Appendix C
Biographical Information
ORGANIZING COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Carole A. Bewley, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, is a Senior Investigator at the National Institutes of Health, and Chief of the Natural Products Chemistry Section in the Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry, NIDDK. She received her Ph.D. in Oceanography and Marine Natural Products Chemistry from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UCSD, and was a Cancer Research Institute Postdoctoral Fellow in protein NMR. Her current research program focuses on bioactive marine natural products, protein-carbohydrate recognition, and HIV entry. Dr. Bewley has received the National Institutes of Health Director’s Award, is an editorial board member of Current Medicinal Chemistry–Anti-Infectives, and is a chartered member of Synthetic and Biological Chemistry (CSR/NIH) and Molecular Libraries (NIH Roadmap) study sections. She has been an active member of the American Chemical Society for 15 years, serves on Editorial Advisory Boards and as an expert reviewer for multiple ACS journals, and is a member of the Long Range Planning Committee, Division of MedChem for the ACS.
John W. Kozarich, ActivX Biosciences, Inc., is Chief Executive Officer and President of ActivX Biosciences, Inc. He is also the Chief Scientific Advisor of Kyorin Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Adjunct Professor at the Scripps Research Institute, and Chairman of the Board of Ligand Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Dr. Kozarich has over 20 years experience in academic and pharmaceutical research. Most recently, he was Vice President at Merck Research Laboratories, where he was responsible for programs including antimicrobial drug discovery, enzymology, 5a-reductase biology, lipid biochemistry, nuclear receptors, ion channels and structural biology. He has been involved in a number of Merck drug programs, including Propecia, Type-1 5a-reductase inhibitor, and MRSA carbapenams. He also has had primary responsibility for a number of Merck collaborations with biotechnology companies, such as Aurora Biosciences, Cubist, and KaroBio. In addition, he has played a major role in Merck’s acquisition of SIBIA and in the development of its new Boston Research Center. Previously, Dr. Kozarich held faculty positions at the University of Maryland, College Park, and Yale University School of Medicine. He also served as Vice President, Research and Development at Alkermes, a biotechnology company that develops products based on sophisticated drug delivery technologies. Dr. Kozarich is internationally known for his work on enzyme mechanisms and on the chemistry of DNA cleaving antitumor drugs. He was an American Cancer Society Faculty Research Awardee and in 1988 received the Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry of the American Chemical Society for his unique and broad research contributions. He has also served on numerous government and academic committees. Dr. Kozarich has authored over 125 primary scientific publications and holds three patents.
Luis E. Martínez, Trinity University, is the Director for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Adjunct Professor of Chemistry at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Dr. Martínez’s research interests include the discovery, development, and application of unique, transition metal-mediated, solid-phase synthetic methods for the high-throughput synthesis of pharmacologically active small molecules and the concurrent assessment of the chemical genetics of the resulting compound libraries in infectious disease, immune response, oxidative stress and cell cycle control. Dr. Martínez’s experience spans both academia and business. Prior to his position with UTEP, Dr. Martínez served as a Senior Account Executive with Feinstein-Kean Healthcare, an
Ogilvy PR Worldwide Company. Dr. Martínez has also been involved with scientific workforce diversity and American competitiveness, broadening participation in research and the recruitment and retention university minority faculty and students in science for over a decade. He has been actively involved with SACNAS (Society for the Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science) and has served as a member of the SACNAS Board of Directors for eight years. In addition to his current service on the SACNAS Board, he also currently sits on the ACS Minority Affairs Committee. Dr. Martínez received his B.S. in Chemistry with honors in 1991 from Trinity University (San Antonio, TX) and his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Harvard University in 1997.
Kenneth G. Moloy, DuPont Central Research and Development, is a Research Fellow at DuPont Central Research and Development. He received a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from Northwestern University in 1984 and a B.S. in Chemistry from Indiana University in 1980. Following graduate school he joined Union Carbide’s Technical Center in South Charleston, WV, working in long range R&D. In 1995 he moved to the DuPont Experimental Station in Wilmington, DE. Dr. Moloy’s expertise lies in the areas of organometallic chemistry, catalysis, organic chemistry, and process chemistry. Dr. Moloy has chaired the Gordon Research Conference on Organometallic Chemistry and also the Organometallic Subdivision of the ACS Division of Inorganic Chemistry. Dr. Moloy recently participated on a NAS committee to revise Prudent Practices in the Laboratory, which was published in 2011.
SPEAKERS
Rosemarie Aurigemma, Ph.D. is Chief of the Drug Development Section in the Office of Biodefense Research Resources and Translational Research at NIAID where she leads a team of professionals in the management of a portfolio of contracts to support preclinical and advanced development of novel therapies for biothreat agents, public health pathogens and emerging infectious diseases. In this role, Dr. Aurigemma also serves as co-chair of the Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasure Enterprise (PHEMCE) Biologics Working Group to establish policies and practices for meeting medical countermeasure needs as required by the Assistant Secretary of Preparedness and Response (ASPR, DHHS). Prior to joining NIAID in 2009, Dr. Aurigemma managed a portfolio of grants and contracts within the Developmental Therapeutics Program at the National Cancer Institute’s Division of Cancer Treatment and Diagnosis to usher novel cancer therapies from bench to phase II clinical trials. Her earlier experience was in drug discovery and development and clinical development in the biotechnology industry. Dr. Aurigemma holds a Ph.D. in Microbiology from Colorado State University and a B.S. in Biology from Cornell University.
