Drug Delivery in Oncology – From Basic Research to Cancer Therapy

Felix Kratz graduated in Chemistry from the University of Heidelberg in 1991. He then carried out postdoctoral research at the Bioinorganic Institute of the University of Florence and developed tumor-specifi c carrier systems with ruthenium(III) complexes. Since 1994 he has been Head of Macromolecular Prodrugs at the Tumor Biology Center in Freiburg, Germany, where he is now in charge of organizing and managing translational research from the laboratory to the clinic. His research areas are drug targeting, drug-delivery systems in oncology, prodrugs, receptor targeting, bioconjugate chemistry, and nanocarriers. Peter Senter earned his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Illinois in Urbana, and then carried out postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute in Gottingen, Germany. After various positions at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and Cytokine Networks, he joined Seattle Genetics in 1998, and initiated research programs that led to the technology used for SGN-35 and other promising antibody drug conjugates. Henning Steinhagen graduated in Organic Chemistry from the University of Heidelberg, Germany in 1998. He then joined the group of Prof. E.J. Corey at Harvard University, Cambridge, USA as postdoctoral fellow. After that he continued his career, working in Discovery Research in Medicinal Chemistry at Bayer, Wuppertal and at Aventis, Frankfurt. In 2009, he joined Grunenthal in Aachen, Germany where he currently acts as Vice President and Global Head of Drug Discovery.