BIOTECHNOLOGY: PAST, PRESENT & FUTURE
September 21-23, 2008

  • Garen Bohlin    video
Garen Bohlin has served as Chief Operating Officer at Sirtris since 2006. Prior to Sirtris, Mr. Bohlin served as Chief Executive Officer of Syntonix Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for six years from its inception in 1998. Prior to Syntonix, which was acquired by Biogen Idec in 2006, Mr. Bohlin spent 14 years in executive management at Genetics Institute, Inc. In his last role at Genetics Institute, Mr. Bohlin served as Executive Vice President with responsibility for most of the non-scientific areas of the company that comprised approximately half of the company's then 1,600 employees. Mr. Bohlin played a leading role in structuring and implementing a strategic alliance with American Home Products (now Wyeth) that resulted in the eventual acquisition of Genetics Institute at an implied valuation of approximately $3 billion. Prior to Mr. Bohlin's tenure at Genetics Institute, he was a partner at Arthur Andersen & Co., where he spent 13 years. Mr. Bohlin serves as a director of Acusphere, Inc. and Targanta Therapeutics corporation.
Dr. Robert Bud is a Visiting Professorial Fellow in the Department of History at Queen Mary, University of London. Dr. Bud is an historian of science, technology and medicine and the Principal Curator of Medicine at the Science Museum. He has worked at the Museum in a variety of roles, for 30 years. Fascinated by the process of story telling in the Museum medium, he has directed the development of major narrative and collections based websites at the Science Museum as well as several major exhibitions. In his most recent studies he has examined the social and cultural history of penicillin, and he is working with colleagues at Queen Mary on better understanding of the place of science in post-war Britain.
Dr. Donald G. Comb is the founder and owner of New England Biolabs, a research and biotechnology company in Beverly, Mass. He is also the creator and principal benefactor of the Ocean Genome Legacy Foundation. Don received his PhD from the University of Michigan and did his postdoctoral work with Saul Roseman at the Rackham Arthritis Research Unit, University of Michigan. He was Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School studying nucleic acid synthesis during embryonic development. He spent four years on the function of 5 S rRNA before leaving Harvard to start New England Biolabs.
  • Peter Feinstein    video
Peter Feinstein is a General Partner and cofounder of BioVentures Investors. Feinstein became active in the world of biotechnology in 1981 when he was hired by Dr. Walter Gilbert to direct Biogen’s investor relations and communications activities in Europe and the United States. In 1985, Peter co-founded the Massachusetts Biotechnology Council, serving as its executive director during its initial years and as a board member from 1985 through 1997. In 1990, he received recognition for his work for the industry as a Finalist in the Entrepreneur of the Year competition. Feinstein founded the leading biotechnology communications firm, Feinstein Kean Healthcare, in Cambridge in 1987. The firm was sold to the WPP group in 1999, after building a stellar reputation and a client list that included Genzyme, Biogen, Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Amgen, Abiomed, Novartis, Sepracor and others. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the Board of Advisors of the Harvard-MIT Health Science and Technology Division and serves as Chair of its Development Committee. He also co-chaired the Leadership Circle at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and is a member of its Board of Associates.
  • Maryann Feldman    video
Dr. Maryann Feldman is the Jeffery S. Skoll Chair in Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Professor of Business Economics at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Prior to joining Rotman, Dr. Feldman held the position of Policy Director for Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering and prior to that she was aresearch scientist at the Institute on Policy Studies at the University. Dr. Feldman is on the Advisory Panel for the U.S. National Science Foundation's Program on Societal Dimensions of Engineering, Science and Technology. Her research and teaching interests focus on the areas of innovation, the commercialization of academic research and the factors that promote technological change and economic growth. A large part of Dr. Feldman's work concerns the geography of innovation – investigating the reasons why innovation clusters spatially and the mechanisms that support and sustain industrial clusters.
  • Herbert Heyneker    video
Dr. Herbert Heyneker is a renowned scientist with more than 25 years of experience in molecular genetics. He was the first scientist hired at the founding of Genentech in 1976. In 1984, he joined Genencor, a spin-off from Genentech, as Vice President of R&D. He received his PhD in Molecular Genetics from Leiden University, The Netherlands. He co-founded three biotechnology companies and has been on the board and/or an advisor to numerous biotechnology companies worldwide. An author on more than 50 peer-reviewed papers, Dr. Heyneker holds over 30 issued patents.
