Posters and Guidelines
Thank you for considering to present your work as a poster at Oligo 2024 Oxford. Please submit your poster abstract online within the advertised deadlines.
Poster preparation
- Page size: Prepare your poster as you would normally do for printing. You can prepare your poster in sizes A1 or A0, but the page size of your poster is not important as the posters will be presented digitally. However, if you are attending in-person and would like to bring along a physical poster, prepare your poster in A1 portrait format (59cm wide x 84cm long). Do not laminate your poster, or use heavy printing material.
- Naming your poster files: Name your poster files as follows: <your surname>-Oligo25-Poster.pdf, etc. For example, for David Jones, name your file as Jones-Oligo25-Poster.pdf. DO NOT name your poster files as, e.g., Oxford-poster, poster2025, Oxford-oligo-poster. Such files will be automatically rejected.
- Poster submission: Submit your final poster as PDF files via the link below no later than 11th April 2025 Late posters may not be included in the conference programme. Please DO NOT send your poster or abstract files by email. Please ensure you send us the very final version of your poster (as well as your poster abstract), as once published, it cannot be replaced.
Before uploading your poster, you must make sure that you follow ALL of the instructions above!
Poster presentation:
- Poster PDF files (required): Whether the presenter is attending virtually or in-person, poster PDF files are required, which will be made available via the secure conference documents page to the conference participants. The participants will be able to ask questions via the Zoom chatbox during the conference. There is no specific time for presenting digital posters.
- Flash-talk videos (optional): We are pleased to offer poster presenters the opportunity to prepare a short video presentation about their poster and send it before the conference. The videos will be made available on the LPMHealthcare YouTube channel. Below is further information for sending your video presentation.
- Give your presentation (no longer than 5 minutes) using Zoom or another platform of your choice.
- Convert the video into a format compatible with YouTube (e.g., MP4).
- Send your video to OligoOxford@gmail.com using a file transfer program, such as MailBigFile or WeTransfer.
- Hardcopy posters (optional): If attending in-person, you may bring along a printed copy of your poster (maximum A1 size) to be displayed during the conference. You may be assigned a specific day to display your poster.
- The participants can post their questions on X at any time using the meeting hashtag #OligoOx25, as well as the poster specific hashtag (given under each poster abstract) – do tag @LPMHealthcare in your tweets.
- Any further information about the poster presentations at this digital meeting will be available in the future.
Before uploading your poster, you must make sure that you follow ALL of the instructions above!
(Presenters in Bold)
Accepted poster abstracts (Unedited) will be published below. If your abstract has been accepted for presentation but it does not appear in the list below, please let us know as soon as possible by emailing OligoOxford@gmail.com.
Aptamer-based delivery of carbocyclic 5-Aza-2′-deoxycytidine (cAzadC) to cancer cells
Emmanuel A Bisong, Jahongir Nabiev, Ghofrane B Helal, Thomas Carell
Institute for Chemical Epigenetics, Department of Chemistry, Ludwig Maximilian University Munich, Würmtalstrasse 201, Munich, Germany
cAzadC is a carbocyclic analogue of 5-Aza-2′-deoxycytidine (AzadC, also known as Decitabine) – an epigenetic anti-cancer drug used in clinics as a cytostatic agent against myelodysplastic syndromes (MDS) and acute myeloid leukaemia (AML). Decitabine is integrated into DNA during replication due to its structural similarity to deoxycytidine and inhibits DNA methyltransferases such as DNMT1. This results in global hypomethylation which influences the epigenetic regulation of gene expression. The main disadvantage of this nucleoside drug is its strong side effects which limit the application in chemotherapy. The pre-clinical studies show that the carbocyclic AzadC (cAzadC or Carbacitabine) has lower toxicity than the parent compound AzadC. To further decrease the off-target effects of the drug, selective delivery to the cells of interest is required. In this work, we present how aptamers could be used as carriers for selective delivery of nucleoside drugs such as cAzadC to cancer cells. One of the promising candidates is the aptamer Sgc8c which targets PTK7 receptors. These receptors are overexpressed in certain types of cancer cells such as lung cancer, leukaemia and neuroblastoma. In the course of this work, we demonstrate successful enzymatic incorporation of cAzadC into the aptamer chain, forming an aptamer-cAzadC-conjugate. Our results show promising features in oligonucleotides as drug delivery agents.
Novel Approaches to the Cytosolic Penetration of a Proprietary Antiviral Peptide (AVP)
Timothy Gomez1, Natalie Youens1, Joachim Bugert2 and Simon C W Richardson1
1Exogenix Laboratory, University of Greenwich at Medway, Grenville Building, Central Avenue, Chatham, Kent, ME4 4TB, UK
2Bundeswehr Institute for Microbiology, Neuherbergstr. 11 80937 München Germany
There remain several rate limiting steps preventing the safe, efficient and reproducible delivery of large anti-viral molecules such as proteins (AVPs) to the cytosol. Previously protein architecture based upon attenuated anthrax toxin was characterised and found to be capable of delivering both antisense and siRNA molecules as well as custom peptides including LFn- diphtheria toxin a chain (DTA) into the cytosol where pharmacological activity was measured. Here a proprietary antiviral peptide (AVP) has been fused in frame with either an attenuated component of anthrax toxin (LFn) or attenuated Clostridium botulinum toxin A (aBoT) to target either somatic or neuronal viral diseases. Here we report our initial characterisations of two peptide delivery systems. After affinity enrichment the LFn fused AVP peptide was recorded at the predicted molecular weight after SDS-PAGE and Coomassie staining. It was predicted to be 42.4KDa and bands were observed at 40 and 80KDa presumably representing a dimer. The aBoT antiviral peptide was predicted to be expressed as a single hydrolysable chain of 115 KDa and bands were recorded at 75 and 37 KDa representing the aBoT heavy chain and the truncated (attenuated) light chain containing the AVP. These recombinant peptides displayed the immunological tags that would be predicted (LFn-AVP) displayed the predicted V5 and 6H epitopes and the aBoT variant only 6H. When incubated for 72h with HeLa cells, PA+LFn-AVP did not display any toxicity across all the parameters measured i.e., IC50 > 250 µg/ml. Similarly, the aBoT-AVP did not display a measurable IC50 below 250µg/ml when incubated for 72h with the human glioblastoma cell line U87-MG. In conclusion these two vehicles designed to deliver an AVP show promise and warrant further exploration.
