Advisory Board

Randall W. King MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

Randall W. King, MD, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School, where his laboratory develops novel chemical tools to study ubiquitin-dependent protein breakdown and uses high-throughput siRNA screening to identify new genes required for cancer cell division. Prior to joining the faculty at Harvard Medical School, Dr. King was a fellow at the Institute of Chemistry and Cell Biology at Harvard, where he developed new approaches in chemical genetics, including instrumentation used for the synthesis and screening of arrayed split-pool chemical libraries. Dr. King co-founded the drug discovery company Kalypsys in 2001, and served on its science advisory board for four years. He received an MD from Harvard Medical School after receiving a PhD from Mark Kirschner's laboratory at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He received a B.A. degree in chemistry from Carleton College in 1987.

Julie A. Theriot PhD, Associate Professor, Stanford University

Julie A. Theriot, PhD is an Associate Professor at the Stanford University School of Medicine, with appointments in the Department of Biochemistry and the Department of Microbiology & Immunology. The research of her laboratory explores the mechanics and dynamics of cell organization during health and disease, with a particular emphasis on host-pathogen interactions in bacterial infections and on cancer cell metastasis. Her group has also developed computational, analytical and statistical methods for large-scale quantitative image and motion analysis. She has won numerous awards for both research and teaching, including a MacArthur Foundation fellowship in 2004. Prior to joining the faculty at Stanford in 1997, Dr. Theriot was a Whitehead Fellow at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. She received a PhD in Cell Biology from the University of California at San Francisco in 1993, and concurrent BS degrees in Biology and in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1988.

P. Renee Yew PhD, Associate Professor, University of Texas

P. Renee Yew, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio in the Institute of Biotechnology, where she studies cell cycle dynamics. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Texas, Dr. Yew was a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School. She received a PhD degree from the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) and a Bachelor's degree from the University of California at Berkeley.

Nathanael Gray PhD, Assoc. Prof. Dana Farber Cancer Institute and HMS

Nathanael Gray, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Cancer Biology at the Dana Farber Cancer Research Institute with a joint appointment in the Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at Harvard Medical School. His laboratory focuses on the design and application of selective small molecule kinase inhibitors for the treatment of cancer. Dr. Gray is an inventor on over 20 patents in the kinase inhibitor space and he has published over sixty peer reviewed publications. Prior to joining Harvard Medical School, Dr. Gray was the Director of Biological Chemistry at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) where he led a team of forty researchers focused on drug discovery for the treatment of cancer. Dr. Gray received both his BS degree and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Bruce Conklin MD, Sr Investigator, Gladstone Inst. and Professor, UCSF

Bruce R. Conklin, MD is a Senior Investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease and a Professor at the University of California, San Francisco, with appointments in the Departments of Medicine and Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology. His research utilizes bioinformatics, receptor engineering, and stem cell biology to understand basic pharmacological responses, with a particular emphasis on the largest known family of receptors for hormones and drugs, called G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs). Dr. Conklin received an A.B. degree in public health from the University of California, Berkeley in 1982. He completed an MD degree at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 1988. During his last two years of medical school, Dr. Conklin had the privilege of working under the tutelage of Nobel Laureate Julius Axelrod, PhD, at the National Institutes of Health. He then completed his residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital and a postdoctoral fellowship in the laboratory of Henry Bourne, MD at UCSF. Dr. Conklin served as the founding director of the Gladstone Genomics Core and is currently the founding director of the Gladstone Stem Cell Core. From 1995 to 2001, Dr. Conklin was the Associate Director of the General Clinical Research Center at San Francisco General Hospital. He is a member of several honorary societies including the American Society for Clinical Investigation. Dr. Conklin was the co-chair of the UCSF public science project in 1994, and is co-chair of the UCSF-California Academy of Sciences Affiliation Task Force. Dr. Conklin’s interest in genomics led to the development of a widely used, open source software package (www.GenMAPP.org), and a rapidly growing public wiki for Pathway information (www.WikiPathways.org).

