CSO
Professor Lorna Harries gained her PhD from University College London in 1994, and now holds a personal chair in molecular genetics at the University of Exeter Medical School. Lorna established the RNA-mediated disease mechanisms group at Exeter in 2006, and now also holds a position as co-founder, co-director and Chief Scientific Officer at SENISCA Ltd, a spin out company founded on the Harries lab’s research. Lorna has interests in omics approaches to the study of human ageing and age-related disease processes in humans, and her work takes a genes to systems approach, ranging from ‘big data’ analyses to detailed individual molecular analysis of particular genes. Her team were the first to report dysregulation of alternative splicing as a new, and druggable, hallmark of ageing, and a demonstration of this in human primary cells.
Remko van Leeuwen has more than 25 years of research experience under his belt, both in the industry as well as in the academic arena.
He has a medical background, and been trained as a clinical epidemiologist, and has extensive experienced in clinical infectious disease management. He has obtained a Ph.D. in clinical HIV studies.
After completing his Ph.D., he decided on a career switch and terminated his hospital-based clinical activities. Over the last 2 decades, he has various positions in drug development and clinical trial conduct. He has designed and executed numerous clinical trials and pre-clinical development programs.
He has been the team leader of large multi-national successful research projects. He carries in-depth knowledge of product development, including regulatory requirements, medical affairs, biostatistics, and data analysis. He has followed the NIABA Masterclass of Biobusiness 2009/2010. In 2011 he founded Madam Therapeutics.
CEO
To cure or to significantly improve today's diabetes therapeutics by maturing our small molecule leads into an orally active drug to treat diabetes, do so by regenerate insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreatic islet. 2. To create, identify, and implement the best approaches to create and/or support growing biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies with innovative tools and processes.
Head of Pharmaceutical Research
Skilled in analytical chemistry, formulation development, chemistry, and team management.
Focusing on science and people development.
Analytical chemistry
Organic synthesis:
Biochemistry
Project Management
S Dravida is the Founder CEO of Transcell Biologics Pvt. Ltd www.transcellbio.science, innovating new vistas in healthcare/biotechnology industry and markets from India. She is an entrepreneurial technocrat of global standing having worked in the USA, Canada and India in the domains of stem cell research/biobanking and product development. She has unique blend of skills of wet lab, product development to managing business.
Under her stewardship, Transcell Biologics, a knowledge driven technology investing entity has evolved from its inception as an R&D unit to a fully integrated biotechnology enterprise encompassing a well balanced business portfolio offering indigenous technologies on biobanking, in vitro products for drug discovery research, intellectual property in regenerative medicine/Immunotherapy for clinical practice.
She is a biologist by education with clinical informatics research experience having associated professionally with the University of North Carolina, USA, Ottawa Health Research Institute, Canada. S Dravida has peer reviewed publications and patents to her credit. She holds IP in the field of large scale cell productions & novel druggable formulations. Outside of work, she explores Monasteries, night skies and reads Science fiction.
A quote that she relates to: It's the possibility of having a dream come true that makes life interesting and when your dream is with real intent and true, the whole universe will conspire and make you realize the dream
Thomas T. Tibbitts, Ph. D. founded DTI in May 2020 to integrate the latest technologies in genomics, biology and computing to bring new medicines to patients suffering with respiratory infections and diseases of the lung. Dr. Tibbitts, serving as its CEO and Head of Research and Development, has over twenty years experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Most recently, Dr. Tibbitts served as Senior Vice President for Computational Research at Goldfinch Bio, where he launched the Kidney Genome Atlas and built a world-class team for sequencing thousands of patients and integrating transcriptomics and epigenetics for the discovery of novel genetic targets in kidney disease. He was part of the initial team that launched Goldfinch with $55M series A funding in 2016 at Third Rock Ventures. At Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Thomas contributed to multiple drug programs for over a decade which lead to Copiktra (duvelisib), a medication approved to treat chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) and small lymphocytic lymphoma (SLL) and IPI-549, currently in clinical development for the treatment of advanced urothelial cancer. Dr. Tibbitts holds a PhD in Biophysics from Brandeis University and has numerous patents and peer-reviewed publications in drug discovery, oncology, enzymology and structural biology.
James C. Keith, Jr., D.V.M., Ph.D. is responsible for the Pre-clinical development plan.
He has a distinguished career as an academic running his own research lab, and in biotech including early-stage companies. He leads the project’s scientific efforts in vascular biology and hemostasis/thrombosis and preclinical study design and implementation.
He has worked for big pharma in pre-clinical research as well as holding senior management positions and has extensive therapeutic expertise in coagulation pathways, the development of biologics, and animal models. Jim is based in the US.
DAISUKE MORISHITA (Ph.D.) is the Chief Scientific Officer at Chordia Therapeutics and leads research initiatives developing cancer treatments that change lives. Prior to founding Chordia in November 2017, DAISUKE invested ten years working on oncology therapeutics at TAKEDA pharmaceutical company, focusing on cancer-related RNA networks. As the industry-academia collaboration representative at TAKEDA, DAISUKE led the CTX-177 drug discovery research. Through the success of the CTX-177 research program, DAISUKE was invited and currently holds an associate professorship at Kyoto University to pursue research into therapeutic strategies in cancer-related RNA networks and adjunct professorships at Kumamoto University and Nagoya City University to produce next-generation anti-cancer drugs. DAISUKE received a Ph.D. in oncology from the University of Tokyo.
