.jpg?n=9025 "Vac Header")
Day 1 | Day 2 | Speaker Bios
David S. Cho, Ph.D., M.P.H., Senior Scientist for Emerging and Pandemic Threat Preparedness, Office of the Director, Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER), FDA
David Cho, Ph.D., M.P.H., is Senior Scientist for Emerging and Pandemic Threat Preparedness within the Office of the Director in the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) at FDA. His duties include advising on potential and emerging policy issues, formulating appropriate program responses in support of new initiatives, and guiding overall CBER operations regarding pandemic threat preparedness. Prior to joining CBER, he was an influenza program officer within the Division of Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (DMID) in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) at NIH. Previously, Dr. Cho was a post-doctorate fellow in the Influenza Branch at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, GA., and he received his Ph.D. and M.P.H. through the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan.
Steven Pincus, Ph.D., Executive Director, Analytical Operations, Novavax, Inc.
Steven Pincus received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the State University of NY at Buffalo. Over the last 27 years, he has worked on the development of vaccines using a number of technologies and also has developed assays for evaluating immune responses to these vaccines. At Novavax over the last two years, he has led the analytical development, quality control and clinical immunology teams.
Mark Alderson, Ph.D., M.B.A., Director, Pneumococcal Vaccine Project, PATH
Dr. Alderson is Director of PATH’s Pneumococcal Vaccine Project (PVP), which seeks to accelerate the development of promising pneumococcal vaccines and ensure their availability and use in developing countries. Dr. Alderson has more than 20 years of experience in medical research, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and vaccine development. He joined PATH in August, 2006, serving initially as Scientific Director until his appointment as PVP Director in July, 2007.
Prior to joining PATH, Dr. Alderson was Director of Immunology at GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals, Seattle, and was responsible for directing preclinical work on synthetic adjuvants for a variety of vaccine targets. Prior to GSK, he was Senior Director of Immunology at Corixa Corporation where he was responsible for the preclinical discovery and evaluation of adjuvants and vaccines for tuberculosis, Chlamydia and HSV. Dr. Alderson has extensive experience in vaccine development and has published over 50 manuscripts in peer reviewed journals. He served as an Affiliate Associate Professor, Department of Pathobiology at the University of Washington from 2002 until 2006.
Dr. Alderson earned his Ph.D. in immunology at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Melbourne, Australia and his M.B.A. at Seattle University.
Thomas Hassell, Ph.D., Vice President, Vaccine Development, IAVI
Dr. Hassell has twenty years of vaccine development experience gained primarily with Biochem Pharma (now GSK), and Sanofi Pasteur, joining IAVI as their VP for Vaccine Development in June of 2008. He completed Ph.D. studies in Manchester, UK, and went on to Post Doctoral studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as a Rockefeller Fellow. He started as a Research Scientist with Celltech (UK-based biotechnology company) before engaging in a career fully dedicated to the development of human vaccines. After eleven years, most recently as Global VP for Process Development at Sanofi Pasteur in Canada, France and the USA where he assisted in the development of about thirty candidate vaccines, he joined IAVI with its exclusive objective of ensuring an HIV vaccine is developed and made available for all.
Sebastian A. Mikolajczak, Ph.D., Staff Scientist, Malaria Program, Seattle Biomedical Research Institute
Dr. Mikolajczak received his Ph.D. from the Microbiology and Immunology Department at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. Currently he is a staff scientist in the laboratory of Dr. Stefan Kappe and is interested in the biology of the sporozoite and liver stages of the malaria parasite. He is also actively involved in the development of genetically attenuated parasites which are promising whole parasite malaria vaccine candidates.
Peter Billingsley, Ph.D., Senior Director, Entomology and Quality Systems, Sanaria, Inc.