  • John H. Leamon    video
John H. Leamon, Ph.D., obtained a B.A. in Zoology from Connecticut College in 1989, his M.S. in Biological Oceanography from the University of Connecticut in 1994, and a Ph.D. in Physiology and Neurobiology from the University of Connecticut in 1999. John conducted his postdoctoral research at Yale School of Medicine under the direction of Dr. Paul Lizardi, working on rolling circle amplification and single molecule detection. Following his post-doc, John developed and productized the emulsion PCR (emPCR) process at 454 Life Sciences. He then transferred to RainDance Technologies, where he led the development of genomic applications for the company’s droplet-based nanoreactor technology. John is currently directing molecular biology at Ion Torrent Systems, Inc. in Guilford, CT. John’s research interests revolve around nucleic acids in general, including nucleic acid amplification, microfluidics and genomics, with a personal interest in the practical benefits and limitations of single molecule amplifications. He has co-authored several articles on emerging sequencing technologies and their real-world application.
  • Yuk-Lam Lo 
Yuk Lam Lo has served as a Director of Sinovac Biotech Ltd. since March 2006. He is currently serving as the Vice President of PerkinElmer Life and Analytical Sciences, Pacific Rim, the Chairman of the Industry Technology Committee of the Chinese Manufacturers’ Association of Hong Kong and the Director of the Chinese Manufacturers’ Association of Hong Kong. Mr. Lo also served as the Chairman of the Innovation and Technology Fund (Biotechnology Projects) Vetting Committee, HKSAR, and as chairman of the Biotechnology Committee, Industry & Technology Development Council, HKSAR. Mr. Lo is a member of the Advisory Committee of the World Trade Centre Association (Hong Kong), an Adjunct Professor of the Chinese University of Hong Kong, the Special Advisor of the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology (HKUST), a committee member of the Biotechnology Research Institute (BRI) of HKUST, and a member of the Advisory Committee of the City University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
  • Alan McHughen    video
Dr. Alan McHughen is currently a Specialist in Cooperative Extension (Plant Biotechnology); Geneticist and Lecturer at the College of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at UC, Riverside. After earning his doctorate at Oxford University, Dr. McHughen worked at Yale University and the University of Saskatchewan before joining the University of California, Riverside. A molecular geneticist with an interest in crop improvement and environmental sustainability, he helped develop US and Canadian regulations covering genetically engineered crops and foods. He served on the recent US National Academy of Sciences panels investigating the environmental effects of transgenic plants, and a second investigating the health effects of genetically modified foods. His is now Past President and Treasurer of the International Society for Biosafety Research (ISBR).
  • Stelios Papadopoulos    video
Dr. Stelios Papadopoulos is a Vice Chairman of SG Cowen and as an investment banker he focuses on the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors. Prior to joining SG Cowen in February 2000, he spent thirteen years as an investment banker at PaineWebber, Incorporated where he was most recently Chairman of PaineWebber Development Corp., a PaineWebber subsidiary focusing on biotechnology. He joined PaineWebber in April 1987 from Drexel Burnham Lambert where he was a vice president in the Equity Research Department covering the biotechnology industry. Prior to Drexel, he was a biotechnology analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.
Before coming to Wall Street, Dr. Papadopoulos was on the faculty of the Department of Cell Biology at New York University Medical Center. He continues his affiliation with NYU Medical Center as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Cell Biology. Dr. Papadopoulos holds a Ph.D. in biophysics and an MBA in finance, both from New York University.
Dr. Stelios Papadopoulos is a co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Exelixis, Inc., and he is a co-founder and member of the Board of Cellzome, Inc. and Anadys Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of GenVec, Inc., SGX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and BG Medicine, Inc. In the not-for-profit sector, Dr. Papadopoulos is a co-founder and Chairman of Fondation Santé. He is also a member of the board of BioVentures for Global Health and the board of Governors of the New York Academy of Sciences.

  • Rich Roberts    video
Richard J. Roberts, Ph.D., was awarded the 1993 Nobel Laureate for his work in gene splicing. In addition to serving as research director at New England Biolabs, Roberts is a fellow of both the Society of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Microbiology.
Dr. Roberts received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Sheffield, England, in 1968. After postdoctoral research at Harvard University, he took a post at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York in 1972.
