Antibacterial Discovery and Development
Eric Brown Ph.D., Professor, Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, McMaster University
Dr. Brown's research interest is the complex biology that underlies bacterial survival strategies. He and his research team aim to understand and subvert these systems in drug resistant superbugs. To this end the Brown lab research group is using tools of chemical biology and molecular genetics to probe poorly understood aspects of bacterial physiology. The overriding goal of these studies is to contribute fresh directions for new antibiotics. Dr. Brown has been the recipient of a number of awards and is a very active participant in the university and research community. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and has received the Canadian Society of Microbiologists Murray Award for career achievement, the Canadian Society for Molecular Biosciences Merck Frosst Prize for new investigators and a Canada Research Chair in Microbial Chemical Biology. Dr. Brown is a former department Chair and has served on advisory boards for a variety of companies as well as national and international associations, including: a term as President of the Canadian Society of Molecular Biosciences; member of the Medical Review Panel of the Gairdner Foundation; and member of the Institute of Infection and Immunity Advisory Board of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Currently, he is serving on the latter organization’s College of Reviewers, on the Advisory Board of the Joint Programming Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance and on the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal ACS Infectious Diseases.
Eric Carnes, Ph.D., Research Associate Professor, Office of Research, University of Nebraska – Lincoln
My research focuses extensively on interdisciplinary research projects aimed at combining inorganic nanomaterials with biological materials and living cells. My original work centered on the development of artificial matrices to enhance cell viability for use in biosensors, which was well received has led to a consistent publication record in high-impact journals. This has generated considerable IP as well as funded proposals which seek to create new materials for a wide variety of cell-based devices for applications ranging from extreme-environment sensing and energy production to investigations of cell signaling pathways and collective cellular behavior. Originating from these initial materials, my research has branched out in several directions. One thrust has been to use living cells to create novel hierarchical multiscale materials by combining self- assembly and lithography with lipids, ion channels, surface receptors, and nanoparticles for biological and materials applications. Such materials could also be used to develop a fundamental understanding of their assembly as well as the unique properties of the materials as more than the sum of their parts. Another thrust has been to use hybrid biomaterials to create artificial microenvironments that enable the study of clinical observable pathologies that are seemingly impossible to duplicate under laboratory conditions. These systems have been used to study pathogenesis, virulence, and latency in various drug-resistant microbes as well as tuberculosis and cancer. Harnessing the capabilities of these engineered environments could allow for further unveiling of the intricate mechanisms involved in cellular metabolism, facilitating greater control over these systems for improved diagnosis and treatment strategies for infectious disease. An additional use of these materials has been in the development of products designed to extend shelf life and usability for biological products, such ultra-stable vaccines against various pathogens that can be stored and room temperature and disseminated around the globe. Most recently, I have begun extending my knowledge of these biotic/abiotic systems to create organic and inorganic nanoparticles and microparticles for use in targeted delivery of cancer therapeutics and medical countermeasures for applications in public health and chemical/biological defense with funding from NIH and DoD. These particles have been designed to provide a flexible platform that could be quickly and easily adapted for rapid deployment in response to a wide variety of emerging infectious disease diagnosis and treatment applications.
David N. Cook, Ph.D., Executive Vice President of R&D, Chief Scientific Officer, Seres Therapeutics, Inc.
David Cook is the EVP of R&D and CSO of Seres Therapeutics, Inc. He has over 20 years of experience as a scientist and entrepreneur and has held senior operating and management positions in the biotechnology industry throughout his career. Prior to joining Seres, he served as the COO for the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. Prior to IAVI, Dr. Cook was the founding CEO at Anza Therapeutics. Before Anza he held positions of increasing responsibility at Cerus and Eligix. He earned his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley.
Peter Dedon, Ph.D., Professor, Biological Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Peter Dedon is the Underwood-Prescott Professor of Biological Engineering in the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT and a Principal Investigator in the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Infectious Disease IRG. He joined the MIT faculty in 1991, with an M.D. and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology. With longstanding interests in the chemical etiology of human disease, his current research program addresses the systems biology of RNA and DNA modifications in microbial pathogenesis and human cancer biology. His research group recently discovered phosphorothioate and 7-deazaguanine epigenetic modifications in bacterial genomes, including the human microbiome. In collaboration with Tom Begley, his group used multi-omic systems analyses to discover a mechanism of translational control of cell response involving reprogramming of tRNA modifications and selective translation of codon-biased mRNAs for stress response proteins. This translational response mechanism has now been observed in eukaryotes, prokaryotes and RNA viruses. His group is now exploring RNA-modifying enzymes as targets for developing antimicrobial agents and adjuvants for reversing drug resistance.
