Scientific Advisory Board
Napoleone Ferrara, MD
UCSDDr. Ferrara is a Distinguished Professor at UCSD. He obtained his M.D. from the University of Catania and conducted post-doctoral research at UCSF. While at Genentech, Dr. Ferrara discovered VEGF, which led to the development of blockbuster drugs Avastin® and Lucentis®. Avastin has been approved by the FDA for 11 indications in multiple cancer types and Lucentis has been approved for therapy of neovascular age-related macular degeneration and other ocular vascular disorders. In 2018, anti-VEGF therapies generated approximately $13 billion in revenue. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and has won numerous awards including the Lasker Award and the Breakthrough Prize.
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Yihai Cao, MD, PhD
Professor at the Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, SwedenDr. Cao is a Distinguished Professor of Vascular Biology at Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He received his Ph.D. from the Karolinska Institute and trained with Dr. Judah Folkman at Harvard. Dr. Cao is a leading international expert on tumor angiogenesis and endogenous inhibitors of angiogenesis. His team also revealed mechanisms of pathogenic angiogenesis in many other diseases. He is a member of Academy of Europe, a member of European Academy of Sciences and Arts, and a member of National Academy of Inventors (US). He received the Fernström research prize in 2004 and the Axel Hirsch Prize in medicine 2014.
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Ernest Wright, PhD, FRS
UCLADr. Wright is a Distinguished Professor of Physiology and Medicine at UCLA. He received his Ph.D. at University of Sheffield and was trained at Harvard before starting his distinguished career at UCLA School of Medicine. Dr. Wright is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a member of the German Academy of Science, and a member of the Royal Society. His discovery led to a new class of drugs to control diabetes. He also developed novel chemical probes to detect cancer. He has served on many advisory boards including for Boehringer Ingelheim.
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Jeremy Nathans, MD, PhD
Johns Hopkins University School of MedicineDr. Nathans is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and Professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Stanford University and conducted post-doctoral research at Genentech in Axel Ullrich’s lab. Dr. Nathans was the first scientist to clone a GPCR and he has made seminal discoveries in vision and vision diseases, including retinal vascular diseases. Dr. Nathans has received numerous awards including the Champalimaud Award and the Edward Scolnick Prize. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine, and has served on the scientific advisory board of Merck Research Laboratories.
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Steven McKnight, PhD
UT SouthwesternDr. McKnight is a Distinguished Professor at UT Southwestern Medical Center. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Virginia and conducted post-doctoral research at the Carnegie Institute of Washington. Dr. McKnight has made many important contributions to biomedical research and has received numerous awards including the Eli Lilly Award, National Academy of Sciences Award in Molecular Biology, and the Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine and was the past President of American Society of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Dr. McKnight also co-founded Tularik (acquired by Amgen for $1.3 billion in 2004) and Peloton Therapeutics (acquired by Merck for $2.2 billion in 2019).
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