Keynote Speakers
Meet ASPET 2025 Annual Meeting Keynote Speakers
In This Section
Tamer Coskun, MD, PhD
Development of Multi-functional Incretins for Diabetes and Obesity
Obesity is a prevalent, complex, progressive and relapsing chronic disease, characterized by abnormal or excessive body fat (adiposity), that impairs health. The obesity pandemic and its deleterious impact on public health have led to the development of several potential interventions that aim to manage body weight in the long term. Weight loss requires negative energy balance, which can be achieved by lifestyle interventions and behavior changes, pharmacotherapy, and/or metabolic surgery.
This keynote address will present the story of the pharmacological development of tirzepatide and retatrutide from early discovery to clinical outcomes. Pharmacologic strategies aiming to reduce calorie intake for chronic body weight management, and strategies targeting compensatory mechanisms to potentially provide durable weight loss can be achieved by novel multifunctional incretins. Tirzepatide, a glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) and glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonist, is approved for treatment of Type 2 Diabetes and obesity. Retatrutide, a GIP, GLP-1 and glucagon receptor agonist, is currently under Phase 3 clinical development. 
Bio
Tamer Coskun, MD, PhD is the Vice President-Medical at Eli Lilly and Company. During his tenure at Lilly, Dr. Coskun provided key translational expertise between the preclinical and clinical research space to drive drug discovery projects from initiation through clinical proof-of-concept.  Since 2018 he has held a unique position at Lilly, with continued responsibility for discovery efforts and responsibility for early phase clinical research efforts within the Diabetes, Obesity and Complications Therapeutic Area (DOCTA).  These roles build on Tamer’s extensive expertise in incretin biology (gut physiology and pathophysiology) and leverage his recent discoveries for tirzepatide and retatrutide (GIP/GLP-1/Glucagon triple agonist) to clinical development and registration. He has over 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts and many patents for tirzepatide, retatrutide and others. 
Dr. Coskun holds an MD degree from Cerrahpasa School of Medicine and a PhD degree from Marmara University School of Medicine, in Istanbul Turkey. Prior to joining Lilly in 2003, Dr. Coskun was Assistant Professor at Marmara University school of Medicine and Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis School of Medicine. 
Laura Kleiman, PhD
Unlocking Access to Cancer Care with Repurposed Generic Drugs and AI
Drug repurposing expands therapeutic possibilities by finding new uses for existing drugs. Dr. Laura Kleiman will discuss how repurposing generic drugs can rapidly create low-cost cancer treatments, sharing examples that provide accessible and affordable options for patients today while also driving new drug development. Her keynote presentation will highlight the tremendous opportunities in drug repurposing for cancer, addressing challenges such as regulatory hurdles, limited commercial incentives and the need for cross-sector collaboration.
Dr. Kleiman will describe Reboot Rx’s AI-driven approach and their prostate cancer project, which synthesized data from 16,000 studies and dozens of non-cancer generics already clinically evaluated for prostate cancer. She will share how this work identified top opportunities advancing toward clinical adoption and discuss Reboot Rx’s expanding pipeline across multiple cancer types. Dr. Kleiman will present a vision for a new regulatory pathway to accelerate adoption of repurposed generic drugs and expand access to life-saving treatments worldwide.
Bio
Dr. Laura Kleiman is the Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Reboot Rx, the nonprofit accelerating the development of affordable cancer treatments by repurposing generic drugs using their Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. The Reboot Rx team — composed of experts in oncology drug development, AI, and policy — is redefining the standard of care for patients who need effective and accessible treatments now.
Prior to founding Reboot Rx, Dr. Kleiman was a Scientific Research Director at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She earned a PhD in Computational and Systems Biology from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and completed an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Kleiman is a Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation Entrepreneur and Henri Termeer Fellow. Under Dr. Kleiman’s leadership, Reboot Rx’s groundbreaking work has attracted support from philanthropists; award recognition from several organizations; and features in Forbes, The Boston Globe, Inside Philanthropy and more.