Martin Everett, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, Antabio
Martin Everett is Chief Scientific Officer at Antabio. He holds a PhD in Microbiology from the University of Bristol where he studied the molecular mechanisms of beta-lactamase induction in Gram-negative bacteria. He followed this with post-doctoral studies within the Antibiotic Research Group, University of Birmingham, publishing extensively on the mechanisms of fluoroquinolone resistance in hospital and veterinary isolates. In 1996 he joined Glaxo Wellcome where he was responsible for integration of anti-tubercular projects from academic collaborators into the pharmaceutical discovery process. Following the creation of GSK, Martin joined the Molecular Screening department, responsible for the set-up and prosecution of high-throughput screens, as well as leading several antibacterial and anticancer lead discovery programs. In 2005 Martin joined MerLion Pharmaceuticals in Singapore becoming Head of Research, leading their internal lead discovery operations and natural products CRO business, before joining Antabio in late 2012. Martin is dedicated to using his broad experience of antibacterial R&D to develop novel antibacterial therapies at Antabio.
Kim Lewis, Ph.D., University Distinguished Professor, Biology; Director of Antimicrobial Discovery Center, Biology, Northeastern University
Kim Lewis is a University Distinguished Professor and Director, Antimicrobial Discovery Center at Northeastern University in Boston, and a Fellow of the American Society of Microbiology. He obtained his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Moscow University in 1980, and has been on the Faculty of MIT, University of Maryland, and Tufts University prior to coming to Northeastern. Dr. Lewis has authored over 100 papers and is an inventor on several patents. His more notable findings include the development of general methods to grow previously uncultured bacteria that make up >99% of biodiversity on the planet, the discovery of the culprit of recalcitrant biofilm infections, drug-tolerant persister cells; antimicrobials for sterilizing biofilm infections and killing M. tuberculosis, and the discovery of teixobactin which is largely free of resistance development. Dr. Lewis presented over 100 invited talks. Dr. Lewis has been a permanent member of the Drug Discovery and Drug Resistance NIH Study Section, and Chair of two NIH Study Sections on Drug Discovery. Dr. Lewis has served as a panelist and contributor to the National Academies Institute of Medicine reports on antibiotic resistance in 2010, 2011 and 2014, and the European Academies Science Advisory Meeting in 2014. Dr. Lewis is a member of Faculty 1000, a world-wide panel of experts evaluating research advancements. He is a recipient of the MIT C.E. Reed Faculty Initiative Award for an innovative research project (1992), is a recipient of the NIH Director’s Transformative Grant (2009), and a recipient of the Lyme Research Alliance award in 2014. Apart from his work in Academia, Dr. Lewis has served as a consultant to the Pharmaceutical Industry, The Biotech, and is a founder of two Biotech Companies, NovoBiotic Pharmaceuticals, and Arietis Corporation.
Olga Lomovskaya, Ph.D., Vice President, Biology, Infectious Diseases, The Medicines Company
Dr. Lomovskaya has over 25 years of experience in the research of anti-infectives with a particular focus on the discovery, molecular mechanisms of resistance and preclinical development of antibiotics targeting gram-negative bacteria. Her carrier in industry started in 1995 after joining Microcide Pharmaceuticals (later Essential Therapeutics) where she was leading an effort in the discovery and development of inhibitors of multidrug efflux pumps and pioneering efflux pump biology research. In 2002 she joined Mpex Pharmaceuticals and in 2008 co-founded Rempex Pharmaceuticals where she served as Vice President of Biology. She continues to serve in the same position after Rempex was acquired by the Medicines Company in 2014.She received her Ph.D. in molecular genetics from the Institute of Molecular Genetics, Russian Academy of Sciences and her M.S. in molecular biology from Moscow State University, with research appointments at MIT, Cal Tech and Stanford. Dr. Lomovskaya is an inventor on over 20 patents and patent applications, authored over 50 original papers, review articles and book chapters and is serving as a member of editorial boards of several scientific journals including Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy and Journal of Bacteriology. She is a frequent speaker at National and International Conferences and in 2009 served as Chair of Gordon Conference on Multidrug Resistance.
Plenary-
Tyler Merkeley, CARB-X Co-Founder, BARDA’s CARB-X Program Manager, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA)
Tyler Merkeley MS, MBA, PMP, is the co-founder of CARB-X and serves as the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority’s (BARDA) CARB-X Program Manager. He joined BARDA in 2009 as a Health Scientist to accelerate the advanced research and development, procurement, stockpile and sustainment of medical countermeasures (MCM) against biological, chemical, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) agents under Project BioShield. During his tenure at BARDA he has led the smallpox antiviral procurement, BARDA’s Total Life Cycle Costs containment initiative, designed and launched HHS’s Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria (CARB) Accelerator [CARB-X], managed BARDA’s 1st agreement using Other Transaction Authority (OTA) and served as the Acting Chief of Staff for BARDA.
