Tara Arvedson
Chief Scientific Officer Hexagon Bio
Tara Arvedson, PhD, is Chief Scientific Officer at Hexagon Bio, where she leads discovery and preclinical strategy to advance novel, genetically validated oncology therapeutics. She brings over two decades of industry experience, including nearly 14 years at Amgen, where she served as Executive Director of Oncology Research. Tara is highly accomplished in target identification and validation, assay development, protein therapeutic engineering, and translating programs from discovery through IND-enabling studies. She has successfully advanced multiple molecules into clinical development and is known for her rigorous, data-driven approach. Tara previously completed a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellowship at UC San Diego.
Seminars
As tumor heterogeneity and acquired resistance continue to limit the durability of single-payload ADCs, dual-payload
strategies are emerging as a powerful approach to deliver complementary mechanisms of action within a single, precisely engineered construct.
Join leading experts as they discuss how orthogonal chemistry, enzymatic precision, and innovative linker design can converge to create stable, scalable, and clinically translatable dual-payload ADC platforms by:
- Balancing combinatorial potency with molecular precision, examining how one-step multi-payload conjugation, glycan directed strategies, and orthogonal enzymatic chemistries can achieve controlled payload ratios and spatial placement to address tumor heterogeneity without compromising stability
- Redefining site-specific conjugation as the foundation for dual-payload success, debating how high-precision enzymatic platforms and EGCit-enabled linker systems can deliver homogeneous constructs with optimized DAR distribution, improved pharmacokinetics, and reduced off-target toxicity
- Designing linker architectures to strategically combat resistance, evaluating how innovative cleavable, traceless, or modality-specific linkers can coordinate sequential or complementary payload release, integrate novel payload classes, and maintain manufacturability while expanding the therapeutic index
- Rationally engineering linker architectures to precisely tune payload-specific release kinetics, balancing plasma stability with efficient intracellular cleavage, thereby maximizing synergistic efficacy and overcoming heterogeneous tumour resistance
- Implementing technical improvements to achieve controlled, site-specific dual loading, enabling precise drug-to-antibody ratios while preventing payload exchange, stochastic distribution, or conjugation-site competition
- Developing integrated, high-throughput screening workflows to rapidly evaluate novel payload combinations, leveraging modular linker platforms, parallel conjugation strategies, and miniaturized in vitro cytotoxicity and stability assays to identify promising synergistic warhead pairings
