Annual Congress on Cellular Therapies, Cancer, Stem Cells and Bio Medical Engineering October 17-18, 2018 Hilton New York JFK Airport Hotel, Address: 144-02 135th Avenue, Jamaica, New York 11436 , USA

Gene therapy basically involves the introduction or alteration of genetic material within a cell  or organism with an intention of curing the disease. Both cell therapy and gene therapy are overlapping fields of biomedical research with the goals of repairing the direct cause of genetic diseases in DNA or cellular population respectively. The discovery of recombinant DNA technology in the 1970s provided tools to efficiently develop gene therapy. Scientists use these techniques to readily manipulate viral genomes, isolate genes and identify mutations involved in human disease, characterize and regulate gene expressions, and engineer various viral and non-viral vectors. Various long term treatments for anemia, haemophilia, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophy, Gauscher’s disease, lysosomal storage diseases, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and diseases of bones and joints are resolved through successful gene therapy and are elusive today. 

Cancer therapies are drugs or other substances that block the growth and spread of cancer by interfering with specific molecules ("molecular targets") that are involved in the growth, progression, and spread of cancer. Many cancer therapies have been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat specific types of cancer. The development of targeted therapies requires the identification of good targets that is, targets that play a key role in cancer cell growth and survival. One approach to identifying potential targets is to compare the amounts of individual proteins in cancer cells with those in normal cells. Proteins that are present in cancer cells but not normal cells or that are more abundant in cancer cells would be potential targets, especially if they are known to be involved in cell growth or survival.

Due to rapidly advancing field of cancer immunology in past few years, there has been production of several new methods of treating cancer called Immunotherapies. Immunotherapy is a type of treatment that increases the strength of immune response against tumors either by stimulating the activities of specific components of immune system or by counteracting signals produced by cancer cells that suppress immune responses. Some types of immunotherapy are also called as biologic therapy or biotherapy. Recent advancements in cancer immunotherapies have provided new therapeutic approaches. These include tumor-associated macrophages as treatment targets in oncology, in-situ activation of platelets with checkpoint inhibitors for post-surgical cancer immunotherapy, immune checkpoint blockade and associated endocrinopathies and many more.

Genetic Medicine or Medical Genetics is the branch of medicine that differs from human genetics, and involves the diagnosis and management of hereditary disorders. Human genetics may or may not apply to medicine, but medical genetics refers to the application of genetics to medical care. Genetic Medicine basically involves different areas such as gene therapy, personalized medicine, predictive medicine and the rapidly emerging new medical specialty. Now a days, medical genetics has wide range of scopes in many conditions involving birth defects and dysmorphology, autism, mental retardation, skeletal dysplasia, mitochondrial disorders, cancer genetics, connective tissue disorders and some more.  

According to National Institute of Health (NIH), Clinical Research is defined in 3 ways i.e. (1) Patient oriented research. Research which is conducted with human subjects (or on material of human origin such as tissues, specimens and cognitive phenomena) for which an investigator (or colleague) directly interacts with human subjects. This definition excludes the in vitro studies that utilize human tissues that cannot be linked to a living individual. Patient oriented research involves: (a) therapeutic interventions, (b) mechanisms of human disease, (c) clinical trials, or (d) development of new technologies. (2) Epidemiological and behavioral investigations. (3) Outcomes research and health services research.Translational Research on the other hand includes two areas. One is the process of utilizing discoveries generated in the laboratory during research, and in preclinical studies, to the development trials and studies in humans. Second arena of translation concerns on research aimed at enhancing the adoption of best practices in the community. An important part of translational science also includes cost effectiveness of prevention and treatment strategies.  

Cell Therapy Bioprocessing activity mainly focuses to accelerate the safe, cost- effective translations and clinical efficacious of cell therapies into commercial products. This activity covers the entire range of cell therapy activities as well as tissue engineering. In order to succeed, commercial success of at least a few late-stage products are required to develop which will be funded to develop next generation tools and technologies for this field. Recent achievements include, preclinical filing for Phase 1 clinical trials for cell therapy in acute spinal cord injury, clinical proof of concept studies in tissue- engineered trachea, clinical trials for tissue-engineered larynx and routine clinical practice in the regeneration of corneas. The future research priorities will focus on novel cell and bioprocess engineering techniques in order to improve the manufacturing efficacy and methods for health technology assessment to support rapid clinical adoption of new cell therapies.  

Stem-cell therapy is the use of stem cells to treat or prevent a disease or condition. Bone is the most widely used stem-cell therapy, but some therapies derived from umbilical cord blood are also in use. Research is underway to develop various sources for stem cells, and to apply stem-cell treatments for neurodegenerative diseases and conditions such as diabetes, heart disease, and other conditions. Stem-cell therapy has become controversial following developments such as the ability of scientists to isolate and culture embryonic stem cells, to create stem cells using somatic cell nuclear transfer and their use of techniques to create induced spluripotent stem cell. This controversy is often related to abortion politics and to human cloning. Additionally, efforts to market treatments based on transplant of stored umbilical cord blood have been controversial.

