Wellington Health Tech Network invites you to the next network meeting with a theme of bioinformatics.
A great line up of speakers and the topics range from biomarker discovery through data analytics in the laboratory to taking advantage of the new R&D tax breaks.
Date: 11 September
Time: 17h00 till 19h00
Venue: Offices of EY, Majestic Centre, 100 Willis Street
Please RSVP to kevin.sheehy@navigator.healthcare
Programme
17h00 Arrival and networking
17h30 Dr Aniruddha Chatterjee Epigenetics, Disease and Phenotype laboratory Linking the big epigenomics data to discover cancer biomarkers and causes of metastasis
17h50 Dr Brendan Darby Marama Labs Spectroscopy Unfiltered - Reducing sample prep and improving measurement turnaround times through smart analytics.
18h10 Scott Olding EY R&D tax incentives; making your R&D dollar go further
18h30 to 19h00 Networking continues
Dr Aniruddha Chatterjee is the head of the Epigenetics, Disease and Phenotype laboratory at the University of Otago. The laboratory uses bioinformatics and experimental approaches to study epigenetic changes in different cellular contexts to achieve a better understanding of the mechanism of disease in cancer. They aim to use these discoveries to develop biomarkers for specific disease states. The four themes in their laboratory are: Researching the origin and consequences of epigenetic alterations in cancer metastasis; Developing analytical tools for epigenomic analysis; Cellular and tissue specific epigenetics; Environmental epigenetics. Aniruddha is originally from Berhampore, West Bengal (India), where he completed his schooling. He moved to the southern part of India and completed a BSc (Osmania University, Hyderabad) and MSc degree (VIT University, Vellore) in Biotechnology with first class and distinction. Following this, Aniruddha came to the University of Otago in New Zealand in 2009, where he commenced his PhD. In his doctoral work, he mapped whole-genome scale DNA methylation patterns and variation in normal human neutrophil cells.
Dr Brendan Darby has a PhD in physics and developed a new technique to analyse ‘cloudy’ solutions. Brendan helped launch start-up company MaramaLabs, which commercialised the spectrophotometer technique known as CloudSpec. It is used in industries such as viticulture and water treatment. While doing his PhD at the MacDiarmid Institute, Brendan was chairman of the MacDiarmid Emerging Scientists Association (MESA) and aimed to get students thinking about commercialisation, other opportunities outside academia and increased collaboration.
Scott Olding Businesses now have the opportunity to access a 15% credit on eligible R&D expenditure with the introduction of R&D tax incentive legislation, claimable against your tax liability or in certain circumstances, refundable in cash. Scott Olding has over 21 years experience within the ‘Big 4’ environment in New Zealand, The Netherlands, India and Australia advising clients on various R&D Incentives and Government Grant programs ranging from start-ups through to large multi-national companies. He will discuss the key features of the incentive and how health tech start-ups can substantiate and document their claims.