G. Cameron Dales, VP and General Manager, Symyx Technologies

Cameron Dales is currently the General Manager and co-founder of Symyx Technologies' Tools business unit, which with annual revenues of nearly $50M, is a leading provider of automated scientific research systems to innovators in the Chemicals, Energy and Pharmaceutical industries, including ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical, P&G and Merck. As GM he is responsible for all growth, business strategy and customer facing functions and over three years oversaw the doubling of the business as it was transformed from a series of custom, technology transfer projects to a scalable operation, based on highly configurable products. In 10 years at Symyx, he has held positions in technology development, engineering and operations and holds over 20 patents in the areas of parallel reactors and high throughput screening technology. Prior to Symyx, he worked in Lockheed’s Space Systems division on programs such as the Hubble Space Telescope Servicing Mission and the first commercial Earth imaging satellites. He holds engineering degrees from Cornell and Stanford.

Howard R. Asher, President & CEO, Global Life Sciences Inc

Howard Asher serves as President & CEO of Global Life Sciences, Inc., a company he founded in 2005. At GLS, Howard leverages his regulatory affairs, IT and business management knowledge to help small to mid-sized life sciences companies to succeed. Prior to GLS, Howard was Group Director of Global Life and Health Sciences at Sun Microsystems, Inc. At Sun, Howard led worldwide sales and marketing teams active within 140 countries. While at Sun, Howard founded the LSIT Global Institute, a non-profit organization with a mission to develop an independent source of trusted IT guidance referred to as Good Informatics Practices (GIP) for the global life and health sciences community. In 1999, Howard founded BioQ, Inc., where he created an innovative, smart automated system to expedite the medical product information process. Under Howard's leadership, BioQ developed groundbreaking IT intellectual property for managing unstructured data in any language. In 1979, Howard founded Advanced Bioresearch Associates (ABA), which grew to be the premier Life Sciences—FDA Regulatory Affairs consulting firm for Life Science company clients, worldwide. Howard served as President, CEO and Chairman of ABA for 20 years, securing regulatory approval for hundreds of medical products, including drugs, biotherapeutics, medical devices and in-vitro diagnostics. Howard has served on the Board of many companies over the years, including BIOCOM, Quorex Pharmaceuticals, Stryker Corp. (Howmedica, Osteonics), the Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center, PharmaPrint, Biomatters, Inc. among others. Howard also teaches at the UCSD School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Rady School of Management at U.C. San Diego.

Leigh Berryman CEO, Maccine Pte Ltd

Leigh Berryman is a professional, accredited toxicologist with over 30 years experience in the industry (22 years in contract research). He graduated from the University of Newcastle, U.K., in 1976, with an honors degree in Physiology, and joined a major UK-based CRO, where he attained the position of Senior Scientific Officer. In 1982, he joined a global pharmaceutical company as Departmental Head, Regulatory Toxicology, with the responsibility of bringing a new facility to a state of GLP compliance in terms of staff, procedure and equipment. In 1987, he moved back into contract research as Director, Toxicology, with an international CRO in Holland. In 1992, he accepted the position of Toxicological Advisor to the Shell Company and interacted in Shell’s interests with a number of governmental agencies and regulatory bodies. In 1994, he moved to Canada, initially to the position of Director, Toxicology, and thereafter, Director, Business Development, with a Canadian-based CRO. He founded LAB Research International Inc. in July 1998. He took the company public under the umbrella organization, LAB International in 2002 (with revenues of Cdn$10m and a staff of 60) and subsequently grew the Research business by both acquisition and organic growth to Cdn$ 45m in annual revenue in 2005 (with 440 people operating out of 240,000sq ft of facility in four countries). Following the secondary IPO of LAB Research as a fully independent public company in 2006, Leigh left LAB Research and founded his own consulting company "Preclinical and Management Consulting Inc". He is currently CEO of Maccine, a Singapore-based CRO.

