Scientific Advisory Board

The Biovest SAB (listed in alphabetical order) represents a group of preeminent physicians and doctors from the fields of cancer immunotherapy, immunology, bioinformatics, regulatory affairs and cell culture bio-manufacturing.

• Brian D. Athey, Ph.D., Professor of Biomedical Informatics and Chair of the Department of Computational Medicine and Bioinformatics at the University of Michigan Medical School – Dr. Athey is recognized as one of the nation’s experts in the field of Translational Bioinformatics, and has served as a special advisor to the Chief Information Officer of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH).  He is a founder of ‘tranSMARTproject.org’, an open source software community that supports one of the leading pharmaceutical data sharing and analysis software platforms used worldwide.

• Neil L. Berinstein, M.D., Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto and Director of Translational Research, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research – Dr. Berinstein is a global pioneer in cancer vaccines, having formerly served as Assistant Vice President and Global Program Leader at Sanofi Pasteur, leading the development of Sanofi's cancer vaccines both strategically and operationally.  He currently serves as part of the Executive Steering Committee of the Cancer Research Institute-sponsored Cancer Immunotherapy Consortium and was formerly a member and leader of the scientific review committee of the Leukemia Research Fund.  Dr. Berinstein is the recipient of numerous grants in his research career and has published six book chapters, and over 100 peer-reviewed, invited or review papers to date.

• Volker Diehl, M.D., Ph.D., Director Emeritus for Internal Medicine at the University of Cologne (Germany) – A pioneer in the field of lymphoma and Founder and Chairman of the German Hodgkin Lymphoma Study Group, Dr. Diehl was awarded the 2010 Wallace H. Coulter Award for Lifetime Achievement in Hematology by the American Society of Hematology (ASH); this being ASH’s highest honor recognizing a lifetime commitment of outstanding contributions to hematology.

• Lindy G. Durrant, Ph.D., Professor, Faculty of Medicine & Health Sciences and Chair in Cancer Immunotherapy, Department of Clinical Oncology, University of Nottingham (UK) – An internationally recognized immunologist in the field of tumor therapy, Dr. Durrant has worked for more than 20-years in translational research, developing products for clinical trials including monoclonal antibodies for diagnostic imaging and therapy and cancer vaccines.  She is currently running clinical trials in colorectal cancer, osteosarcoma and malignant melanoma.

• Adriaan Fruijtier, Managing Director, CATS Consultants GmbH (Germany) – Mr. Fruijtier has formerly served as: Project Manager for Oncology Projects at the European Medicines Agency (EMA); Head of Oncology Group within Global Regulatory Affairs at Bayer AG and Bayer Corporation; Director of Regulatory Affairs at Micromet AG; Regulatory Affairs Project Manager Oncology for Novartis AG; and Manager, Regulatory Affairs at Glaxo.  Mr. Fruijtier is advising with regards to the European regulatory strategy for BiovaxID.

• J. David Gangemi, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, Microbiology and Molecular Medicine, Clemson University – With his doctorate in virology and biophysics and having formally served as a Senior Science Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Defense, Dr. Gangemi has been directing Biovest’s hollow fiber perfusion technology viral bio-manufacturing collaborations with the Naval Health Research Center and Max Planck Institute.

• Larry W. Kwak, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman of the Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma and Associate Director of the Center for Cancer Immunology Research at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center – Internationally recognized for his 20-year commitment to the science of cancer vaccines, Dr. Kwak developed Biovest’s BiovaxID® personalized lymphoma cancer vaccine while at the U.S. National Cancer Institute.  In 2010, Dr. Kwak was the first active MD Anderson faculty member to be named to TIME Magazine’s “TIME 100” annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world for his contributions to the advancement of cancer vaccines.

• James J. Mulé, Ph.D., Executive Vice President & Associate Center Director for Translational Research, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute – Dr. Mulé is an internationally known senior cancer immunologist and gene therapist, and at Moffitt, holds the Michael McGillicuddy Chair in Melanoma Research and Treatment.  Dr. Mulé is also a special government employee advising the National Cancer Institute and the FDA-CBER, and is on several industry and publication advisory boards, having published over 200 scientific papers in the field of tumor immunology and immunotherapy.

