD 20855

6:00 - 6:15 pm: Networking and Pizza/Soda
6:15 - 8:15 pm: Program
8:15 - 8:30 pm: Door prize drawing and networking

Cost: Free to the general public with a door prize drawing

Registration: To attend this event, please click here by Thursday noon, June 11, 2009.

Event Contact: Dr. George Chang at or 240-793-8425.
 
Program Summary:
Dogs are commonly used as experimental models in safety, pharmacology and other preclinical studies.   Study of heritable diseases in dogs is facilitated by the availability of dog genome sequence and other tools for genetic research.  Moreover, some of the heritable diseases in dogs are similar to human ones and are caused by mutations in genes homologous to human genes.  Examples include hemophilia, blindness, muscular dystrophies, as well as cancers, cardiovascular, metabolic, and immune diseases.  Thus, dogs are excellent animal models for gene therapies (GT) and other emerging technologies in the treatment of human diseases. 

Speaker Biography:
Dr. Tomislav Modric, DVM, PhD, has been with the FDA�s Center of Veterinary Medicine (CVM) for almost 7 years working on various issues including transgenic animals, new animal drug safety, human food safety of animal drugs, and post-approval monitoring of animal drugs.  Dr. Modric has served as a Chair of the Animal Biotechnology Working group at CVM in the year 2006/7 and is currently an editorial board member of the journal Animal Biotechnology.  Prior to that, he has worked in academic and animal health industry settings, where he used transgenic animal models for studying endocrine and parasitic diseases, respectively.  This includes working on several veterinary drug discovery projects at Pfizer Animal Health and serving as an Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at the Western Michigan University. 

For directions to the meeting, see the July 9, 2009 Biomed/Biotech SIG Meeting Announcement.