In 1977 Roberts and a team including Thomas Broker, Louise Chow and Richard Gelinas established that the genes of the adenovirus—one of the viruses that cause the common cold—are discontinuous. The segments of DNA that code for proteins are interrupted by lengthy stretches of DNA that do not contain genetic information. A team from MIT headed by Phillip A. Sharp reported parallel findings the same year.
Based on studies of bacterial DNA, biologists had previously believed that genes consisted of unbroken stretches of DNA, all of which encoded protein structure. It has since been established that the discontinuous gene structure discovered by Roberts and Sharp is the most common structure found in higher organisms (eukaryotes). In addition to having important implications for the study of genetic diseases, this structure is believed to drive evolution by allowing information from different parts of the gene to be brought together in new combinations.
For this work, Drs. Roberts and Sharp were jointly awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

  • Robert Steinbrook
Dr. Robert Steinbrook, M.D., is a national correspondent for the New England Journal of Medicine, and has written many perspective articles, editorials and health policy reports for the journal. From 1993 to 2001, he was a deputy editor of the New England Journal. From 1985 to 1992, he was a medical writer for the Los Angeles Times. He is a graduate of Amherst College and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He is a general internist; he trained in internal medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, Boston University School of Medicine.
  • Kenneth Thibodeau    video
Dr. Thibodeau is currently the Director of the Electronic Records Archives (ERA) at the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). He has 29 years experience in archives and records management and is an internationally recognized expert in electronic records. Dr. Thibodeau taught at the University of Notre Dame and was Chief of the Records Management Branch of the NIH before coming to NARA in 1988. In 1996, he served as the Director of the Department of Defense Records Management Task Force. He studied at Fordham University in New York and the University of Strasbourg, France. He earned a Ph.D. in the history of sociology of science from the University of Pennsylvania. A Fellow of the Society of American Archivists, he has published over 30 papers and spoken at more than 140 conferences around the world.
  • Marc Van Montagu    video
Em.Prof. Marc Van Montagu is President of the European Federation of Biotechnology (EFB) and of the Public Research Responsibility Initiative (PRRI). Together with Jozef Schell in 1982, he founded the biotech company Plant Genetic Systems Inc. of which he was Scientific Director and member of the Board of Directors. He also helped found the biotech company CropDesign, and served as a Board member from 1998 to 2004. He was Professor and Director of the Laboratory of Genetics at the faculty of Sciences at Ghent University in Belgium and Scientific Director of the Genetics Department at Flanders Interuniversity Institute for Biotechnology (VIB). He has received numerous outstanding awards for his pioneering work in plant genetics, including the prestigious Japan Prize. He has been a Foreign Associate of the United States National Academy of Sciences since 1986, the Agricultural Academy of Russia and France, the Academy of Engineering of Sweden and the Italian Academy of Sciences dei XL. He holds 6 Doctor Honoris Causa Degrees.
  • Charles Weissmann    video
Dr. Charles Weissmann is currently the head of the Department of Infectology at the Scripps Research Institute in Palm Beach County, Florida, USA. Weissmann was director of the Institute for Molecular Biology in Zurich, President of the Roche Research Foundation and co-founder and Member of the Scientific Council of Biogen. Weissmann won several awards and is a member of the American Society of Biological Chemistry and the Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina. He also became a Foreign Associate of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Royal Society (UK) and the Orden Pour le Merite (Germany). In 1978, he was a cofounder of Biogen, the first European biotechnology company and has served on several corporate boards.
Professor Weissmann has been internationally recognized for his work, including memberships in the Royal Society (United Kingdom) and National Academy of Science (USA). Professor Weissmann has been awarded six honorary
Julie Xing, Ph.D. currently Vice President, Asia Pacific, brings more than 10 years of experience in research, clinical- and business management to Panomics. Prior to joining Panomics, Julie was the founding General Manager of Illumina China. At Illumina, Julie lead a team including sales, marketing, technical support and operations making significant contributions to the rapid growth of Illumina business in the Greater China territory. Previously, she served as clinical project manager at US AIDS Resource center in Palo Alto, California managing multiple infectious disease-related drug- and device trials. Julie's leadership experience also includes the position as CSO of Hong Kong DNA Chips Ltd., where she was responsible for product development of diagnostic kits. Julie did post-doctoral research at both Harvard University and Stanford Medical School and holds a doctorate in Biology from The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.