Zhu Shen PhD, MBA, CEO of BioForesight

Zhu Shen, PhD, MBA is the CEO of BioForesight, a life science strategic consulting company providing licensing, partnering, investment advisory, and media/public relations services to clients in North America, Europe, and China. An award-winning thought leader on cross-Pacific life science alliances, Dr. Shen had been interviewed by the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Los Angeles Times, Pharmaceutical Executive, China Economic Review, Drug Discovery News, Genetic Engineering News, San Diego Union Tribune, San Diego Business Journal, Voice of San Diego, Asia Talk Radio, and ASIA Media. She was Vice President of Business Development at ItherX Pharmaceuticals (formerly Immusol) in San Diego and held positions at The Wilkerson Group/ IBM, Bayer, and Chiron, with increasing responsibilities in marketing, strategic planning, and business development. Dr. Shen serves on the Board of Directors of Sino-American Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Professionals Association (SABPA), the BIOCOM Asia Task Force Steering Committee, the Athena San Diego Bioscience Committee and CFO Committee. She received the 2006 Annual Asian Heritage Award in Science, Technology, and Research. Dr. Shen received her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Colorado, and an MBA from the Johnson School at Cornell University. She attended Peking University and Peking Union Medical College in China.

Matthew S. Cowlen PhD, DABT, Director of Toxicology, Inspire Pharma

Matt Cowlen, PhD is currently Director of Toxicology at Inspire Pharmaceuticals Inc, a biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing and commercializing new therapies for diseases in the ophthalmic and pulmonary areas. At Inspire, Dr Cowlen is responsible for regulatory toxicology in the respiratory and ophthalmic therapeutic areas. He is responsible for the design, execution, interpretation, and reporting of toxicology and safety pharmacology studies required by international regulatory agencies, and has supervised studies using ocular, pulmonary, intranasal, oral, and intravenous routes of administration. Dr. Cowlen has authored the toxicology and safety pharmacology sections of numerous regulatory filings with US, European, and Canadian agencies, including pre-INDs, INDs, Investigator’s Brochures, End-of-Phase II packages, and an NDA for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Protocol Assistance briefing packages and an Orphan Drug Application for the European Medicines Agency (EMEA), and a Clinical Trial Application for Health Canada (HC). Prior to joining Inspire, Dr Cowlen held the position of Molecular Pathologist from 1996 to 2000 at Pathology Associates International in Frederick, MD. He served on the Board of Directors of the Genetic Toxicology Association from 2005 to 2008, including two years as Secretary and one year as Chair. Dr Cowlen received a PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Missouri-Columbia, successfully completed a 2-year Clinical Chemistry fellowship in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of North Carolina Hospitals in Chapel Hill, and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology.

Dominick L. Auci PhD, Research Director, Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals

Dominick L. Auci, PhD is currently Director of Allergy, Autoimmunity and Inflammation at Hollis-Eden Pharmaceuticals, in San Diego, California. Over the past 15 years, he has served as Assistant Professor of Pathology, SUNY Health Science Center at Brooklyn, Scientific Program Manager of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and Manager of Biomedical Laboratories for Pall Corporation. He carried out postdoctoral research on regulation of allergic responses in collaboration with Dr. Peter Dukor, Head of Sandoz Forshungsinstut in Vienna, Austria. Dr. Auci received a PhD in Pathology from Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn and an MBA in Executive Management from Baruch College. He has over 40 peer-reviewed research publications.

Grace M. Furman PhD, DABT, CEO & President of Paracelsus

Grace M. Furman PhD DABT is currently CEO & President of Paracelsus, Inc. She began her professional career in Cincinnati as a divisional toxicologist in Procter & Gamble’s Health Care Sector. In 1994, she migrated to San Diego to accept a position as sole toxicologist with DepoTech Corporation (now Pacira Pharmaceuticals, Inc.), where she was instrumental in building the preclinical development group. She then moved to Agouron (subsequently purchased by Pfizer). Grace stayed with Pfizer as Senior Director of Regulatory Safety Assessment until 2006. Grace then founded Paracelsus, Inc. Grace’s area of professional expertise relates to regulatory toxicology as applied to development of novel small molecule therapeutics. She received a PhD in Biomedical Sciences with a specialization in toxicology from Northeastern University in Boston, MA (1992). She also holds a BS in toxicology (1986) and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology (2000).

