Talk Title: “Heparin - Protein Interactome Using Computational Methods”

Dr. Desai is the Alfred and Francer Burger Professor of Medicinal and Biological Chemistry at School of Pharmacy, Virginia Commonwealth University. He also serves as the Chair of the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and the Director of Institute for Structural Biology, Drug Discovery and Development at VCU. His lab focuses on glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) and their role in diseases, especially cancer, thrombosis, inflammation, and viral infection. His lab also designs small molecules, called GAG mimetics, that serve as antagonists or agonists of GAG - protein systems. Recently, the Desai lab has joined forces with the Hoffmeister lab to investigate the role of GAGs in thrombopoiesis. Dr. Desai has published more than 175 research articles and is an inventor on more than 12 patents. Dr. Desai has received multiple awards including the American Heart Association's Established Investigator Award (2006) and VCU's Distinguished Scholarship Award (2013).

Talk Title: “Unraveling heparin-protein interactions with mass spectrometry”

Dr. Hawkridge is a faculty member at Virginia Commonwealth University in the School of Pharmacy and the Institute for Structural Biology, Drug Discovery, and Development located in Richmond, Virginia. He has more than 20years of experience as amass spectrometrist having developed novel technologies and methods for biomolecule ionization, remote sampling, chemical derivatization, and quantification. His research focuses on developing strategies to discover and interrogate biologically significant protein-glycosaminoglycan structures. Prior to joining VCU he was a research faculty member at North Carolina State University and a post-doctoral fellow at the Mayo Proteomics Research Center. Adam received his Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from SUNY at Buffalo and a B.S. in Chemistry from Virginia Tech.

Talk Title: “Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia: New approaches to Pathophysiology & Diagnosis”

Dr. Padmanabhan is Associate Professor and Senior Associate Consultant in the Divisions of Hematopathology, Transfusion Medicine and Experimental Pathology at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN. He received his medical degree from Thanjavur Medical College, India, Masters and PhD from Brown University (Providence, RI, USA) and underwent residency and fellowship training at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University (New York, NY, USA) and the Institute for Transfusion Medicine (Pittsburgh, PA, USA), respectively. Dr. Padmanabhan directs an NIH-funded laboratory in the area of platelet immunology focused on understanding the pathophysiology of Heparin-induced thrombocytopenia (HIT), a dangerous thrombotic disorder, with an emphasis on translating research findings to improve diagnosis and treatment of this condition. His findings have led to development of a new functional assay for HIT diagnosis, the PEA, and to a better understanding of the mechanistic basis of intravenous immunoglobulin therapy in patients with severe HIT syndromes such as “spontaneous” HIT.

Talk Title: “Atypical antibody response in heparin-induced thrombocytopenia”

Dr. Wang received his BS at Nanjing University, China, and PhD at the University of Tennessee, Health Science Center, USA. He conducted postdoctoral research at St Jude Children's Research Hospital. In 2000, he was appointed Associate Investigator(Assistant Professor) at Versiti’s Blood Research Institute, Wisconsin, where he became Investigator(Associate Professor)in 2004 and Senior Investigator(Full Professor)in 2009.He is the recipient of American Cancer Society Research Award and the recipient of Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Scholar Award, USA. Presently, he holds the John B and Judith A Gardetto Endowed Chair for Cancer Research and is an editorial board member of Blood. His scientific interests focus on cell signaling and transcriptional and epigenetic regulation of B cell biology and tolerance. He studies the molecular pathogenesis of B-cell immunodeficiency and autoimmune diseases, including the mechanism underlying the production of autoantibodies that cause heparin-induced thrombocytopenia(HIT).His research program aims to facilitate new approaches to prevention and treatment of various immunological disorders.