State of the Art Lecture
Invisible Influence:  The Microbiome in Precision Medicine
Jack Gilbert, PhD, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL

Rawls-Palmer Progress in Medicine Award Lecture
A Voice for Children: Promises and Potential
Gregory L. Kearns, PharmD, PhD, Arkansas Children’s Research Institute, Little Rock, AR

SYMPOSIUM: Integrating New Information Increasing Our Understanding of Placebo Response and Implications for Drug Development
Collaboration Across Fields to Minimize Placebo Response and Maximize the Potential for Positive Phase III Outcomes 
Virginia (Ginny) Schmith, PhD, Nuventra Pharma Sciences, Durham, NC

Genetics of the Placebo Response: What Can We Learn from the Placebome?
Kathryn T. Hall, PhD, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

Case Study in Placebo Modeling and its Effect on Drug Development
Julie Passarell, MA, Cognigen Corporation, Buffalo, NY

Application of Placebo Model in Drug Development-A Regulatory Perspective 
Yaning Wang, PhD, US Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD

SYMPOSIUM: Considerations for Selection of Immuno-Oncology Based Drug Combinations
An Immunogenomic View of Personalized Cancer Medicine
Thomas Hudson, MD, AbbVie,  
Redwood City, CA

Rationale for Immuno-Oncology Combinations: Strategies for Selection of Combination Treatments and Clinical Evaluation
Jianda Yuan, PhD, MD, Merck Research Laboratories, Rahway, NJ

Immuno-Oncology Combinations - Clinical Trial Design Consideration
Lillian L. Siu, MD, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

Featured Speaker
The Impact of Clinical Pharmacology in HIV Cure Research
Angela Kashuba, PharmD, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC

Leon I. Goldberg Early Investigator Award Lectures
2017 Award Recipient: Precision Medicine - The New Normal

Michael Pacanowski, PharmD, US Food and  Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD

2018 Award Recipient: Translating New Science Into Drug Development & Evaluation
David Strauss, MD, PhD, US Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD

ROUNDTABLE/NOVEL FORMAT: Quantitative Clinical Pharmacology of Antimicrobials: Is it Time to Move Past MIC?
The Case for MIC and PK/PD Indices—What We’re Doing is Just Fine
David Andes, MD, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI

Why MIC is Poison for the Mind 
Hartmut Derendorf, PhD,  University of Florida, Gainesville, FL

Experiences with MIC-Based PK/PD Indices in the Dose Selection of Antimicrobial Drugs
Yang He, PhD, US Food and Drug Administration, Silver Spring, MD

The Case Against MIC—Better Decisions with Pharmacometrics and Systems Approaches 
Elisabet Nielsen, PhD, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

WORKSHOP: Clinical and Translational Pharmacology of siRNA Therapies
A Progress Report on siRNA Therapeutics 
Judy Lieberman, MD, PhD, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

siRNA Therapeutics: Target Identification, Discovery and Early Development Considerations
Stacey Melquist, PhD, Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals, Madison, WI 

Bioanalytical Assays to Support the Advancement of siRNA Drug Development from Pre-Clinical to Clinical Stages 
Brooke Rock, PhD, Amgen, South San Francisco, CA

SPECIAL SESSION: Innovation Forum
Virtually Better: How Virtual Reality is Easing Pain, Calming Nerves, and Improving Health the Drug-Free Way
Brennan Spiegel, MD, Cedars-Sinai Health System, Los Angeles, California 

Technology meets Neuroscience: A Vision of the Future of Brain Optimization
Adam Gazzaley, MD, PhD, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA

Using Data from Wearables for Clinical Trials
Sam Volchenboum, MD, PhD, University of Chicago, Chicago, IL