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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 joined AGTC in 2007 from AlphaVax, where as Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer he led successful clinical trial programs of recombinant viral vector vaccines for cytomegalovirus and influenza. Prior to joining AlphaVax, Dr. Chulay was a Principal Clinical Program Head in HIV and Opportunistic Infections at GlaxoSmithKline and was responsible for bringing two anti-infective drugs to market. He previously served as Chief of the Department of Immunology at the 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 has been a member of the Institute of Medicine Committee on Prevention and Control of Malaria, published 100 papers in peer-reviewed journals and is a reviewer for several leading medical 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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Tavara K. Andrews, Controller
Tavara Andrews received her Bachelor of Science in Accounting from the University of Florida Fisher School of Accounting and her Master of Business Administration with an Accounting Concentration from Saint Leo University. Prior to joining Applied Genetic Technologies Corporation, Tavara's professional career included six years in public accounting with a firm in the Gainesville area where her emphasis had been on financial audits of entities with significant grant expenditures. Tavara has considerable experience in the compliance requirements of both the Federal and Florida Single Audit Acts and she has been a guest lecturer for the Florida School Finance Officers Association on topics related to Governmental Accounting Standards Board Statements and Auditing Standards. Tavara is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the Florida Institute of Certified Public Accountants and serves in various local volunteer positions. |
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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
Terence R. Flotte, MD, is dean of the School of Medicine and provost & executive deputy chancellor of the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS). In these roles, Dr. Flotte serves UMMS as chief academic and administrative officer of the School of Medicine, overseeing all academic activities of the basic and clinical science departments, including education and research for the School of Medicine and the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences. Prior, Dr. Flotte served as 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 in Physical Chemistry from Oregon State University. 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 of Molecular Genetics and in 1985 the Ophthalmology faculty at the University of Florida.
While at UF Dr. Hauswirth is, in part, responsible for determining the mechanism of replication of adeno-associated virus (AAV) DNA and the discovery of mitochondrial DNA heteroplasmy in mammals. More recently he collaborated on the first successful rescue of a dominant genetic disease in animals (ribozyme treatment in a Retinitis Pigmentosa model in rats) and the first restoration of vision for a recessive retinal disease (congenitally blind Briard dogs). His current interests involve the delivery and testing of potentially therapeutic genes for Retinitis Pigmentos. |
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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