Cancer stem cells are cancer cells that possess characteristics associated with normal stem cells, specifically the ability to give rise to all cell types found in a particular cancer sample. CSCs are therefore tumorigenic, perhaps in contrast to other non-tumorigenic cancer cells. CSCs may generate tumours through the stem cell processes of self-renewal and differentiation into multiple cell types. Such cells are hypothesized to persist in tumours as a distinct population and cause relapse and metastasis by giving rise to new tumours. Therefore, development of specific therapies targeted at CSCs holds hope for improvement of survival and quality of life of cancer patients, especially for patients with metastatic disease.

Biomedical Engineering is the science of application of engineering principles to the fields of biology and health care. Bioengineers work with doctors, therapists and researchers to implement systems, equipment and devices in order to solve clinical problems which focus on the advances that improve human health and health care at all levels. Clinical engineering is a special field within Biomedical engineering responsible primarily for applying and implementing medical technology to optimize healthcare delivery.

Biomechanics is the study of systems and structures of biological organisms from the smallest plants to the largest animals react with external stimuli. In animals, biomechanics often refers to the study of how the skeletal and musculature systems work under different cases. In biomechanics more generally, scientists often try to apply physics and other mathematical based forms of analysis to discover the limits and capabilities of biological systems. Biomaterials are substances that are used in medical devices or in contact with biological systems. Biomaterials use impression from medicine, biology, chemistry, materials science and engineering.

• Balance, Gait and Locomotion
• Biomechanical Modelling
• Cardiovascular Mechanics
• Cellular Force Transduction
• Clinical Biomechanics
• Mechanobiology
• Musculoskeletal Mechanics
• Orthotics and Prosthetics
• Physiotherapy and Sports Biomechanics
• Tissue, Cell and Molecular Mechanics

Medical and Nano biotechnology are the applications of medical and nanotechnology in the biological fields. Nano biotechnology is the fusion of nanotechnology and biotechnology in which Nano sized machines can be synthesized by incorporating biological systems to study and manipulate different biological processes at molecular level.

Cell engineering exploits the principles and methods of engineering to the complication of cell and molecular biology of both a basic and applied nature. Tissue engineering is a technique which generates living tissue ex vivo for replacement or therapeutic applications through materials development, biochemical controls, cell culture, and genetic engineering. Tissue engineering uses biomaterials and cells to produce new tissues. Stem cells have infused great excitement in the field as a potentially powerful cell source to rebuild tissues.

Bioinstrumentation is the use of bioelectronics instruments for the recording or transmission of physiological information. Biomedical devices are combination of biology, sensors, interface electronics, microcontrollers, and computer programming, including biology, optics, mechanics, and electronics, chemistry, and computer science. Bioinstrumentation engineers design, frame, test, and manufacture advanced medical instruments and implantable devices into a single, more productive unit.

Bio imaging covers the complex chain of acquiring, processing and visualizing structural or functional images of living objects or systems, including extirpation and processing of image-related information. Image processing methods, such as denoising, segmentation, deconvolution and registration methods, feature detection and classification represent an indispensable part of bio imaging, as well as related data analysis and statistical tools are involved in this process.

Bioinformatics and Computational Biology are highly flexible interdisciplinary fields which involve the study of computer sciences, biological sciences, and mathematical sciences together. These include biomarker identification, drug target discovery, functional genomics and proteomics, coding sequence analysis, cross-validation analysis, forensic applications of genetics.

• Biological Algorithms
• Biological Databases
• Biomedical Computing
• Computation Biology
• Data Mining and Processing
• Gene Expression Array Analysis
• Machine Learning
• Metabolic Pathway Analysis
• Microarray Analysis
• Modeling of Molecular, Cellular, and Organ Pathways
• Pattern Recognition and Soft Computing Techniques
• Sequence Analysis
• Systems Biology

Bio Robotics is a collective study of cybernetics, bionics and genetic engineering. Bio Robotics is the use of biological characteristics in living organisms as the knowledge base for developing new robot designs. Biosensors are the devices used in order to determine the concentration of substances and other parameters of biological interest even where they do not utilise a biological system directly. Biosensors basically involve the quantitative analysis of various substances by converting their biological actions into measurable signals.

Genetic engineering adverts to the direct manipulation of DNA to alter an organism’s characteristics in a proper way. In most cases, use of recombinant DNA adds an extra gene to an organism to alter a trait or to add a new trait. Uses of genetic engineering include imposing the nutritional quality of food, creating pest-resistant crops, and creating infection-resistant livestock.

Rehabilitation engineering is the clinical and biomechanical application of engineering to provide services, research and development to assist people with disabilities. Rehabilitation engineering includes the systematic application of technologies, engineering methodologies, or scientific principles to meet the needs of, and address the barriers confronted by, individuals with disabilities in areas that include education, rehabilitation, employment, transportation, independent living, and recreation. Neural engineering is the application of biomedical engineering principles to the nervous system.

• Bionics
• Computer Aided Surgery
• eHealth
• Electrotherapy
• Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES)
• Human Robot Interaction
• Implant Technology
• Lasers in Medicine
• Multimodal Imaging
• Neural Rehabilitation
• Patient Monitoring
• Point of Care Devices and Systems
• Robot Aided Surgery