SPEAKERS
March 2022 Meeting
ABE HEIFETS
CEO, Atomwise
Dr. Abraham Heifets is CEO and Co-Founder of Atomwise, where he and Co-Founder Dr. Izhar Wallach invented the use of deep convolutional neural networks for drug discovery. Dr. Heifets was a Massey Fellow at the University of Toronto—a center for AI innovation—and a Fellow of the Ontario Brain Institute. His doctoral work applied machine learning and classical AI techniques to organic synthesis planning, a long-standing challenge in chemistry. His vision of AI bringing better, safer and more potent drugs to patients was recently featured in the July 2019 Moonshot issue of Newsweek. Dr. Heifets is a thought-leader on the use of AI for drug discovery and is an author on 24 papers, patents and patent applications. Dr. Heifets has presented his work to the U.S. GAO, the National Institutes of Health, the American Chemical Society, and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence.
JEROME KIM
Director General, International Vaccine Institute
Jerome H. Kim, M.D., is the Director General of the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) and an Adjunct Professor, Graduate School of Public Health, Yonsei University. He served as the Principal Deputy, MHRP as well as the Chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Virology and Pathogenesis and the Project Manager, HIV Vaccines Project Management Office, U.S. Army Medical Material Development Activity. Dr. Kim was a Professor of Department of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He led the Army’s Phase III HIV vaccine trial (RV144), the first demonstration that an HIV vaccine could protect against infection, as well as subsequent studies that identified laboratory correlates of protection and sequence changes in breakthrough HIV infections after vaccination. Dr. Kim graduated from the Yale University School of Medicine in 1984 and completed his training in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases at Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Kim has authored over 250 publications.
DR. BRIAN LEYLAND JONES
Former Director of Emory and McGill Cancer Centers
CMO National Foundation for Cancer Research
Chief Science Officer, The Darwin Foundation
Brian Leyland-Jones, BSc (Ist class Hons), MB BS, PhD, FRACP, FRCPC is the Chief Medical Officer and Scientific Advisory Board Member for the National Foundation for Cancer Research (NFCR) and Chief Scientific Officer of The Darwin Foundation. He also serves as the Chief Medical Officer of OTraces, Xylonix and the N OF 1 Mission, collectively devoted to the implementation of prevention and cure of malignancy globally. He sits on several national and international boards including the Asian Foundation for Cancer Research (AFCR), NED Biosystems, Non-Pareil, Ratio and is Director Emeritus for the WIN Consortium. He founded Xanthus, AKESOgen and Viviphi.
Dr. Leyland-Jones holds biochemistry, medical, and doctoral degrees from the University of London. Following residency training at Hammersmith, Brompton, St. Bartholomew’s and London hospitals, he completed a clinical pharmacology fellowship at Cornell University and a medical oncology fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. He then joined the academic staff at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and New York Hospitals with a special research interest in Early Phase clinical, clinical pharmacological and biomarker evaluation of many anticancer compounds, including the platinums and anthracycline analogs in use today. In 1983, he moved to the National Cancer Institute (NCI) to head the Developmental Chemotherapy section. During his time with the NCI, he was responsible for the overall development of approximately 70 anti-cancer compounds in various stages of transition from in-vitro screening to Phase III clinical trials, including overseeing the early development of paclitaxel in Phase 1 and 2 trials. From 1990 to 2000, he served as founding chair of Oncology and director of the McGill University Comprehensive Cancer Centre. He recruited and built a broad multifaceted cancer centre, including a robust cross-hospital clinical trials enterprise, with deep clinical pharmacologic and biomarker support. Dr. Leyland-Jones continued as the Minda de Gunzberg Chair in Oncology and professor of medicine at McGill University in Montreal, Canada for 7 additional years, focusing on the development and biomarker strategies of several of the new targeted oncologic agents.
He joined Emory University in 2007. As Director of the Winship Cancer Centre and Associate Vice-President of Health Sciences, Dr. Leyland-Jones lead the Centre to obtain National Cancer Institute Cancer Centre Designation, the first in the State of Georgia, and for the first time in 30 years. Dr. Leyland-Jones was instrumental in building the Genomics Medicine Program at the Avera Cancer Institute in Sioux Falls, SD where he was the Vice President of Molecular and Experimental Medicine from 2014-2019. Dr. Leyland-Jones’ principal academic contributions have been in the fields of anticancer therapy development, the pharmacodynamics, pharmacokinetics, and pharmacogenetics of oncological clinical trials, the translation of preclinical models into the clinic, biomarker endpoints in Phase I/II clinical trials, and screening and mechanistic studies of novel targeted and chemotherapeutic anticancer agents.
Dr. Leyland-Jones is the recipient of numerous research grants, and has served as principal, co-principal and co-investigator on more than 100 clinical studies. He has authored and co-authored more than 210 peer-reviewed articles and book contributions, 25 books and book chapters, 425 abstracts and 35 patents. He has a robust speaking and private consulting practice that takes him all over the world.
DENNIS PURCELL
Founder, Aisling Capital
Former MD, JP Morgan Chase H&Q Healthcare
Mr. Purcell is the original Founder of Aisling Capital LLC. Previously, he served as the Senior Managing Partner. Prior to Aisling Capital, Mr. Purcell served as Managing Director of the Life Sciences Investment Banking Group at Chase H&Q (formerly Hambrecht & Quist, “H&Q”) for over five years. While at H&Q, he was directly involved with over two hundred completed transactions and supervised over $10 billion of financing and advisory assignments in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical products industries. During his tenure, BioWorld and other industry publications cited H&Q as the leading underwriter of life sciences securities. Prior to joining H&Q, Mr. Purcell was a Managing Director in the Healthcare Group at PaineWebber, Inc.
Mr. Purcell is a frequent commentator on the industry and has been honored in the “Biotech Hall of Fame” by Genetic Engineering News, named to the Biotechnology All-Stars list by Forbes ASAP, honored as one of the top 50 Irish-American businessmen and cited as one of the top 100 contributors to the biotechnology industry.
Mr. Purcell has served as a director of Aton Pharma (acquired by Merck), Bridge Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pharmaron), Cengent Therapeutics, Dynova Laboratories, Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Valentis and Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Purcell also served as a member of the Section Governing Board at BIO (“Biotechology Innovation Organization”), the Irvington Institute and on the Board of L.E.K. Consulting. He currently sits on the Boards of Real Endpoints, Summus Global, Inc., BioScience Managers, and Ichnos Sciences. He sits on the Editorial Advisory Board at Life Science Leader Magazine; Member of the Board at NYBIO Association; Board Member at The University of Delaware Investment Visiting Committee as well as a member of the Biopharmaceutical Innovation Board at the University of Delaware.
Mr. Purcell received his M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and his B.S. in Accounting from the University of Delaware.
DR. ALFRED SLANETZ
CEO, Geneius Biotechnology
Former CEO, Bluebird Bio
Former Head of Product Development, Genetech
Dr. Slanetz is the founder of Geneius Biotechnology and has been President, Chief Executive Officer and a director of the Company full time since its inception. Prior to co-founding the Company, he served as Chief Executive Officer and President of Bluebird Bio.
Dr. Slanetz also served as Vice President, Business Development of TRANSGENE in May 1996. From 1994 to 1996, he served as Manager, New Product Planning and Development at Genentech Inc. Prior to that, Dr. Slanetz was a Management Consultant for Arthur D. Little.
He received his Ph.D. in Molecular and Immunobiology from Yale University, as well as a Masters from Brown University.