Dr. Paul K. Wotton received his Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Nottingham and is an experienced CEO, Board Member, named inventor and entrepreneur. He has extensive experience in strategic growth management, business transactions and product development. Dr. Wotton serves on the Board of Directors of Vericel Corporation (NASDAQ: VCEL), Cynata Therapeutics (ASX: CYP), Kytopen (Chairman), Combined Therapeutics and is a Co-Founder and Director of Avenge Bio., a clinical stage biotechnology company. Dr. Wotton was President and CEO of Ocata Therapeutics(NASDAQ:OCAT) until its acquisition by AstellasPharma in 2016. Paul was named as a “Top 100 Innovation CEO” by World Biz Magazine and won the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year Regional (NJ) Life Sciences award in 2014.
Dr. Omid Veiseh, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at Rice University, where he leads a research program aimed at engineering next-generation treatments for a wide range of human diseases by leveraging the latest techniques in synthetic biology, immunoengineering, and materials science to develop innovative cell-based platforms for real-time production of biologics. He is also a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded Sigilon Therapeutics (Nasdaq: SGTX), Avenge Bio, Pana Bio, and Curada Bio. These companies collectively have attracted ~ $500M in private and public investment capital.
Dr. Veiseh received a dual Ph.D. in Materials Science & Engineering and Nanotechnology from the University of Washington. He completed his postdoctoral research with Prof. Robert Langer and Daniel G. Anderson at MIT and Harvard Medical School. Throughout his career, he has authored or co-authored more than 75 peer-reviewed publications, including those in Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Nature Materials, Nature Medicine, and Nature Biomedical Engineering. He is an inventor of more than 40 pending or awarded patents.
Before joining RBL LLC and Sentinel BioTX as the CEO, Rima was a Partner at KdT Ventures where she invested in early-stage biotech spanning human health, climate technology, and synthetic biology. She sits on the board of multiple companies, including Dimension Inx, Cypris Materials, and Modulus Therapeutics. Prior to KdT, she directed the preclinical and clinical development of a portfolio of therapeutic assets at the Fannin Innovations Studio, a venture creation firm focused on technology commercialization in the life sciences.
Rima started her career as a neurologist at the University of Pennsylvania and is a physician-scientist trained at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. Her research as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute fellow in the lab of Dr. Helen Hobbs focused on the development of bio-engineered assays to study lipid transport and metabolism in the context of cardiovascular disease.
Jacob Robinson received a B.S. in Physics from UCLA in 2003 and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Cornell University in 2008 under advisor Dr. Michal Lipson. After completing his Ph.D.studying silicon nanophotonics he began postdoctoral research in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University. While at Harvard, Jacob developed silicon nanowire devices to probe the electrical and chemical activity of living cells. In the summer of 2012, he joined the ECE and BioE departments at Rice. He is currently interested in developing nanofabricated devices to study the structural and functional dynamics of living neural circuits.
Dr. Ravi K. Ghanta is a surgeon-scientist and prominent figure in the field of cardiothoracic surgery. His clinical practice encompasses a wide spectrum of conditions, including coronary artery disease, valvular heart disease, diseases of the thoracic aorta, and lung cancer. He is focused on minimally invasive surgery, extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), mechanical circulatory assist devices, and heart transplantation.
Dr. Ghanta completed his medical training at Harvard Medical School in Boston, MA., graduating with honors. He completed a thesis in Biomedical Optics at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology while receiving fellowships from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Association for Academic Surgery.
Dr. Ghanta’s journey in General Surgery and Cardiothoracic Surgery unfolded at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital/Harvard Medical School. During that time, he served as Chief Resident of General Surgery and Chief Resident in Cardiac Surgery and was a recipient of the John Mannick Award.
In 2012, Dr. Ghanta joined the faculty at the University of Virginia, maintaining an active clinical practice and a funded research lab. He attained multiple clinical leadership positions, including Director of the Adult Extracorporeal Life Support Program. In 2016, Dr. Ghanta joined the Michael E. DeBakey Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine and assumed the role of Chief of Cardiac Surgery at Ben Taub Hospital in Houston, TX. His NIH-funded laboratory focuses on ischemic cardiomyopathy and acute lung injury with the mission of bringing new therapies into the clinic through innovation.
Dr. Jazaeri is the Vice Chair for Clinical Research and the Director of the Gynecologic Cancer Immunotherapy Program in the Department of Gynecologic Oncology and Reproductive Medicine at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He obtained his Bachelor and Medical degrees from the University of Virginia and completed his residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at the same institution. He completed his fellowship in Gynecologic Oncology at the National Cancer Institute and MD Anderson Cancer Center. Since his recruitment in 2014, he has established a broad base immunotherapy program for gynecologic cancers that include adoptive cell therapies, vaccines, and immune checkpoint inhibitor investigations. His other areas of research interest include innovative clinical trial designs and translational research for identification of novel immunotherapy targets for gynecologic cancers.