Chaitan Khosla, Professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at Stanford University, and Director of the Stanford Institute for Chemical Biology, received his Ph.D. in 1990 at Caltech. After completing postdoctoral studies at the John Innes Centre in the UK, he joined Stanford University in 1992. His research on polyketide synthases has enabled fundamentally new approaches for the engineering of antibiotics. More recently, he has also investigated celiac sprue pathogenesis with the goal of developing therapies for this widespread but overlooked disease. He has co-authored over 300 publications and 70 U.S. patents, and is the recipient of several awards and honors including the Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry and the Pure Chemistry Award from the American Chemical Society; the Allan P. Colburn Award and the Professional Progress Award from the American Institute of Chemical Engineers; and the Alan T. Waterman Award from the National Science Foundation. He is an elected member of the American Academy for Arts and Science and the National Academy of Engineering. Over the past two decades, he has co-founded three biotechnology companies and the non-profit Celiac Sprue Research Foundation.
Shahriar Mobashery is the Navari Family Professor in Life Sciences at the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Notre Dame. He received dual bachelor’s degrees in biological sciences and in chemistry from the University of Southern California (1981). and a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Chicago (1985). After postdoctoral studies at the Rockefeller University (1986-1988), he joined Wayne State University as an Assistant Professor in 1989, where he was promoted to Professor in 1997. He assumed the Navari Family Chair at the University of Notre Dame in 2003. Professor Mobashery heads a multidisciplinary research lab. His research interests center on machineries for biosynthesis and recycling of the bacterial cell wall, discoveries of novel antibiotics and elucidation of mechanisms of antibiotic resistance. He is also interested in understanding progression of a number of diseases of the extracellular matrix, including stroke, traumatic brain injury, diabetic wound healing, and cancer metastasis, among others. This mechanistic knowledge is used in pharmacological intervention of these diseases.
José Rubén Morones-Ramírez joined the faculty of his alma mater, the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León (UANL), in August 2012 as a full time professor in the School of Chemistry for the Chemical Engineering Department. He is a member (candidate level) of the National Mexican Science and Technology Counsel and currently coordinates the UANL new university-wide program in
Systems and Synthetic Biology, where he has founded the NanoBiotechnology Research Group and where he is the Principal Investigator. He earned his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the Universidad Autónoma de Nuevo León in Mexico and obtained his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Morones-Ramírez completed a 4 year post-doc with Prof. James Collins at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Boston University and the Wyss Institute at Harvard University. Dr. Morones-Ramírez’s scientific interests involve doing translational research inspired in the fields of Nanotechnology and Systems and Synthetic Biology to advance the development and design of therapeutics, materials, alternative and clean energy, and contribute to increase the world’s food and water supplies. In his scientific career he has published 13 scientific peer reviewed research articles with a combined total of more than 2,000 scientific citations; he has produced two patents and has been involved in the foundation of different startup biotechnology companies such as Chrysalis (focused on the development of Bioplastics), Enbiotix (focused on the development of novel ways to potentiate antibiotics) and Biopristine (focused on the synthesis of antimicrobial textiles using silver nanoparticles). He has been awarded the Bruce and Sharon Thornton Commercial Potential Award and the Malcolm Milburn Endowed Award for Entrepreneurs. Through the founding of Biopristine, he won first place and seed money at the both the Austin and the Global Idea to Product Competition. He is passionate about sharing his excitement for science (particularly the field of nanobiotechnology and synthetic biology) in Latin America and has accomplished this through different science articles written in Latin American journals and local university newspapers about the current international status of the fields. In 2010, as recognition of his labor, he obtained the 2nd place as best scientific media journalist by AgroBioMexico. Dr. Morones-Ramírez is also the lead faculty advisor of the undergraduate student teams NanoUANL, which will be participating in the BioMod 2013 Competition at the Wyss Institute at Harvard, and Team UANL, which will be participating in the prestigious iGEM competition in 2013. He was a member of the organizing committee of the 2012 and 2013 International Green Engineering and Chemistry Meeting, in Monterrey, Mexico. He is also the lead faculty organizer of the first International meeting on Genomic Biotechnology 2013 (AseBioGen 2013) held in Monterrey, Mexico, October 2013. He is a member of the Materials Research Society, the ASM, the AIChE, the ACS, the BMES and the IMIQ.