Sean Ekins PhD, DSc, Industry Consultant

Sean Ekins, PhD is currently an independent biopharmaceutical consultant working with several early stage companies including Arnold Consultancy and Technology LLC., Snowdon Inc., Collaborative Drug Discovery Inc. and Collaborations in Chemistry Inc. He is also adjunct Professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, Piscataway, NJ and Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Pharmacy Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Maryland. He is on the scientific advisory board for Emiliem Inc. and ChemSpider, the advisory board for Chemical Informatics at Indiana University and the editorial boards of the Journal of Pharmacological and Toxicological Methods, Drug Metabolism and Disposition, Drug Discovery Today and Pharmaceutical Research. He has authored or co-authored >100 peer reviewed papers and book chapters as well as edited three books on computational applications in pharmaceutical R&D and computational toxicology. His areas of interest are in vitro and computational ADME/Tox, systems biology, cheminformatics and computer-aided drug discovery. He graduated from the University of Aberdeen, receiving MSc, PhD and D.Sc. degrees, prior to working at several large pharmaceutical and biotech companies.

Kent E. Pryor PhD, COO, SynthRx Inc

Kent E. Pryor, PhD is currently Chief Operating Officer at SynthRx Inc. Previously, he was Associate Director, Drug Development at Kemia, Inc., where he worked for 6 years from the company's inception. Before that Dr. Pryor was a Group Leader in the medicinal chemistry department at Corvas International. He is President and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the City Walk Association, and he co-founded the Lambda Biotechnology Association. Dr. Pryor received a PhD in organic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a BA in chemistry from Rice University.

Jon Wortmann Principal, MuseArts LLC

Jon Wortmann is an advisor, speaker, and author of Mastering Communication at Work: How to Lead, Manage, and Influence (McGraw-Hill). He was trained at Harvard University and has consulted with educational, non-profit, startup, and Fortune 100 organizations. He is principal at Muse Arts, LLC, a think tank and consultancy for leaders.

Scott Aylward Co-Founder of Instincts LLC

Scott Aylward is co founder of INSTINCTS, LLC, a company dedicated to helping up and coming executives develop their leadership instincts and skills. He also co-authored the critically acclaimed leadership book "Confessions from the Corner Office" which was released in September 07. Scott has over 25 years experience in the marketing and advertising industry, many with national blue chip brands. Prior to co-founding INSTINCTS Scott served as President/CEO of Barkley Advertising. Under his leadership at Barkley not only did he grow the company to over 400 employees but he also orchestrated a 100% employee buy out of the agency. The result was the creation of the largest employee owned advertising agency in the country, and Barkley still remains as such today. Under his watch Barkley was also recognized as one of the 5 fastest growing agencies in the United States. Scott and his co-author now speak across the country to help refocus executives and inspire those starting out as to the power that comes from mastering the soft skills of leadership. In a time when ethics and honesty have been pushed aside for earnings and greed, they continue to speak to the power of managing from both the head and the heart.

Jeffrey H. Hager PhD, Director, Aragon Pharmaceuticals

Jeffrey H. Hager PhD is currently Director of Biology at Aragon, a San Diego based company focused on new anti-endocrine therapies targeting the biology of hormone resistant cancers. Prior to that, Jeff was responsible for Cancer Pharmacology at Kalypsys Inc in addition to leading a histone deacetylase (HDAC) inhibitor program that led to the identification and early development of KD5170, a novel, orally bioavailable HDAC inhibitor. He held Postdoctoral and Staff Scientist positions at UCSF working with Dr. Douglas Hanahan PhD and Dr. Joe W. Gray utilizing genetically engineered mouse models of cancer to study tumor genetics, angiogenesis and apoptosis. He attended graduate school at Princeton University and the University of California at Berkeley and received a PhD from the latter in Molecular and Cell Biology in 1994, working the laboratory of pioneering Drosophila geneticist Dr. Thomas Cline, PhD He was a Research Associate at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and holds a B.A. in Zoology from Connecticut College.