Targeting Gram-Negative Pathogens
George L. Drusano, M.D., Professor, Director, Institute for Therapeutic Innovation, University of Florida
After graduating magna cum laude, ΦΒΚ from the Honors Program at Boston College, Dr. Drusano graduated cum laude, ΑΩΑ from the University of Maryland School of Medicine in Baltimore. He completed his medical internship and residency at the University of Maryland Hospital, where he was Chief Medical Resident. He was also a Fellow in Medicine in Infectious Diseases at that institution. Dr. Drusano is a reviewer for prestigious peer-reviewed journals, including Science-Translational Medicine, New England Journal of Medicine, the Annals of Internal Medicine, Archives of Internal Medicine, American Journal of Medicine, Journal of Infectious Diseases, the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy, and Antiviral Research. He was also editor of the section of pharmacology and experimental therapeutics for Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy for 10 years. He was an Editor for mBio. He is the author of over 300 articles in peer-reviewed journals such as the Journal of Clinical Investigation, Nature Reviews Microbiology, Journal of the American Medical Association, Annals of Internal Medicine, Journal of Infectious Diseases, Clinical Infectious Diseases, Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, AIDS, Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, and Journal of Clinical Pharmacology. Dr. Drusano is a Fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America. On the national level, Dr. Drusano was a member of the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapeutics (ICAAC) Program Committee and the IDSA Program Committee. He has served on multiple National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Review Groups. He has served as an ad hoc member of NIAID Council on two occasions to support issues regarding emergence of bacterial resistance. He also serves as a consultant to NIAID and CDC on Biodefense issues. In 2010, he was Chair of the Gordon Conference on New Antimicrobial Discovery and Development. He has won a number of awards, including being named Distinguished Investigator of the Year (2003) by the American College of Clinical Pharmacology. He was named recipient of the Maxwell Finland Award for Scientific Achievement for 2012 from the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. He was named the recipient of the Cubist-ICAAC award for 2013 from the American Society for Microbiology. Most recently, he was awarded the Paul Ehrlich Magic Bullet Award in 2015. An active researcher, Dr. Drusano has focused on mathematical modeling and the pharmacodynamics of anti-infective chemotherapy, especially the pharmacodynamics of anti-tuberculosis agents, MDR/XDR nosocomial pathogens, multiple anti-viral agents and the therapy of biodefense pathogens. He has been awarded a Program Project Grant from NIAID “Choosing Drug Doses for Biodefense Pathogens”, R01’s from NIAID for “Resistance Suppression for P. aeruginosa using Novel Combination Therapy Modeling”, Optimizing Combination Therapy for Hepatitis C virus with pharmacodynamic models and an R01 for drug development “Optimization of Neoglycoside Antibiotics for Nosocomial Pathogens and Select Agents”. Most recently, he was awarded a P01 from NIAID “Optimizing Combination Therapy to Accelerate Clinical Cure of Tuberculosis”.
Jacques Dumas, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Dr. Jacques Dumas is trained as a Medicinal Chemist and has 24 years in pharmaceutical R&D experience. He started his industrial career at Bayer (1992-2007) then moved to AstraZeneca (2007-2014), his last role as Vice President, Infection Strategy. In 2014, Dr. Dumas joined Idenix as Chief Scientific Officer and following the acquisition of Idenix by Merck, was retained by Merck Research Laboratories as a full-time consultant (2015). Dr. Dumas joined Tetraphase in July 2015 as Chief Scientific Officer, supporting discovery, non-clinical development and CMC activities. Dr. Dumas holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Paris VI University.
Yoav Golan, M.D., MS, FIDSA, Attending Physician, Infectious Diseases, Tufts Medical Center Medical Center
Yoav Golan MD MS is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine and practices Infectious diseases at Tufts Medical Center. His research interest includes hospital-acquired infections, antibiotic resistance and its impact on patient outcomes and pharmacoeconomics. Dr. Golan was involved in the development of several of the recently-approved antibiotics.
