Gene Network Sciences names new CSO and announces new Scientific Advisory Board
| Contact: |  |
Thomas Neyarapally Gene Network Sciences (617) 494-0492 tneyarapally@gnsbiotech.com |
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 16, 2008 – Gene Network Sciences, Inc. (GNS) today announced the creation of the new position of Chief Scientific Officer and a newly constituted Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) of world class experts from both the biopharmaceutical industry and leading academic organizations.
GNS’s first Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. James Collins, is Professor of Biomedical Engineering and University Professor at Boston University and co-director of Boston University’s Center for Biodynamics. Collins is a MacArthur Fellow, an original Technology Review TR100 award recipient, a recipient of an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, and a Rhodes Scholar. Professor Collins will also co-chair GNS’s Scientific Advisory Board. He is the founder and former CSO of Cellicon Biotechnologies, a leading systems biology company, and Afferent Corporation, a medical device company.
“Professor Collins’ broad experience as a scientific leader in systems biology and the reverse-engineering of genetic networks makes him uniquely qualified to lead GNS’s scientific efforts,” said Colin Hill, President and Chief Executive Office of GNS.
“During the past year, GNS has made important advances in the validation of its technology,” said Collins. “In addition to discovering drug mechanism of action and biomarkers used by its pharma partners in clinical development, GNS’s formation of discovery alliances with leading academic clinics and its discovery of potential therapeutic targets ab initio from human data has established GNS as a unique computational biology company.”
Supporting Collins in his new role as CSO of GNS is a newly constituted Scientific Advisory Board that brings expertise in key areas that will be invaluable in evolving GNS’s discovery engine and advancing GNS’s pipeline of gene network based targets and diagnostics programs from discovery to market. Members of the new SAB are leading pharmaceutical executives and academic systems biology pioneers with significant pharmaceutical drug discovery and development experience.
In addition to Professor Collins, the members of the SAB include:
- Jeffrey Besterman, Ph.D., Executive Vice President of Research & Development and Chief Scientific Officer, Methylgene.
- Jeffrey Hanke, Ph.D., Vice President, Cancer Care Discovery, AstraZeneca.
- Stuart Kaufmann, M.D.., Chair of Biocomplexity and Informatics, University of Calgary. Dr. Kaufmann is the co-founder of Santa Fe Institute, Darwin Molecular, BiosGroup, GenPathway, and is a MacArthur Fellow.
- Hiroaki Kitano, Director of Sony Computer Science (Tokyo). Dr. Kitano is the President of the Institute for Systems Biology and is the visionary behind Aibo, the robotic dog.
- Christophe Lengauer, Ph.D., Executive Director, Cancer Discover, Novartis.
- Matej Oresic, Ph.D., Principal Investigator, Systems Biology & Bioinformatics, VTT Technical Research Center of Finland. Dr. Oresic is the founder of Zora Biosciences and is the former head of computational biology at BG Medicine.
- Hans Winkler, Ph.D., Senior Director, Functional Genomics, Johnson & Johnson.
“We are very pleased to assemble these key thought leaders in pharma drug discovery and development together with the pioneers of systems biology to establish the GNS Scientific Advisory Board,” said Hill. “Their deep understanding of how breakthrough technologies are leveraged in drug discovery and development will be instrumental in further advancing our REFSTM discovery platform and transitioning our scientific discoveries into potential therapeutics and diagnostics. Further, the commitment and direct participation of these world class scientist-executives on our SAB reflects the advances we’ve made extracting actionable knowledge directly from experimental data.”
“This experienced SAB is well-positioned to make a significant contribution to GNS’s continuing discovery operations and ultimate partnering of targets and diagnostics,” said Collins.
About Gene Network Sciences
Founded in 2000, Gene Network Sciences (http://www.gnsbiotech.com/) is a leader in biosimulation with its ability to derive molecular mechanisms of drugs and diseases directly from molecular profiling and clinical data without any a priori knowledge. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Ithaca, New York, GNS uses its REFSTM (reverse engineering and forward simulation) technology in pharmaceutical and clinical settings to rapidly turn complex and heterogeneous data sets into cell and organ-level computer models of drug efficacy and drug safety. These models simulate the mechanisms of disease and clinical performance of drug candidates. By discovering how and why specific genes and drug candidates impact human biology, GNS technology enables the rapid development of breakthrough drug and diagnostic products.
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