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| MANAGEMENT |
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 Dr. Jeffrey Chulay, Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Regulatory Affairs
Dr. Chulay brings broad medical and regulatory expertise to the Company. He joins AGTC from AlphaVax, where he worked as Senior Vice President of Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer. Prior to joining AlphaVax, Dr. Chulay was at GlaxoSmithKline, where he worked as Principal Clinical Program Head of clinical research in HIV and Opportunistic Infections. Before joining GSK (then Burroughs Wellcome), Dr. Chulay served as Chief of the Department of Immunology at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) and Chief of the Virology Division at the U.S. Army Research Institute of Infectious Disease (USAMRIID).
Dr. Chulay earned a medical degree from Northwestern University Medical School and a degree in tropical medicine and hygiene from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He served his residency at Cleveland Metropolitan General Hospital and was a fellow in Infectious Disease at WRAIR. He is a reviewer for several leading journals on infectious disease. |
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Teresa Heal, Director of Finance
Teresa has more than 25 years of experience in accounting and finance with 14 years in senior management. Prior to AGTC, Teresa spent 8 years as Treasurer and Controller for a regional medical group where she was key in the development of centralized accounting and investment and capital improvement strategy. Prior to this position, her experience includes nine years in public accounting, a lead role in a merger and acquisition transaction as well as expertise in growing accounting departments for expanding needs. She received her accounting education from the University of Memphis, completing her B.A. at Florida Metropolitan University, summa cum laude and has her MBA from the University of North Alabama. Teresa also serves as Founder and President of the Florida Association of Bioscience Financial Officers and is a member of the Institute of Management Accountants. |
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Edmund Mickunas, Executive Director of Regulatory Affairs
Mr. Mickunas’s comprehensive understanding of biopharmaceutical regulatory affairs derives from over 25 years of preclinical, clinical and regulatory affairs management experience in the development of pharmaceutical, biologic, medical device and diagnostic products. His background includes 9 yrs of regulatory and clinical consulting experience working with numerous large pharma, biotech and medical device companies. He has held positions previously at Leukosite and Sandoz. He has significant experience with various therapeutic product development for various ophthalmic indications. Mr. Mickunas has a B.S. in Biology from Fairleigh Dickinson University and an M.A. from Fairfield University. |
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Dr.
Gabor Veres, Vice President of Research and Development
Gabor Veres brings fifteen years of broad experience in research and development for international pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies with a strong scientific background in molecular and cell biology and virology. Gabor has a Ph.D in biochemistry and genetics from the University of Szeged in Hungary. Before joining AGTC he worked at Novartis/Systemix, CellGenesys and Sangamo Biosciences, leading multiple projects from pre-clinical research to clinical development and initiated new research programs in cancer, metabolic and CNS diseases, HIV gene therapy, hemophilia, and delivery platform development. He made significant contributions to the area of gene therapy with over 20 publications in peer reviewed journals. |
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Sue Washer , President and CEO
Sue Washer, President and CEO of AGTC, is an experienced entrepreneur with a strong scientific and operational background. She has a B.S. in biochemistry from Michigan State University and an MBA from the University of Florida where she was one of the first graduates from the Business School’s Entrepreneurship program. Sue has 10 years of pharmaceutical management and research experience from Abbott Labs and Eli Lilly as well as 11 years of senior management experience with entrepreneurial firms in the Gainesville area. Sue successfully raised over $15M for AGTC in their second round of funding in November of 2003. |
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| CONSULTANTS |
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Dr. Richard O. Snyder
Richard O. Snyder, Ph.D. is the Director of Biotherapeutic Programs in the Office of Research and Graduate Programs, a faculty member in the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology in the College of Medicine, and the Director of the Human Applications Laboratory and Vector Core within the Powell Gene Therapy Center at the University of Florida. Prior to joining the faculty at UF, Dr. Snyder was an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School, and was previously employed by Cell Genesys, Somatix, Merlin, and Avigen where he was engaged in efforts for developing gene transfer vector and vaccine technology, along with therapeutic applications. Dr. Snyder was a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and received his doctoral degree in Microbiology from The State University of New York at Stony Brook. Dr. Snyder obtained his B.A. in Biology from Washington University in St. Louis. He is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Gene Medicine and Current Gene Therapy, and has authored over thirty publications describing virus biology, viral vector development and manufacturing, and gene transfer. |
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Dr. Sergei Zolotukhin
Research Assistant Professor Molecular Genetics & Microbiology, Gene Therapy Center Vector Core Laboratory, Director; 1985 Ph.D. Molecular Biology, Institute of Molecular Biology & Genetics, Ac. Sci. Ukr. SSR, Kiev; 1990 Postdoctoral, State University of New York, Stony Brook Medical School, Stony Brook, NY; 1994 Postdoctoral, University of Florida, Gainesville, Fl; Research Interest: Molecular biology of AAV, development of gene therapy vectors. |
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| FOUNDERS |
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Dr. Barry Byrne