Peter F. Billingsley, Ph.D., is the Senior Director of Entomology and Quality Systems at Sanaria Inc., Rockville Maryland. He has over 20 years experience in medical entomology and malaria transmission research. He has run his own research teams at Imperial College (London, UK) and the University of Aberdeen (Scotland, UK) examining diverse aspects of insect biology related to disease transmission, especially midgut and salivary gland biology, and more recently the molecular physiology of ageing in mosquitoes. Dr Billingsley has served on the editorial boards of major Parasitology and Entomology journals, the College of Experts for the Medical Research Council (UK) and advisory boards for mosquito control trials in Africa. He combines fundamental laboratory work with considerable experience in the field. After a Ph.D. at Queen’s University in Canada and a post-doc at the Swiss Tropical Institute in Basel, Dr. Billingsley was awarded a prestigious Royal Society University Research Fellowship in 1988 which he held at Imperial College, London. He moved to Aberdeen University in 1995 where he was senior lecturer and Head of Zoology in the School of Biological Sciences. He has published over 80 peer reviewed articles in international journals. Since 2006, he has brought his broad expertise to bear on the unique challenges of developing and deploying a live attenuated Plasmodium falciparum sporozoite vaccine at Sanaria, Inc.
Beth-Ann Coller, Ph.D., Senior Vice President, Research and Development, Hawaii Biotech, Inc.
Beth-Ann Coller Ph.D., Senior Vice President for Research and Development at Hawaii Biotech, Inc., has more than fifteen years of post-doctoral viral vaccine research and development experience. Dr. Coller received her Ph.D. in 1993 from the University of Nebraska Medical Center, where she studied the molecular virology of picornaviruses. She then joined Hawaii Biotech where her efforts focused on development of vaccines based on recombinant subunit approaches. In 1999, Dr. Coller joined GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals in Rixensart Belgium where she was the project manager for the dengue vaccine project and ultimately led the Preclinical Virology Group, which was responsible for preclinical development of viral vaccines for dengue, influenza, measles, mumps, rubella, varicella, human papilloma virus, rotavirus, and cytomegalovirus. In September 2004 Dr. Coller rejoined Hawaii Biotech and is now responsible for all Research and Development activities.
Lewellys F. Barker, M.D., M.P.H., Senior Medical Advisor, Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation
Lew Barker is currently Senior Medical Advisor, supervising Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance, and Director of Policy at the Aeras Global TB Vaccine Foundation in Rockville, Maryland. He has served as a medical research scientist and senior manager with the Division of AIDS of the US National Institutes of Health/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the NIH Division of Biologics Standards, the US Food and Drug Administration Bureau of Biologics, and the American Red Cross National Headquarters, with responsibilities for product development, regulation, and medical and public health applications of vaccines, drugs and diagnostics. He has worked as a bench and clinical scientist and published extensively on preclinical and clinical research on a variety of biomedical products, disease detection, epidemiology, risk assessment, treatment and prevention of infectious diseases.
Kate Rittenhouse-Olson, Ph.D., Professor, Director, Biotechnology Program, Biotechnical and Clinical Laboratory Sciences, The University at Buffalo
Kate Rittenhouse-Olson has been involved in research concerning the immune response to carbohydrate antigens since 1984, when she was a post-doctoral fellow at Roswell Park Cancer Institute (RPCI), gaining clinical diagnostic experience with T. Ming Chu, (the discoverer of Prostate Specific Antigen for diagnosis) and then carbohydrate experience with Khushi Matta (a prominent carbohydrate chemist). Since that time, she has been involved in the development of monoclonal and polyclonal antibodies to defined saccharides as diagnostic markers, vaccine candidates or as targeting molecules in both bacterial and cancer research. Her laboratory, RPCI based for the first 9 years, and now at UB for the last 16 years, has had an emphasis on tumor associated carbohydrate antigens, and recently has been involved in patents, “Use of anti-T antibody to block metastasis of T-antigen bearing tumors”, and “Carbohydrate Antigen-Nanoparticle Conjugates and Methods for Inhibiting Metastasis in Cancer”. Involvement as a contract laboratory for Wyeth-Pharmaceuticals for the development and characterization of monoclonal antibodies to bacterial carbohydrate antigens for more than 13 years has continued to be scientifically rewarding. Current techniques utilized in her laboratory include; immunotherapy and radioimmuno-localization in a mouse metastatic breast cancer model, flow cytometry for evaluation of levels of carbohydrate antigens and lectin binding sites on tumor cells, glycohistochemistry using progressive NIH cancer tissue microarrays for the analysis of possible upregulated saccharide binding ability on tumor cells, and immunohistochemistry with tissue procurement from RPCI. Rittenhouse-Olson is also an adjunct faculty member of the Immunology Department at RPCI . She is active in the NIH glycomics consortium. Her invited talks over the last 2 years have included 1)Passive and active immunotherapy to block metastasis Immune response to CHO antigens on other microbes and on tumors. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, Carbohydrate Moieties as Vaccine Candidates. Bethesda, MD September 10-11 2007. 2) Rittenhouse-Olson, Kate Cancer Vaccines. Harvard School of Public Health, Graduate Design and Development of Vaccines Course. Boston, Mass. October 12, 2007.3)Rittenhouse-Olson, Kate Immunotherapy to Block Adhesion. University at Buffalo. Department of Oral Biology Seminar Series Dec. 17, 2007.4)Rittenhouse-Olson, Kate Immunotherapy Targeting a Carbohydrate Tumor Associated Antigen to Block Adhesion and Metastasis MacQuarrie University, Sydney, Australia. April 21, 2008. 5) Rittenhouse-Olson, Kate Accreditation of a Medical Technology Program at the National Level and Biotechnology Program Approval at the State Level. Menoufia University, Shiben El Kom, Egypt. June 24, 2008.6) Rittenhouse-Olson, Kate Breast Cancer Studies: Research towards Innovative Therapies. Gender Institute’s Distinguished Scholar Lecture, April, 2009
Rob M.J. Liskamp, Ph.D., Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Utrecht University
Rob Liskamp studied chemistry and did his Ph.D. in Bio-organic Chemistry at the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands (1982) working with Harry Ottenheijm. Post-doctoral research (1983-1986) was carried out in the group of I. Bernard Weinstein in The Institute of Cancer Research and in the group of W. Clark Still, Department of Chemistry, Columbia University, New York. In 1986, he moved to the University of Leiden working as an assistant professor in the group of Jacques van Boom. In 1991, he was a visiting professor at the University of California in Los Angeles in the group of François Diederich. In 1994, he became Associate Professor at Utrecht University and in 1996 professor of molecular medicinal chemistry. He is head of the group medicinal chemistry and chemical biology. He has a joint appointment at the departments of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Chemistry. He is coordinator of the Utrecht University research focus area "drug innovation." Dr. Liskamp’s research interests include biologically active modified peptides and peptidomimetics, dendrimers, peptide folding, molecular recognition, synthetic receptors, protein mimics including synthetic antibodies and vaccines. He has been awarded 28 Ph.D. degrees, and his papers have been published in 200 refereed journals. In addition, Dr. Liskamp holds 7 patents.
Jamie Scott, Ph.D., Professor, Molecular Biology & Biochemistry, Simon Fraser University
Jamie K. Scott has been at Simon Fraser University since 1993, and is a member of the Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry. In 2004, she was awarded a Canada Research Chair in Molecular Immunity and became cross-appointed in the new Faculty of Health Sciences. Dr. Scott was a pioneer in the development of phage display technology, and has focused her research on vaccines that elicit antibodies against targeted sites on pathogens, and on the B-cell responses in infection and after immunization.
Hersh Mehta, Ph.D., Head, Product Conception and Development, Sanofi Pasteur Biologics
Hersh Mehta, Ph.D. is currently Head of Product Conception and Development at Sanofi Pasteur Biologic in Cambridge, MA.He has over 15 years of vaccine development experience with several IND filings including licensure of first live attenuated influenza vaccine, FluMIstTM He has over 20 publications and has given several invited talks over the years.
Mojca Skoberne, Ph.D., Head, Cellular Immunology, Genocea Biosciences
Mojca Skoberne is Head of Cellular Immunology at Genocea Biosciences, Inc. Dr. Skoberne joined Genocea from the Cancer Institute at NYU School of Medicine in New York where she developed dendritic cell-based vaccines for infectious diseases, cancer and autoimmunity. Prior to NYU, Dr. Skoberne was a postdoctoral researcher at Rockefeller University in New York and a researcher at University of Heidelberg, Medical Faculty of Mannheim, Germany. Dr. Skoberne holds a Ph.D. in Medical Sciences from Ljubljana University, Slovenia.
Raj Dua, Ph.D., VP, Operations, Product Development, Etubics Corporation
Dr. Raj Dua is Vice President of Operations at Etubics Corporation. He is responsible for process development, manufacturing and clinical operations. Prior to joining Etubics, Dr. Dua was VP, Pharmaceutical Operations at Alder Biopharmaceuticals and Sr. Director of Product Development at Trubion Pharmaceuticals in Seattle, WA.
Day 1 | Day 2 | Speaker Bios