Advances in Drug Discovery & Development 2024

Dr. Tucker is a seasoned executive who has built several publicly traded biotechnology companies. Dr. Tucker was a founder and Chief Executive Officer of Stem Cell Therapeutics, which he took public on the TSX (TSX: SSS). Trillium Therapeutics (NASDAQ: TRIL, TSX: TRIL) acquired Stem Cell Therapeutics in 2013. Dr. Tucker has also held the position of Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Epimeron Inc., a University of Calgary start-up acquired in the creation of Willow Biosciences Inc. (TSX: WLLW). At Willow, Dr. Tucker served as Executive Chairman and Chief Operating Officer. Prior to founding companies, Dr. Tucker was a healthcare analyst with two investment banks and has also worked in technology commercialization for a university technology transfer office. Dr. Tucker received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Calgary.

Adityo started Verseon to change the way the world finds new medicines. He enjoys building fundamental science-based solutions to major business problems that impact society. Adityo has led the development of Verseon’s drug discovery platform, novel drug pipeline, and overall business strategy. Previously, he was the CEO of Pulsent Corporation and is the primary inventor of technology at the heart of all video streaming today. With a track record of delivering industry firsts, Adityo is an inventor on 40 patent families. He received his BS in physics and mathematics from Caltech.

Dr. Raviv Pryluk is co-founder and CEO of PhaseV, a pioneer in causal machine learning (ML) for clinical trial analysis and optimization. Prior to his tenure at PhaseV, Dr. Pryluk held integral roles in operations and data analytics at Immunai, a biotechnology company specializing in the mapping and reprogramming of immunology. Before that Dr. Pryluk was a technological leader in the advanced technological defense industry for over a decade. He holds a BSc and MSc in aerospace, aeronautical, and astronautical engineering from Technion (Cum Laude) and a Ph.D. in neurobiology and neurosciences from the Weizmann Institute of Science (Summa cum laude).

Dr. Jamie Spangler is The Brody Faculty Scholar and Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Spangler earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University and went on to earn a PhD in Biological Engineering at MIT. After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine, Dr. Spangler launched her independent research group at Johns Hopkins University in 2017, jointly between the departments of Biomedical Engineering and Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering. Her lab, located in the Translational Tissue Engineering Center at the School of Medicine, applies structural and mechanistic insights to re-engineer existing proteins and design new proteins that therapeutically modulate the immune response. In particular, her group is interested in engineering immune molecules such as cytokines, growth factors, and antibodies for targeted treatment of diseases such as cancer and autoimmune disorders.

Annie Yim is a computational biologist with a PhD from Max Planck Institute. She has dedicated her career to harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and data science in order to drive innovation in biology. Currently serving as a Senior Data Scientist at Boehringer Ingelheim, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, she now focuses on using state-of-the-art AI technologies and machine learning approaches to accelerate drug discovery and development processes.

Romina Durigon, Ph.D. recently joined Sphere Fluidics as Senior Field Application Scientist. She has worked as a scientist for more than 15 years, investigating the role of metabolism in diseases and during development. After earning her MSc in Physiology and Pathology from The University of Trieste (Italy), she obtained a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from The University of Manchester (UK), in which she focused on cytosolic redox balance for mitochondrial biogenesis. She went to the National Institute of Medical Research, now part of the Francis Crick Institute in London, to complete a postdoctoral fellowship investigating the role of mitochondrial dysfunction and cellular metabolism in rare diseases. She discovered a ketone bodies-based treatment for the rare Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome and published her results in many peer-reviewed journals. Fascinated by the role of mitochondria in ageing, she continued to investigate the mitochondrial function in epigenetic aging.