Daohong Zhou
Prof. Daohong Zhou is a Professor in the Department of Pharmacodynamics at the College of Pharmacy and a Professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at the College of Medicine, University of Florida (UF) at Gainesville. He serves as the Associate Director for Translation and Drug Development and the Harry E. Innes Endowed Professor of Cancer Research at the UF Health Cancer Center. His research has led to the discovery of the first potent and broad-spectrum senolytic agent, ABT263-a dual BCL-Xl and BCL-2 inhibitor, that can selectively kill senescent cells to rejuvenate both prematurely senescent tissue stem cells induced by radiation and these in normally aged mice (Chang J et al. Nat Med, 22: 78-83, 2016). This discovery may lead to new therapeutics for various age-related diseases and the side effects induced by chemotherapy and radiation. More recently, he developed several proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACs) that can target Bcl-xl and other proteins of interest for degradation via the ubiquitination and proteasome system. He found that Bcl-xl PROTACs can selectively induce Bcl-xl degradation in senescent cells and various cancer cells but not in platelets, suggesting that Bcl-xl PROTACs have the potential to be developed as a better senolytic and anticancer agent than ABT263 by not causing thrombocytopenia. Using the PROTAC drug development platform, he is developing additional specific antitumor and better senolytic agents (Khan S et al. Nat Med, 25: 1938-1947, 2020; He Y et al. Nat Commun, 11: 1996, 2020).
Carolyn Bertozzi
Carolyn Bertozzi is the Baker Family Director of Stanford ChEM-H and the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Humanities and Sciences in the Department of Chemistry at Stanford University. She is also an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Her research focuses on profiling changes in cell surface glycosylation associated with cancer, inflammation and infection, and exploiting this information for development of diagnostic and therapeutic approaches, most recently in the area of immuno-oncology. She is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. She also has been awarded the Lemelson-MIT Prize, a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, the Chemistry for the Future Solvay Prize, among many others.
Benjamin Ebert
Dr. Benjamin Ebert is the George P. Canellos, MD, and Jean S. Canellos Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chair of Medical Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute.
Dr. Ebert is an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine, the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians. He served as President of the American Society for Clinical Investigation. His awards include the Till and McCollough Award from the International Society of Experimental Hematopoiesis, the William Dameshek Prize from the American Society of Hematology, the Meyenburg Prize, and mentoring and teaching awards from Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Ebert received a bachelor's degree from Williams College and a doctorate from Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar where he worked with Peter Ratcliffe, who was subsequently awarded the Nobel Prize in Medicine. He completed an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, a residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a fellowship in hematology/oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He was on the faculty of Brigham and Women’s Hospital for 10 years before returning to the Dana-Farber.
Anthony Partridge
Dr. Anthony Partridge is a Senior Principal Scientist at MSD Singapore where he leads programs in the early discovery space. Previously, he was Senior Director of Biology at Pharmaron Beijing where he led a team focused on assay development/validation, screening, and built a world-class compound management facility. As an In Vitro Pharmacology Capability Lead at Merck, he pioneered collaborative efforts with pharmacology-based CRO partners. Prior to this, he was a Senior Scientist in the Pharmacology group at Merck Montreal. Dr. Partridge began his industry based career at Élan Pharmaceuticals in San Francisco. He received his B.Sc. from the University of Guelph (1998), his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto (2003) and completed post-doctoral training at Scripps/UCSD (2003-2006).
Amit Choudhary
Amit grew up in a farmer’s family in India and like the other kids “in the hood”, his early career aspirations included joining the army or becoming a cricketer. Amit’s pre-doctoral studies at the Indian Institute of Science‒Bangalore (IISc) involved the total synthesis of natural products and protein folding studies. He was ranked among top 5 students nationwide in the entrance exams of IITs and IISc. In 2006, he moved to Univ. of Wisconsin‒Madison to pursue his graduate studies with Prof. Ron Raines. Amit’s doctoral thesis describes the discovery of a force (termed n→π* interactions) that is akin to the hydrogen bond in its quantum mechanical origin and widespread prevalence in biomolecules.
Amit got interested in infectious disease and diabetes on observing a rampant prevalence of tuberculosis-triggered diabetes in many Indian families, including his own. In 2011, Amit was elected as a Harvard Junior Fellow and hosted by Prof. Stuart Schreiber at the Broad Institute. Here, he decided to shift his research focus from quantum mechanical interactions to infectious disease and diabetes. In 2015, he was appointed as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and he also holds appointments at the Brigham & Women’s Hospital and the Broad Institute. The efforts of Amit’s group have been recognized by Burroughs Wellcome Fund’s Career Award at the Scientific Interface, NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award, DARPA’s SAFE GENES award, Vilcek Prize for Creative Promise, and Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation’s Innovation Award.
Matthew Tingler
Matthew is a Managing Director in Baird’s Investment Banking practice where he advises on equity offerings, mergers and acquisitions and other financial advisory services in the Consumer sector, with a focus on in the apparel & footwear, health, wellness & fitness and outdoor recreational categories. Prior to joining Baird, Matthew was an Associate in Merrill Lynch’s M&A Investment Banking practice. Previously he was an Associate in Citigroup’s Equity Research practice and a Manager in Ernst & Young’s Transaction Advisory Services practice where he performed M&A due diligence, restructuring and valuation assignments. Matthew received an M.B.A from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University with distinctions and a B.S. in accounting and marketing with high honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst charterholder through the CFA Institute and a recipient of the SGB 40 Under 40 award sponsored by SportsOneSource Group. Additionally, Matthew serves on the Leadership Council for A Better Chicago, a venture philanthropy organization dedicated to strengthening and scaling high performing nonprofits focused in the education sector for low income Chicagoans. He lives in Chicago with his wife and three sons.
Jeff Yasuda
Jeff is a long-time entrepreneur that continues to find new ways to combine his passion for building businesses with his love of music.
Prior to Feed.fm, Yasuda launched Blip.fm, which grew to over 1 million registered DJs who reached over 30 million people on Twitter.
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Jeff was the Managing Director and Chief Financial Officer of Silicon Valley VC firm Redwood Ventures, where he held board directorships and managed investments in their technology portfolio. Prior to joining Redwood, he worked in Investment Banking at Lehman Brothers, concentrating on technology financings within Equity Capital Markets.
Brian Smith
Brian Smith is a managing director and member of the Piper Jaffray consumer investment banking team, focused on providing M&A advisory services to companies in healthy, active and sustainable living industries, with a focus on fitness, sports nutrition and multi-unit retail.
Prior to joining Piper Jaffray, Smith was a partner and founding principal at Partnership Capital Growth, a boutique investment bank providing M&A and private placement services to health and wellness-oriented businesses. Prior to investment banking, Smith served as a director of corporate development and sales & marketing analysis at EAS, a leading sports nutrition and supplements company based in Golden, Colo. Smith previously worked with North Castle Partners where he was primarily focused on new deal generation, due diligence and financial modeling. Prior to NCP, Smith was a management consultant for Bain & Company in Boston and Los Angeles.
Smith graduated from Claremont McKenna College with a bachelor's degree in economics.