David Slack MBA, President and Interim CEO, Kinagen Inc

David co-founded Kinagen, an emerging drug discovery and development company focused on a unique technology to selectively inhibit of kinases for broad potential applications. David has a track record of innovation in business development, fundraising and in senior management positions at public and private biotech as well as large pharmaceutical companies. His deal-making experience encompasses nearly $1 billion in corporate partnerships and financings. Prior to co-founding Kinagen, David served as Vice President for Business Development at Isis Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for several major partnerships. From the "buy side" corporate partnering perspective, David served in senior licensing positions as Rhône-Poulenc Rorer and Aventis Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for multiple major strategic partnerships. He has played key roles in securing financing for emerging companies and has provided consulting services to a range of pharma and biotech companies as well as investor groups.

Timothy C. Gahman PhD, Industry Consultant

Timothy C. Gahman is currently an independent medicinal chemistry/drug discovery consultant working with several early stage biotechnology companies. Tim was formerly Associate Director of Medicinal Chemistry at Kalypsys, Inc. where he led drug discovery programs in pain and oncology. In pain, Tim’s most significant work led to the identification of the selective iNOS inhibitor KD7040, currently in Phase II clinical trials for post herpetic neuralgia. In oncology, his team identified the B-Raf/multi-kinase development candidate KD5285. He received a PhD in Organic Chemistry at UC Irvine in 1994, under the direction of Larry Overman, and a BS in Chemistry from Wayne State University.

Eben Massari PhD, Scientist IV & Project Manager, Dart Neuroscience LLC

Eben Massari is a Scientist and Group Leader with Dart Neuroscience LLC, a privately held biotechnology company located in San Diego, California focused on discovering novel therapeutics to help maintain cognitive vitality throughout life. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from UC San Diego and remained there for postdoctoral work studying the role of helix-loop-helix proteins in lymphocyte development and tumorigenesis. Prior to joining Dart Neuroscience, Eben was an Investigator at Kalypsys, Inc. where he served as a Project Leader in the Pain and Inflammation Group and more recently, as Head of Screening where he was responsible for establishing the infrastructure and methodologies for high-throughput screening of GPCRs.

Robert Bukar, Kalypsys

Rob Bukar has almost 20 year of experience in the biotechnology industry. He was previously an Associate Director at Amgen, and is currently Associate Director of Technology Partnerships at Kalypsys. Rob has been in charge of many core operations and internal services within biotechnology companies throughout his career including High Throughput Screening Operations , Biology Facility, Cell Culture Facility, Compound Management Facility. Rob also has extensive experience in assay development and with automated equipment. In his current role at Kalypsys Rob is responsible for sales and marketing of state of the art automated screening equipment sold by Kalypsys Systems. Rob was also recently project manager for a collaboration with Panasonic Life Sciences and was deeply involved in the design and marketing of new liquid handling and plate imaging systems.

Sheraz Gul PhD, European Screening Port

Sheraz Gul is Vice President and Head of Biology at European ScreeningPort, Hamburg, Germany where he is managing and developing biological services which includes Medium and High Throughput Screening bioassay development for various academic partners in Europe. Prior to this he worked for GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals in the UK for 7 years where he was responsible for the design and development of biochemical and cellular assays for High Throughput Screening as well as detailed Hit characterization and following their progression through to the Lead and Candidate selection milestones. He received various awards for his work at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals. In addition, he has a PhD and 5 years post-doctoral research experience all from the University of London. His research whilst in academia included mechanistic studies on cysteine proteinases, catalytic antibodies and CDK2/cyclin A. He has co-authored numerous papers, book chapters and the Enzyme Assays: Essential Data Handbook. In addition, he is on the editorial boards of the European Pharmaceutical Review (where he writes regular articles in its lab automation section) and International Drug Discovery and is acting as a scientific advisor to a start-up company at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research, Braunschweig, Germany. He is also a Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC, CChem).