Scientific Advisory Board
Jeffrey M. Besterman, Ph.D.
MethylGene
Jeffrey Besterman joined MethylGene in January 1997
as Vice President, Research & Development and is now
Executive Vice President, R&D and Chief Scientific
Officer. He has over 20 years of drug discovery
research and development experience in the
pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Dr.
Besterman previously served as Head, Oncology Research
Section and later as Head, Department of Cell Biology
at Glaxo Research Institute, Research Triangle Park,
North Carolina. Dr. Besterman has been a member of the
National Cancer Institute's Special Review Committee
for Natural Product Drug Discovery, and an external
reviewer for the National Science Foundation. He is
also on the external review board of the Biotechnology
Research Institute of the National Research Council of
Canada. Dr. Besterman serves on the Scientific Advisory
Board of two emerging private biotechnology companies,
Novothera Biotechnologies Inc., located in Montreal,
Quebec and Gene Network Sciences Inc. of Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Dr. Besterman received his B.Sc. in
Biology from the State University of New York, Stony
Brook, and a Ph.D. in Physiology and Biophysics from
the University of Vermont School of Medicine, and
completed his post-doctoral research at Pennsylvania
State University's Medical Center.
Jim Collins
Boston University
Professor Collins serves as GNS's Chief Scientific
Officer and the co-chair of GNS's Scientific Advisory
Board. He is a University Professor, Professor of
Biomedical Engineering, and the Co-Director at Center
for BioDynamics at Boston University, and was a founder
of Cellicon Biotechnologies. Professor Collins'
research focuses on developing and implementing
techniques and concepts from nonlinear dynamics and
statistical physics to study and improve the function
of physiological and biological systems. Professor
Collins has received a number of awards, including a
Rhodes Scholarship, the American Society of
Biomechanics Young Scientist Award, and being selected
for Technology Review's TR100 - 100 top young
innovators in science and technology. He has published
over 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and 200
conference abstracts. Professor Collins has received
research support from the National Institutes of
Health, the National Science Foundation, the Whitaker
Foundation, the Department of Energy, the Department of
Education, the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the
Office of Naval Research. In 2003, Professor Collins
received a MacArthur Fellowship (a "Genius Award"), and
in 2005 he was selected for the Scientific American 50
- top 50 outstanding leaders in science and technology.
Jeff Hanke, Ph.D.
AstraZeneca Cancer Discovery
Jeff Hanke is currently Vice President of
AstraZeneca Cancer Discovery at AstraZeneca R&D, in
Boston, MA, where he and his team of researchers focus
on novel approaches to cancer therapy. Dr. Hanke
joined AstraZeneca from Pfizer, where he managed
discovery teams in the areas of immunology,
inflammation, allergy/respiratory, and cancer from 1993
to 1999. In addition, Dr. Hanke helped to establish
Pfizer's Discovery Technology Center, located in
Cambridge, Mass., which focuses on applying new
technologies to drug discovery. Dr. Hanke received his
M.S. in Biology from Fordham University, and his Ph.D.
in 1986 from Baylor College of Medicine. He completed
his post-doctoral training at Southwestern Medical
School in Dallas.
Stuart Kauffman, M.D.
University of Calgary
Stuart Kauffman, a pioneer and leading theorist in
complexity science, has been researching genetic
networks for more than 35 years. As the iCore Chair at
University of Calgary, he leads a $9 million research
program and is creating the world-class Institute for
Biocomplexity and Informatics. Previously, Dr. Kauffman
helped found Genesis Molecular Discovery, The Bios
Group (acquired by NuTech Solutions), Genpathway, and
Darwin Molecular (acquired by Celltech Group). Dr.
Kauffman was a founding member of the Santa Fe
Institute and serves as professor emeritus at the
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Dr.
Kauffman has held a consulting position since 1985 with
Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he conducted
significant early work on chaos theory. A six-year
MacArthur fellow, he is the author of Origins of Order
(1993), At Home in the Universe (1995), and
Investigations (2000). Dr. Kauffman received his M.D.
from the University of California, San Francisco, and
B.A. degrees from Dartmouth College and Oxford
University.
Hiroaki Kitano, Ph.D.
Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.
Dr. Hiroaki Kitano is the director of the Sony
Computer Science Laboratories, where he was one of the
visionaries behind Aibo, the robotic dog. He also heads
the Japanese-government funded Kitano Symbiotic Systems
Project and is president of the Institute for Systems
Biology in Tokyo, Japan. Dr. Kitano is an expert in the
fields of artificial intelligence and bioinformatics,
and is a leading figure in the emerging field of gene
network modeling. His research focuses on
understanding, controlling, and re-constructing
biological systems by developing simulators for genetic
interactions, metabolism, and signal transduction in
cells. Dr. Kitano received his Ph.D. in computer
science from Kyoto University.
Christoph Lengauer, PhD, MBA
Novartis Institutes of BioMedical Research
Christoph Lengauer is currently Executive Director
and Sr. Unit Head of Oncology at the Novartis
Institutes of BioMedical Research in Cambridge, MA. He
is also Adjunct Associate Professor of Oncology at the
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and
Faculty Associate of the Program for Evolutionary
Dynamics at Harvard University. Prior to his current
position, Dr. Lengauer was a faculty member of the
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and the Director of
the Drug Discovery Laboratory at the Center for Cancer
Genetics and Therapeutics. Dr. Lengauer also serves as
Section Editor of the journals Current Opinion in
Oncology and Seminar in Cancer Biology, and is on the
editorial boards of many other leading cancer
journals.
Dr. Lengauer received his Ph.D. from the University of Heidelberg, Germany and completed his postdoctoral studies at the IMP (Institute of Molecular Pathology) in Vienna, Austria. He also holds an MBA with a focus on Medical Services Management.
Matej Orešič, Ph.D.
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland
Since 2003, Matej Orešič has led research in the
fields of quantitative biology and bioinformatics at
VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland (Espoo,
Finland), where he is a Research Professor in Systems
Biology and Bioinformatics. His main research areas are
metabolomics applications in pharmacology, biomedical
research and integrative bioinformatics. Recent
investigations include studies of statin-induced
myopathy, longitudinal metabolic profiles of children
who progressed to Type 1 Diabetes (DIPP study) and
investigations of lipidomic profiles associated with
lipotoxicity-induced insulin resistance. He is also a
founder of Zora Biosciences, Inc., an Espoo-based
metabolomics company. Prior to joining VTT, Prof.
Orešič was head of computational biology and statistics
at Waltham, MA-based BG Medicine, Inc. and a
bioinformatician at LION Bioscience Research in
Cambridge, MA. He holds a PhD in biophysics from
Cornell University.
Hans Winkler, Ph.D.
Hans Winkler is currently the Senior Director of
Translational Research Oncology for Johnson & Johnson
Pharmaceutical Research and Development, Beerse
Belgium, and co-leads the Translational Science and
Biomarker Leadership Team and the Global J&J
cross-Pharma Biomarker Leadership Team. Prior to his
current position, Dr Winkler was Director and Global
Program Manager for Target Validation Technologies at
Zeneca Pharmaceuticals (now AstraZeneca) near
Manchester, UK. He has also worked as a group leader at
the Sandoz (now Novartis) Research Institute in Vienna,
and filled a Novartis-funded Scientist and Instructor
post at Harvard Medical School's Deaconess Hospital
(now Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center) in Boston,
MA.
In 1984 Dr. Winkler was awarded a Fulbright fellowship to attend graduate school in the USA where he obtained a Master's degree in Molecular Biology University of Houston, Texas in 1986. He received his Ph.D. in 1989 from the University of Vienna, Austria.