Dr. Byrne is physician-scientist trained as a cardiologist and molecular virologist. He was a James Scholar the University of Illinois before training in pediatrics and cardiology at Johns Hopkins University. At Hopkins he directed the cardiomyopathy and transplantation program and began work on gene discovery related to myocardial cell structure and development. These studies lead to work on gene delivery to muscle cells and culminated in the finding that AAV vectors delivered to skeletal, cardiac or smooth muscle results in permanent gene delivery in these tissues. These studies were also the first to show that a therapeutic protein could be made from the vector over a prolonged period. His work on vector technology has led to important discoveries on the purification and production of AAV. The laboratory is working to develop novel therapies for cardiovascular disease. These include approaches to new blood vessel formation, anti-thrombotic therapies and treatment of heart failure. The first clinical application of this approach is the fatal cardiomyopathy, Pompe's disease. Preclinical toxicology studies are underway for entry into a combined trial to demonstrate safety and efficacy of this therapy. |
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Dr. Terry Flotte
Nemours Eminent Scholar, Chair, Department of Pediatrics; Specialty: Pediatric Pulmonology Education: 1986, Louisiana State Univ Med Cntr / Dept of Internal Med Residency: Pediatrics, Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine Fellowship: Peds Pulmonary, Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine Clinical Interests: Cystic fibrosis, pediatric pulmonology, gene therapy. |
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Dr. William Hauswirth
Dr. Hauswirth received his B.S. in Chemistry from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from Oregon State University in Physical Chemistry. After an NIH Fellowship in the Biochemistry Department at Johns Hopkins University, he joined that department as an Assistant Professor. In 1976, he joined the faculty at the University of Florida College of Medicine. He is, in part, responsible for determining the mechanism of replication of AAV DNA, the discovery of mitochondrial DNA heteroplasmy in mammals, and the first successful ribozyme-mediated rescue of a dominant genetic disease in animals (Retinitis Pigmentosa model in rats). His current interests involve three areas: 1. In vitro and in vivo definition of DNA elements regulating photoreceptor cell-specific expression. 2. Development of viral vectors for efficient and specific delivery of genes to the photoreceptor cell in animals. 3. Delivery and testing of potentially therapeutic genes for Retinitis Pigmentosa and Macular Degeneration in natural and transgenic animal models of human disease. These projects are currently funded by multiple NIH and foundation grants. Hauswirth is inventor or co-inventor on patent applications involving methods for obtaining AAV-mediated gene delivery specifically to retinal photoreceptor cells and to retinal pigmented epithelial cells, for AAV-mediated ribozyme therapy against autosomal dominant ocular disease, and for functional genomics using AAV delivered ribozymes. |
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Dr. Nick Muzyczka
Nicholas Muzyczka received his PhD in biochemistry from Johns Hopkins University in 1974. He then began working on the development of gene therapy vectors in Dan Nathans’s laboratory. He continued this work at the University of Florida, Gainesville, and in 1984 he published the first general purpose AAV vector for gene transfer into mammalian cells. In 1985, Dr. Muzyczka moved to the State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he focused on the basic biology of AAV and discovered the functions of the AAV Rep protein and studied the mechanisms of AAV DNA replication, integration and transcriptional control. He has published over a 100 peer reviewed manuscript related to AAV biology and AAV vector technology. He has also consulted for a number of biotechnology companies interested in commercializing AAV vector technology, including Genzyme, Avigen, Cell Genesys and GTI. In 1994, he returned to the University of Florida College of Medicine, where he became the founding Director of the UF Powell Gene Therapy Center. Subsequently, Dr. Muzyczka and four other colleagues at UF and the University of North Carolina founded AGTC, a company designed to commercialize the gene therapy applications developed at the Powell Gene Therapy Center. Dr. Muzyczka was the founding CEO and Chairman of the Board of AGTC, and he continues to serve on AGTC’s Board of Directors, and as a scientific consultant to the company. He is an inventor on over 20 issued or pending patents related to AAV vector technology and a recognized expert in the field of gene therapy. He currently serves on the NIH Recombinant Advisory Committee and the Board of Directors of the American Society for Gene Therapy. |
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Dr. R. Jude Samulski
R. Jude Samulski, Ph.D., Scientific Founder: Dr. Samulski received his PhD in Medical Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Florida. Dr. Samulski’s graduate work (1978-82) demonstrated the first use of AAV as a viral vector and culminated in the first US patent involving non-AAV genes inserted into AAV. After completing post-doctoral training at Princeton, Dr. Samulski was hired to provide his expertise in AAV biology as a member of the scientific advisory board of Avigen, a new AAV research company. Later, in 1993, Dr. Samulski co-founded an AAV-based gene therapy company called Merlin. This research group was headed by Dr. Xiao and was the first group to demonstrate AAV-mediated long-term gene transduction in muscle (J. Virology, 1996). This finding precipitated a merger of Merlin with Somatix, Inc., which then merged in 1995 with Cell Genesys. In total, Dr. Samulski has worked with AAV for 25 years, and for the past eight years, has been director of the University of North Carolina Gene Therapy Center. Dr. Samulski has over 20 patents filed or issued in the area of AAV vectors. Dr. Samulski former member of the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee (RAC), a committee tasked with assisting the FDA with approving or disapproving gene therapy clinical trials in the United States. He also frequently serves as a gene therapy consultant to the FDA. Through the UNC gene therapy center, Dr. Samulski has produced within an academic setting an FDA approved AAV clinical vector used to treat children with the neurological disorder of Canavan’s disease. |
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About Us
