CHI Announces Its 2nd Annual FAST: Functional Analysis & Screening Technologies Congress, November 17-19, 2014, Boston, MA

Needham, MA, July 29, 2014 --(PR.com)-- Cambridge Healthtech Institute (CHI) is pleased to announce final details for its 2nd annual FAST: Functional Analysis & Screening Technologies Congress, an international event dedicated to improving in vitro cell models and phenotypic screening to advance drug discovery and development. The congress will take place on November 17-19, 2014 at the Hyatt Boston Harbor Hotel in Boston, MA.

Over 250 R&D teams are anticipated to attend the six conferences happening at the FAST Congress: Phenotypic Drug Discovery (Parts I & II), Engineering Functional 3D Models, Screening and Functional Analysis of 3D Models, Organotypic Culture Models for Toxicology, and Physiologically-Relevant Cellular Tumor Models for Drug Discovery.

Keynote presentations include:

· Personalized Reading and Writing of Organs
George Church, Ph.D., Professor, Genetics, Harvard Medical School; Professor, Health Sciences and Technology, Harvard and MIT; Founding Core Faculty Member, Platform Lead, Synthetic Biology, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University

· Phenotypic Discovery at AstraZeneca
Anna Collén, Ph.D., Director, Reagents and Assay Development, AstraZeneca R&D, Mölndal, Sweden

· Organs-on-Chips to Screen for Drug Efficacy and Toxicity
Kristin Fabre, Ph.D., Scientific Program Manager, NCATS, National Institutes of Health

· In silico Lead Finding through Holistic Understanding of Screening Data from Multiple Approaches
Meir Glick, Ph.D., Head, In Silico Lead Discovery – Cambridge, Center for Proteomic Chemistry, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research

· Organs-on-Chips: Highly Functional Microphysiological Systems to Predict Human Physiology and Pathobiology
Geraldine A. Hamilton, Ph.D., Senior Staff Scientist, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University

· Phenotypic Screening: A New Perspective
Jing Li, Ph.D., Director, Genomics and Phenotypic Screening, Merck Research Laboratories

· An All-Human Microphysiologic Liver System for Carcinoma Metastasis
Alan H. Wells, M.D., D.M.Sc., Vice Chair and Thomas J. Gill III Professor, Pathology, University of Pittsburgh

· Scaling and Systems Biology for Integrating Multiple Organs-on-a-Chip
John P. Wikswo, Ph.D., Founding Director, Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education and Gordon A. Cain University Professor, Biomedical Engineering, Vanderbilt University

In addition to the six conference tracks, the FAST Congress includes five short courses, panel discussions, and an exhibit/poster hall displaying technologies and research revolutionizing early-stage drug discovery.

Important Dates:
Early registration discount deadline: August 22, 2014
Poster abstract submission deadline: October 10, 2014
Advanced registration discount deadline: October 10, 2014

For additional information and to register, visit FASTCongress.com

Writers and editors are encouraged to attend. To request a press pass, contact Lisa Scimemi at lscimemi@healthtech.com.

About Cambridge Healthtech Institute (chicorporate.com)

Cambridge Healthtech Institute (CHI), founded in 1992, is the industry leader in providing superior-quality scientific information to eminent researchers and business experts from top pharmaceutical, biotech, and academic organizations. Delivering an assortment of resources such as events, reports, publications and eNewsletters, CHI's portfolio of products include Cambridge Healthtech Institute Conferences, Barnett Educational Services, Insight Pharma Reports, Cambridge Marketing Consultants, Cambridge Meeting Planners, Cambridge Healthtech Media Group, and The Knowledge Foundation.