Independant Members
Dr. Gregorio Aversa, Ph.D.
Principal, Abmedix Biomedical, Vancouver, BC
Dr. Gregorio Aversa is an experienced immunologist and industrial scientist. He is a highly sought-after independent scientific and licensing consultant, a business he has focused on for the past 3 years. Dr. Aversa moved to Canada in 2003 as the Vice President, Research at Inflazyme Pharmaceuticals. He was responsible for the company's research operations and management composed of 4 Divisions in the disciplines of Chemistry, Cell and Molecular Biology, Pharmacology and ADME, with a total of ~40 staff with primary areas of research in allergic and inflammatory diseases. Prior to moving to Canada, Dr. Aversa was the Unit Head at the Novartis Research Institute in Vienna, Austria. Dr. Aversa was with Novartis for over 6 years during which time he was responsible for the Autoimmune Diseases, Cellular and Molecular Biology and Biology I Units composed of 10 research laboratories working in the autoimmune and allergic inflammatory diseases areas, immunological tolerance, innate and adaptive immunity. Dr. Aversa started his industrial research career as a Senior Research Associate at the DNAX (Schering Plough) Research Institute in Palo Alto, California.
Dr. Brian Druker, M.D.
Professor, Department of Medicine, Oregon Health and Science University
Dr. Druker specializes in chronic myeloid leukemia (CML). His research interests include activated tyrosine kinases with an emphasis on signal transduction and cellular transformation. His laboratory, working in partnership with Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp., identified the compound STI571, which eventually became the block-buster pharmaceutical Gleevec™ with 2004 sales in excess of US$1.5 billion. Dr. Druker identified and characterized this small molecule drug, as well as managed the first clinical trial, and other early Phase I clinical trials for Gleevec™. He also participated in each of the clinical trials cited in the FDA approval of Gleevec™ for treatment of CML.
Dr. Clayton Smith, M.D.
Director, Leukemia/BMT Program of British Columbia
Dr. Smith received his MD degree from the University of Texas/Southwestern, did his residency in Internal Medicine at New York Hospital/Cornell Medical Center, a fellowship in Malignant Hematology at Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in NY and a fellowship in Bone Marrow Transplantation at Stanford University Medical Center. He has been on the faculty of Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and Duke University Medical Center and was the Director of the Blood and Marrow Transplant Program at Moffitt Cancer Center in Florida prior to moving to Vancouver to become Director of the Leukemia/BMT Program of British Columbia. In addition to his clinical and administrative duties, he is a Senior Scientist at the Terry Fox Laboratory where his group investigates how blood and marrow stem cells can be identified and expanded for transplant purposes (see www.smithlab.org). He has received over two dozen research grants including a Michael Smith Foundation Senior Scholarship and a Canadian Research Chair award, co-founded two companies (Argos Therapeutics and Aldagen) and has authored approximately 80 articles and book chapters on stem cell biology and transplantation.
Founding Scientists
Dr. Gerald Krystal, Ph.D.
Chairman of SAB
Senior Scientist, Terry Fox Laboratory, BC Cancer Research Centre
Professor, Pathology & Laboratory Medicine, UBC
Dr. Gerald Krystal is an internationally renowned scientist in the field of immune and hemopoietic cell signal transduction. In 1996, he discovered, molecularly cloned and patented the enzyme SH2-containing inositol 5'- phosphatase (SHIP), a master regulator that controls the activity of immune cells. This protein is found only in hemopoietic cells and Dr. Krystal has since shown that SHIP regulates multiple signaling cascades involved in cell proliferation, survival and immune cell activation. Dr. Krystal is recognized as the world's foremost authority on SHIP.
Studies in his and collaborators laboratories have implicated SHIP in numerous disease states, including allergies, leukemias and lymphomas and chronic inflammatory disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and inflammatory bowel disease. Dr. Krystal has served as a consultant for a number of biotechnology firms and is a recipient of the prestigious Terry Fox Research Scientist award from the National Cancer Institute of Canada.
Dr. Raymond Andersen, Ph.D.
Professor, Chemistry/Geochemical Oceanography, UBC
Dr. Raymond Andersen is a pioneer in the study of natural marine products. He is internationally known for his research into the identity and structure of novel chemical compounds derived from marine organisms, the molecular routes to their biosynthesis, their role in ocean ecology, and their potential as new drugs.
Research in his laboratory involves the collection of marine invertebrates and bacteria from ocean habitats and screening their extracts for novel secondary metabolites that are potential leads for the development of new drugs. He was the first to show that cold water, as well as tropical water, organisms produce a spectacular range of bioactive metabolites. His research group has successfully isolated and synthesized a large number of new compounds that are present in marine organisms. Among them are those that have anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer properties and these are being developed as anti-asthma, and anti-tumour drugs. Dr. Andersen has been a consulting scientist to one multi-national pharmaceutical company and two Canadian biotechnology companies.
Dr. Andersen holds 17 patents related to novel compounds discovered in his marine invertebrate natural product library. In recognition of his pioneering achievements, Dr. Andersen was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada and recently received the Arthur E. Schwarting Award from the American Society of Pharmacognosy.
Dr. Alice Mui, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Co-Director of the Centre for Surgical Research, Department of Surgery, UBC
Dr. Alice Mui is a talented investigator recruited back to UBC after seven years as a staff scientist at Schering-Plough's research institute (DNAX) in California where she ran a research group devoted to understanding cytokine regulation of immune cell function in order to identify targets for the development of therapeutic strategies.
Studies in Dr. Mui's laboratory currently focus on elucidating the signaling pathways by which the anti-inflammatory cytokine interleukin-10 (IL-10) inhibits immune cell activation. In collaboration with Dr. Krystal, Dr. Mui showed that SHIP is required for the anti-inflammatory action of IL-10 on macrophages. Because of the central role of SHIP in this process, her laboratory developed a novel in vitro, high throughput assay to screen Dr. Andersen's marine invertebrate library for small molecule activators or inhibitors of SHIP. Several "hits" were identified, one of which led to Aquinox's lead product AQX-MN100.
Dr. Mui's work in cytokine biology has been recognized by the International Cytokine Society and she has received a scholarship award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Dr. Christopher Ong, Ph.D.
Research Scientist, The Prostate Centre at VGH
Research Scientist, VCHRI Infection and Immunity Research Centre
Assistant Professor, Department of Surgery, Faculty of Medicine, UBC
Dr. Christopher Ong is an innovative scientist with a history of developing novel technologies for identification and validation of new therapeutic targets and drug discovery. The primary focus of the academic research in Dr. Ong's UBC laboratory is to understand the role of the PI3K/PTEN/SHIP/SHIP2 cell signaling pathway in regulating cell activation, proliferation and survival. In collaboration with the other Aquinox founding scientists, Dr. Ong has been involved in validating SHIP and SHIP2 as ideal therapeutic targets as well as preclinical drug discovery and development of small molecule agonists and antagonists that target SHIP and SHIP2 for treatment of cancer, inflammatory diseases and metabolic diseases.
Dr. Ong holds several patents related to gene trapping and functional genomics technologies. He has recently received a Senior Scholar award from the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research and he is the Director of the VCHRI Mammalian Models of Human Disease core facility.