Camille Crittenden, PhD
Digital Transformation in Pharmacology: Applications of Responsible AI for the Next Generation of Therapeutic Research
Artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing scientific research across countless fields, including in pharmaceutical research and experimental therapeutics. New GPTs and Large Multimodal Models offer unprecedented opportunities to accelerate drug discovery, optimize clinical trials, and personalize medicine. This keynote address will explore the transformative potential of AI across the drug development pipeline, highlighting its ability to process and analyze vast and varied datasets with speed and accuracy unattainable by traditional methods.
AI’s role in designing and optimizing clinical trials—through patient stratification, predictive analytics, and real-time monitoring—will also be discussed, with examples of how these innovations are reducing costs, risk and timelines. Special focus will be placed on ethical considerations, data security, and the need for interdisciplinary collaboration to ensure AI’s responsible and effective application. It will also consider workforce development efforts to ensure appropriate training and upskilling for today’s workforce and the next generation.
Bio
Camille Crittenden, PhD, is the executive director of CITRIS and the Banatao Institute and co-founder of the CITRIS Policy Lab and EDGE (Expanding Diversity and Gender Equity) in Tech at University of California. She served as chair of the California Blockchain Working Group in 2019–20 and co-chaired the Student Experience subcommittee of the UC’s Presidential Working Group on Artificial Intelligence. She continues to serve on the UC AI Council.
Prior to coming to CITRIS in 2012, she was executive director of the Human Rights Center at Berkeley Law, where she helped to develop its program in human rights, technology and digital media. She has written and spoken widely on these topics, as well as AI governance and applications in higher education and technology applications for civic engagement, digital equity, and government transparency and accountability. She held positions as assistant dean for development with International and Area Studies at UC Berkeley and in development and public relations at University of California Press and San Francisco Opera. She earned an M.A. and PhD from Duke University.
Anthony K. L. Leung, Professor, PhD, MBioch (oxon)
Beyond Cancer: PARP Biology in Biomolecular Condensates and Emerging Roles in Infection and Neurodegeneration
ADP-ribosylation, an RNA-like post-translational modification catalyzed by the PARP enzyme family, is a key regulator of gene expression, stress responses, and biomolecular condensate formation. While PARP inhibitors are FDA-approved for cancers with DNA repair deficiencies, our work reveals that ADP-ribosylation extends far beyond DNA repair, playing pivotal roles in cytoplasmic RNA metabolism, viral infection, and neurodegeneration. Using advanced tools developed by our lab—from single-molecule biophysics to proteomics—we discovered that poly(ADP-ribose) (PAR) potently induces protein condensation, even at substoichiometric levels, and drives the assembly of membraneless organelles such as stress granules and DNA repair foci—both enriched in PAR. Stress granules, which sequester translation factors, are actively targeted by RNA viruses like coronaviruses and alphaviruses; these pathogens encode de-ADP-ribosylating enzymes to disassemble granules and release translation machinery for viral protein synthesis. These findings position ADP-ribosylation as a promising pharmacological target at the intersection of cancer, infection, and neurodegenerative disease. This keynote address will discuss ADP-ribosylation research findings.
Bio
Anthony K. L. Leung, PhD, MBioch (oxon) is a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, with joint appointments in the School of Medicine and the Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Trained at Oxford, Dundee, and MIT, he is at the forefront of technological innovation and biological discovery in PARP biology and ADP-ribosylation across diverse disease contexts. His team was among the first to reveal that viral macrodomains reverse ADP-ribosylation—a function critical for viral replication and pathogenesis—catalyzing a drug discovery program that accelerated during the COVID-19 pandemic to support first-in-class antiviral strategy development for pandemic-preparedness.
Dr. Leung’s translational work bridges molecular mechanisms with pharmacological innovation. His contributions have been recognized with several honors, including the inaugural Johns Hopkins Catalyst Award, American Cancer Society Research Scholar Award, ASCB–Gibco Emerging Leader Finalist, and the Shikani/El-Hibri Prize for Discovery & Innovation.
Important Dates
Apr
3-6
ASPET 2025 Annual Meeting | Portland, OR
May
17-20
ASPET 2026 Annual Meeting | Minneapolis, MN
1801 Rockville Pike, Suite 210, Rockville, Maryland 20852-1633
Phone: (301) 634-7060
Fax: (301) 634-7061 aspet.org
Meeting Questions