Margaret K Offermann, MD, PhD is founding President and Chief Executive Officer of OncoSpherix, a preclinical stage small molecule therapeutics company. She previously was President of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), Deputy National Vice President for Research at the American Cancer Society, Professor of Hematology and Oncology at Emory University and Managing Partner of Salutramed Group (a C-level consulting group). She is widely published and has won numerous awards. She trained in Internal Medicine at the University of Chicago Hospitals and in Medical Oncology at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. She is boarded in both Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology.
Co-founder and CEO
Guido Koch is Co-founder and CEO at Amphilix and
Ph.D. Medicinal chemist ex-Director of Global Discovery Chemistry at Novartis. Since 2017, Chief Operating Officer at Topadur Pharma AG, Schlieren, Switzerland
President and CEO
Tauseef Butt received his Ph.D. degree in Molecular Biology from The University of Glasgow,
Scotland. He was a Staff Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, before
joining SmithKline (now GSK) Pharmaceuticals. He serves as President and CEO of Progenra.
He is also an Adjunct Professor in Biomedical Engineering at Drexel University, Philadelphia
and is active in numerous national and regional professional organizations, including several
dedicated to biotechnology.
CEO
Gábor Somlyai graduated as a biologist at the University of Szeged in 1982 Between 1982 és
1990 he worked for the Plant Protection Institute, from 1983 to 1986 he had a scholarship from
the Hungarian Academy of Sciences as a postgraduate student for obtaining Ph.D. In 1988 he
defended his thesis in molecular biology. In the same year dr. Somlyai spent 6 months at the
Georg-August University in Göttingen with a DFG scholarship and from the end of 1988 he
held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Missouri. Since 1990, dr. Somlyai started
his research, examining the biological importance of naturally occurring deuterium, as a
senior research fellow at the Hungarian Institute of Oncology. In 1993, he established HYD
Ltd. to carry out anticancer research and drug development based on the proprietary
procedure, deuterium depletion, and to start drug registration. Between 1993 and 1997 he
was the scientific director of HYD Ltd., from 1997 he became the CEO of the company. Gábor
Somlyai wrote numerous scientific publications and is a recognized speaker at international
conferences. Gábor Somlyai is the inventor of numerous international patents.
CSO
Advancing drug discovery with innovation and technology. Winner of CSO's award for innovation. Co-led medicinal chemistry-led the research informatics guiding team Extensive experience in identifying and evaluating a range of companies and technologies to drive innovation in discovery.
Built, led, and managed high throughput screening, protein crystallography, SPR, compound management, NMR spectroscopy, bioinformatics, cheminformatics, molecular modeling, and high throughput purification. Build and lead high-functioning teams. Works across an infection, pain, oncology, inflammation, metabolic disease, and Alzheimer's.
Led external science relationships with Evotec, Biofocus, Forma, Heptares, Beactica, and multiple postdoctoral fellows
Associate Principal Scientist
Stefan joined AstraZeneca in June 2016 as Senior Research Scientist in medicinal chemistry, where he was rapidly promoted to Associate Principal Scientist in March 2017. Since January 2019 Stefan is leading the chemistry program of various early phase projects. He is also the editor of two AZ internal journals to update colleagues on recent trends in medicinal chemistry and synthetic organic chemistry.
Before joining AstraZeneca Stefan completed his postdoc with Prof. Movassaghi at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, USA) and his Ph.D. with Prof. Carell at the University of Munich (Germany).
Stefan has successfully led various academic collaborations and was invited to give presentations across Europe. Additionally, Stefan gives annual lectures in the master's program at various universities across Sweden. Stefan is the author of 18 peer-reviewed publications, which were cited more than 500 times, and 1 patent application.
Professor
Experienced Senior Lecturer with a demonstrated history of working in the research industry. Skilled in Research, Cell Culture, Life Sciences, Scientific Writing, and Microscopy. Strong education professional graduated from Imperial College London.
CSO
Dr. Yuxun Wang is currently the Chief Scientific Officer at Pharscin Pharmaceutical Co Ltd. From 2015 to 2020, he served as Vice President of Biology and then Vice President of Biology and Translational Medicine at Denovo Pharmatech Co Ltd. where he envisioned and built innovative drug discovery platforms and teams.
He initiated eight new projects and developed the company’s R&D strategy and pipeline focusing on cancer and immuno-oncology. During his tenure at Denovo Pharmatech, three programs entered clinical trials including the company’s first clinical trials in the US. From 2012 to 2015, he served in leadership positions responsible for cancer drug discovery services and management at top CRO companies.
Dr. Wang has more than 20 years of cancer research experience from both academia and industry. Previously, he served as a senior research biologist at Merck & Co., Inc. and associate director at Metamark Genetics Inc. in the US.
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Targets, translation & risk: Conceptual Framework for Drug Discovery Decision Making
Target Validation in drug discovery. Designing bioassays to measure biological activities
High Throughput Screening Methods (HTS) • Hit Identi cation strategies
Medicinal Chemistry new technologies, updates, and challenges
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The modern armamentarium to tackle disease: Advantage, Disadvantage & pitfalls
Hit discovery from DNA-encoded libraries; past, present, and future
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