Karen Joy Shaw established the Microbiology Department at Trius Therapeutics (which was purchased by Cubist Pharmaceuticals in July 2013) and developed strategies for differentiating Tedizolid (a novel oxazolidinone antibiotic which has completed Phase 3 clinical trials) from competitors through resistance studies. In addition, a successful DNA gyrase/topoisomerase IV structure based drug design program led to the creation of a novel class of broad spectrum antimicrobial agents. Her leadership of microbiological, enzymological, and mechanism-of-action studies was instrumental in ensuring appropriate SAR assumptions. Prior to joining Trius, Dr. Shaw was Team Leader, Infectious diseases at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development (1999-2005) where she developed bacterial microarray technology for E. coli and S. aureus. She and her team utilized this technology to determine antibacterial mechanism of action and analyze bacterial pathogenesis. In addition, she implemented several anti-infective projects and identified a viable lead series with in vivo efficacy and a novel mechanism-of-action. As a research fellow at Schering-Plough Research Institute (1984-1999) she initiated the use of genomic approaches for the discovery of novel antibacterial and antifungal agents. Dr. Shaw holds a B.S. in Biology from Brooklyn College, a Ph.D. in genetics from the University of Connecticut, and completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Shaw’s research interests are the discovery and development of novel antibacterial agents in addition to the epidemiology of bacterial resistance mechanisms.
Lynn L. Silver is currently an independent consultant at LL Silver Consulting, LLC, advising industry and academic clients in the area of antibacterial discovery and early development. Previously, at Merck Research laboratories, from 1982 to 2003, she conducted research and supervised groups involved in discovery efforts for new antibacterials in both natural products and chemical collections, support of chemical synthetic projects on improved antibacterials, pre-clinical evaluation of antibacterial drug candidates and the study of antibacterial resistance. Her expertise includes broad knowledge of antibacterial agents, screen design and execution, microbiological evaluation of hits and leads, and studies of mechanism of action and resistance. She was involved in the discovery of the first inhibitors of LpxC, the natural product inhibitor of FabF, platensimycin, and the MRSA carbapenems. She was a member of several project teams coordinating the advancement of drugs through the regulatory process, including INVANZ®.
Dr. Silver received her doctorate at Tufts University in Molecular Biology and Microbiology in 1974 and did postdoctoral work on bacterial DNA replication at the Université de Genève, and on DNA replication biochemistry of bacteriophage T4 at NIH. Throughout her career, she has authored significant research papers and reviews in the field of bacterial genetics, physiology, and biochemistry, as well as discovery and analysis of antibacterial agents, targets, and resistance. She is a member of the Editorial Board of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (1997-2014), an ASM Branch Lecturer (2007-2009), a member of Scientific Advisory Boards of a number of biotechnology companies,
a standing member of the NIH DDR study section, and has spoken at and chaired numerous meetings focused on antibacterial discovery.
Mark Stephen Smeltzer, Ph.D., is a native Arkansan who was born in El Dorado and grew up in nearby Norphlet. His family moved to Halstead, Kansas in 1996 when Dr. Smeltzer was in the 4th grade. He subsequently obtained his undergraduate degree in biology and chemistry from Washburn University in Topeka before accepting a research technician position at the Kansas State University College of Veterinary Medicine. This led to an MS degree and ultimately to a Ph.D. in 1990. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. John J. Iandolo, a KSU Distinguished Professor and well known researcher studying Staphylococcus aureus infection. He then joined the faculty at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in 1993, largely because of the recruiting efforts of Dr. Carl Nelson, who at the time was chair of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. Dr. Nelson’s clinical specialty was hip and knee replacement surgery, and he had a strong interest in overcoming the complication of infection in these procedures, the primary cause of which is S. aureus.
Dr. Smeltzer is currently a Professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology and in the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery. He has been a microbial pathogenesis investigator for more than 25 years and has maintained an interest in orthopaedic infections caused by S. aureus. Together with colleagues at UAMS and around the country, he has taken a broad approach to this work that includes efforts to improve methods for early diagnosis, optimize methods for local antibiotic delivery in the treatment of infection, and define the mechanistic basis for S. aureus biofilm formation and bone destruction. He has also begun to explore novel approaches to the detection and treatment of these infections including the possibility of using antibody-directed nanotechnology as a means of eradicating the offending bacteria irrespective of their metabolic or even antibiotic resistance status.
Dr. Smeltzer’s laboratory has been continuously funded by the National Institutes of Health and other granting agencies since 1996, and he is currently principal investigator on two R01 grants, one R56, and two grants from the Congressionally Directed Medical Research Program. He has been the recipient of numerous research awards, including the New Investigator Award from the Orthopaedic Research Society, the Randall Award as the Outstanding Young Investigator from the South Central Branch of the American Society for Microbiology, and election as an ASM Distinguished Lecturer. He has received numerous teaching awards including the Red Sash, Gold Sash, and Golden Apple. Dr. Smeltzer also currently directs the Center for Microbial Pathogenesis and Host Inflammatory Responses (CMPHIR), where he helps junior investigators develop their careers as independent scientists, integrate their efforts with other investigators on campus in a clinically-relevant and synergistic manner, facilitate interactions with mentoring faculty and Center leadership, and remove to the greatest extent possible any administrative and technical barriers to their success.