David Greenberg, MD, Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology Internal Medicine, University of Texas Southwestern
Dr. Greenberg is an Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases and Microbiology at UT Southwestern. He completed his Infectious Diseases fellowship at the National Institutes of Health and served as an Assistant Clinical Investigator in the Laboratory of Clinical Infectious Diseases from 2007 until his arrival to UT in 2010. He is a Distinguised Teaching Professor in the Medical School and as a physician-scientist, is actively involved in the study of the immunocompromised host. Dr. Greenberg’s laboratory has been involved in the development of novel antibacterials for multidrug resistant pathogens for a number of years. The laboratory is utilizing peptide-conjugated phosphorodiamidate morpholino oligomers (PPMOs) to block mRNA and prevent translation of target genes in both essential cellular pathways as well as antibiotic resistance genes themselves.
Gunnar J. Hanson, Ph.D., Senior Director of Research Chemistry, Research Chemistry, Sarepta Therapeutics, Inc
Dr. Hanson is Senior Director of Research Chemistry at Sarepta Therapeutics, heading up the new drug discovery programs. Responsibilities include the invention of novel RNA-targeted therapeutic drugs, especially drugs based on cell penetrating peptide-PMO conjugates. He is named as inventor on over 150 US Patents.
Paul J. Hergenrother, Ph.D., Professor, Kenneth L. Rinehart Jr. Endowed Chair in Natural Products Chemistry, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Paul J. Hergenrother was born in 1972 and raised in Akron, Ohio. He attended the University of Notre Dame, where he received his B.S. in Chemistry in 1994. He graduated with his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Texas, Austin in 1999, and moved on as an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow to Harvard University, where he worked in the laboratory of Professor Stuart L. Schreiber in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology. He established his own laboratory in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2001 and in 2013 was named the Kenneth L. Rinehart Jr. Endowed Chair in Natural Products Chemistry. Professor Hergenrother is the co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Vanquish Oncology, and an anticancer compound discovered by the Hergenrother lab is now being taken by cancer patients at the University of Illinois Cancer Center and at Johns Hopkins as part of a Phase 1 clinical trial. At the University of Illinois Professor Hergenrother is the Leader of the IGB Theme “Anticancer Discovery from Pets to People”, and is the Director of the NIH Chemistry-Biology Interface Training Grant. The Hergenrother laboratory seeks to use small molecules to identify and validate novel targets for the treatment of intractable diseases, including cancer and multi-drug resistant bacteria.
David C. Hooper, M.D., Chief, Infection Control Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital
David C. Hooper, M.D. is Chief of the Infection Control Unit and Associate Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He is also former Director of the Antimicrobial Stewardship Program at MGH. Dr. Hooper received his B.A. in Microbiology summa cum laude from the University of Texas at Austin and his M.D. magna cum laude from Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis. Residency training in Internal Medicine at MGH, a research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health, and a fellowship in Infectious Diseases at MGH followed. He subsequently joined the faculty of the MGH Division of Infectious Disease and Harvard Medical School in 1981 and served as Fellowship Program Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases from 1994 to 2009. At MGH he became Chief of the Infection Control Unit in 2000 and Associate Chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases in 2003.Dr. Hooper’s research has focused on mechanisms of antimicrobial action and resistance with a particular emphasis on fluoroquinolones. The most recent focus is on resistance due to bacterial efflux pumps, their natural functions and regulation, and plasmid-mediated quinolone resistance, particularly the structure-activity relationships of the Qnr family of resistance proteins. His laboratory has received continuous funding from the NIH for the past 30 years, and he is a recipient of an NIH Merit Award. He is author of over 190 peer-reviewed articles on mechanisms and epidemiology of antimicrobial resistance and 73 book chapters and other articles. Dr. Hooper is a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and the Infectious Diseases Society of America and a Member of the Association of American Physicians. In 2016 he received the Antimicrobial Research Award from the American Society for Microbiology (ASM). He has served as Chair of the Drug Discovery and Antimicrobial Resistance Study Section of the NIH and Chair of the Scientific Program Committee of the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy of the ASM. He is past President and current Meetings Board Chair of the ASM, has served on the editorial board of Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, and is Deputy Editor of The Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Raymond Schuch, Ph.D., VP of Research, Microbiology, ContraFect Corporation
Raymond Schuch Ph.D. is the Vice President of Research at ContraFect Corporation in Yonkers, New York. He earned his B.S. in Biology from the State University of New York at Binghamton and received his Ph.D. in Molecular Microbiology from the Temple University School of Medicine. During his doctoral work he investigated the genetics of bacterial spore formation, a cellular differentiation process used by micro-organisms, like Bacillus anthracis, to avoid starvation. Between 1996 and 2000, Dr. Schuch was a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Anthony Maurelli at the National Naval Medical Center studying the pathogenesis of the Enterobacteriaciae, including Shigella flexneri. His post-doctoral work focused on elucidating the architecture of the Type III virulence protein translocon, and determining the mechanism by which pathogens sense contact with human cells, invade the intracellular environment, and spread intercellularly. In 2001, Dr. Schuch became a Research Assistant Professor in the laboratory of Dr. Vincent Fischetti at The Rockefeller University. In Dr. Fischetti’s lab, he helped initiate the first molecular and genetic characterizations of bacteriophage lysins to be used in the detection and treatment of human pathogenic bacteria. He developed a series of functional screens for highly active lysins, and a range of in vitro assays and in vivo murine models to study the anti-microbial activities of the lysin class. Ultimately, his work helped define the hallmark phenotypes of lysins – rapid and specific kill, anti-biofilm activity, absence of resistance, and potent synergy with antibiotics. In 2011, Dr. Schuch joined Contrafect Corporation to begin pre-clinical research on the anti-staphylococcal lysin CF-301. CF-301 is now the first and only lysin to enter human clinical trials in the US and has recently completed a Phase 1 trial in healthy volunteers.