• Sattva S. Neelapu, M.D., Associate Professor, Department of Lymphoma/Myeloma, Division of Cancer Medicine at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center - Dr. Neelapu has presented on the BiovaxID™ personalized cancer vaccine for the treatment of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at a number of meetings with European national medicine agencies, leading to Biovest’s decision to seek marketing approval in Europe.  Supported via a grant awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Dr. Neelapu is also conducting additional analysis from the BiovaxID Phase III clinical trial.  With a specialized focus on tumor immunology and cancer vaccines, Dr. Neelapu is the recipient of numerous awards from the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI).

• Dayton Reardan, Ph.D., R.A.C., Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, Eleos, Inc. – Dr. Reardan previously held the position of Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Orphan Medical Inc., a public drug development and marketing firm (acquired by Jazz Pharmaceuticals).  He has additionally served as Director of Development at CV Therapeutics and Xoma Corporation, and has twice received the FDA Commissioner's Special Citation for his work in developing pharmaceuticals for patients with rare diseases.  Dr. Reardan is directing the global regulatory strategy for BiovaxID.

• Stephen J. Schuster, M.D., Robert and Margarita Louis-Dreyfus Associate Professor in Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia and Lymphoma Clinical Care and Research and Director, Lymphoma Program, Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania – Instrumental in the clinical development of BiovaxID and continuing to advise on new study designs to expand the vaccine’s indications, Dr. Schuster presented the Phase III study results at the Plenary Session of the 2009 American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting and at the 2010 American Society of Hematology (ASH) Annual Meeting.

• Eduardo M. Sotomayor, M.D., Chair of the Dept. of Maligant Hematology and Susan & John Sykes Endowed Chair for Hematological Malignancies, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute – Dr. Sotomayor is a recognized visionary in the field of lymphoma research and treatment, with a special focus on mantle cell lymphoma, and is a recipient of multiple awards and grants, including from the Lymphoma Research Foundation (LRF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

• David J. States, M.D., Ph.D., FACMI, Chief Scientific Officer, OncProTech, LLC - Dr. States is a systems biologist and leader who helped to established the discipline of bioinformatics.  He received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Harvard University and clinical training in internal medicine at the University of California, San Diego and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.  He is board certified in internal medicine and is a Fellow of the American College of Medical Informatics.  Dr. States has been a leader in establishing bioinformatics as a field including work on molecular modeling, genome mapping and sequencing and proteomics.  Notably, Dr. States has been involved in the Human Genome Project from its inception and helped to establish the NIH National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI).

• Anne Tomalin, BA, BSc, RAC, Managing Director,  Strategic Regulatory and Safety, OptumInsight – Since founding the international regulatory consulting firm, CanReg (now OptumInsight), in 1996, Ms. Tomalin has grown the consultancy to more than 100 in-house consultants and staff with extensive experience working with the FDA, Health Canada, EMA and other regulatory agencies.  Her experience includes more than 20 years in various key roles working at Wyeth, Roche and Searle.
  
  
  
• Prof. J.H. Veelken, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Internal Medicine (Hematology) and Head of the Department of Hematology at Leiden University Medical Center, (Leiden, Netherlands) - An internationally-recognized authority in cancer immunotherapy, Prof. Veelken’s research focuses on the immunopathogenesis of malignant lymphoma, including the role of antigen receptor signaling in the etiology of indolent non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas and chronic lymphocytic leukemia. His research also covers natural immunosurveillance and the mechanisms of stroma interaction as survival signals for these tumors, and high-resolution genomic and transcriptomic profiling to identify pathogenetically relevant genetic pathways and novel therapeutic targets. His projects form the basis for translational research and clinical trials for therapeutic anti-tumor vaccination in lymphomas and other malignancies.