MEDIA ADVISORY
Next week hundreds of researchers, scientists and technologists from around the world will be at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) for Cracking The Code: The Dawn of Nucleic Acid Medicines. The 3-day conference (October 17-19) presented by Nature Conferences focuses on the rise of mRNA therapies and vaccines with panel discussions and keynote addresses from some of the top experts in this field, including Nobel laureate Phillip Sharp and Katalin Karikó, winner of this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine.
The Nature conference also celebrates the growth of the life science and biotechnology industries –and the demand for workforce development—in Central Massachusetts, which was recently called “A Great Place for Biotech Business” by Livability. On Tuesday, the first day of the conference, 170 Worcester Public High School students will attend Career Day at WPI, hosted to learn more about research and explore career paths with representatives from Alnylam, MassBio, Moderna, UMass Chan Medical School and others.
Media Opportunities:
Tuesday, October 17, 8:00 a.m.-1:00 p.m.: Career Day
Campus Center Odeum (3rd floor), Unity Hall and Bartlett Center
- More than 170 students from Burncoat High School, Doherty Memorial High School, Claremont Academy, North High School, South High Community School, University Park Campus School, and Worcester Technical High School.
Wednesday, October 18, 8:30 a.m.-5:30 p.m. Full agenda
Campus Center Odeum (3rd floor)
Highlights:
- 9:00-9:40 a.m. Phillip Sharp, Keynote Talk: RNA Biology to Therapeutics: An Emerging Story
- 10:50-11:30 a.m. Katalin Karikó, Keynote Talk: Developing mRNA for Therapy
Thursday, October 18, 9:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. Full agenda
Campus Center Odeum (3rd floor)
Highlights:
- 9:00-9:40 a.m. Lovisa Afzelius, Keynote Talk: Cracking the Code: Novel tRNA Medicines for the Treatment of Stop Codon Disease
- 3:00 -3:40 p.m. John Maraganore, Keynote Talk: Building Alnylam and a Whole New Class of Medicines, and the Importance of Being Unreasonable
These events have been organized by WPI, UMass Chan Medical School, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Moderna, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Immunology, Nature, Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, and Nature Biomedical Engineering.
Members of the media interested in covering any part of the conference and career fair must contact:
Colleen Wamback
Director of Public Relations
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
cbwamback@wpi.edu
508-688-4858