Bret Sellman, Ph.D., Director, Department of Infectious Diseases and Vaccines, MedImmune
Bret Sellman, PhD is a Director in the Infectious Disease Department at MedImmune, LLC and has over 16 yrs of experience in vaccines and antibacterial research and development. He has worked at MedImmune for over 9 years where he has led various antibacterial monoclonal antibody programs from discovery thru IND and into clinical development. Prior to MedImmune he worked at Wyeth Vaccine Research for 7 years in early vaccine discovery. He earned his B.S. in microbiology from New Mexico State University and his PhD in microbiology and immunology from the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center before completing his post doc at Harvard Medical School studying bacterial toxin biochemistry.
Lee Swem Ph.D. Senior Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer, Achaogen
Lee Swem is Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at Achaogen. Prior to this position, he served as the Vice President, Head of Research and Director of the Therapeutic Antibody Program at Achaogen, where he developed a state-of-the-art antibody discovery platform to rapidly identify rare functional antibodies to treat serious human infectious diseases. Before joining Achaogen, Lee spent 4.5 years as a Scientist in the Department of Infectious Disease at Genentech. During his tenure at Genentech, he developed the anti-influenza A program, the anti-influenza B program, and began a small molecule anti-bacterial program. Under his leadership, the anti-influenza team established an innovative human B cell enrichment and cloning technique to discover rare functional antibodies. This work led to the discovery of a broadly neutralizing anti-influenza A antibody, which was transitioned into development as a first and best in class treatment for severe influenza A infections. Lee also led the identification and development of a broadly neutralizing influenza B antibody. This molecule was transitioned to development as a treatment for severe influenza B infections. Prior to working at Genentech, Lee worked with Dr. Bonnie Bassler at Princeton University, where he successfully carried out multiple high-throughput screens to identify small molecule inhibitors of bacterial virulence cascades. Lee received his Ph.D from Indiana University. Lee has authored an IND and over 25 patents and publications.
Vu L. Truong, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer, Aridis
Dr. Truong is a founder of Aridis and recently elected to the CEO position in 2014 after having served as the company's Chief Scientific Officer for the past 9 years. He has over 18 years of experience in biopharmaceutical drug development, having held positions of increasing responsibilities in companies which were eventually acquired by larger entities, including Gene Medicine (sold to Megabios), Aviron (sold to Medimmune), and Medimmune (sold to Astra Zeneca). He has a life-long interest and research experience in infectious diseases, focusing on the development of innovative human monoclonal antibodies and vaccines designed to address life threatening infections. His product development experience includes FluMist™, Synagis™ mAb, and a number of other monoclonal antibody based therapeutics. Dr. Truong is the principal architect of the Aridis technologies, which includes a range of anti-infective products and pharmaceutical processing technologies. He received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Molecular Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
Helena Zgurskaya, Ph.D., Professor, Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Oklahoma
HELEN I. ZGURSKAYA, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma. Dr. Zgurskaya received a M.Sc. Degree in Microbiology from Dnepropetrovsk State University, Ukraine and a Ph.D. Degree in Microbiology from Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian Federation. She subsequently held research appointments at Max Planck Institute of Molecular Genetics (Berlin, Germany), Stanford University Medical School and the University of California at Berkeley. In 2000, Dr. Zgurskaya joined the faculty of the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Oklahoma. She has published more than 60 peer-reviewed articles on mechanism of multidrug efflux and antibiotic resistance. Her current research focuses on mechanisms of bacterial multidrug efflux pumps and permeability of Gram-negative cell envelopes.