Opexa Therapeutics - Scientific Advisory Board

Norman Barton, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Norman Barton is currently Chief Executive Officer of Sirogenesis, Inc. Dr. Barton, who was formally trained in biological chemistry and internal medicine and is a certified specialist in neurology, has had a distinguished career in investigative medicine and in the development of novel therapeutic agents in both the academic and commercial sectors. His many accomplishments include the development of an enzyme replacement therapy for a severely debilitating lipid storage disorder known as Gaucher disease, for which he received both the Outstanding and Meritorious Service Medals of the United States Public Health Service. Prior to forming Sirogenesis, Dr. Barton served as executive vice president and chief medical officer at CepTor Corporation (2004-2006), Osiris Therapeutics (2002-2004), Biotechnology General Corp (1996-2002), and also served as a physician-scientist and Chief of the Clinical Investigations Section with the Neurological Institute at the National Institutes of Health (1985-1996). Dr. Barton received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Pennsylvania State University, and he completed his residency in Internal Medicine at Albany Medical College Hospital and his residency in Neurology at Cornell University New York Hospital.

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Irun R. Cohen, M.D.
Dr. Irun Cohen was trained as a physician at Northwestern University Medical School and did a residency in pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. Since 1968, he has been involved in research in immunology. Dr. Cohen is the Mauerberger Professor of Immunology at the Department of Immunology of the Weizmann Institute of Science. He has served as director, European Collaboration on TCV sponsored by the European Medical Research Councils of the European Science Foundation; director, Robert Koch-Minerva Center for Research in Autoimmune Diseases, at the Weizmann Institute; director, Center for the Study of Emerging Diseases, Jerusalem; Chairman, Committee for the Re-accreditation of Israeli Medical Schools, The Council for Higher Education, Israel; executive director, The National Center for T-cell Vaccination; member of the Executive Committee of The National Center for Complexity Science; and director of the National Institute of Biotechnology in the Negev, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. Dr. Cohen was awarded the Robert Koch Prize, Federal Republic of Germany, for his work on autoimmunity. He is a Highly Cited Researcher (ISI), with over 470 professional publications, including the book Tending Adam's Garden: Evolving the Cognitive Immune Self (Academic Press, 2000). His major contributions include development of cloned T-cells as functional probes for the analysis of autoimmune diseases; discovery of immune regulation by T-cell vaccination; development of the concept of the immunological homunculus in the regulation of autoimmunity, natural and pathogenic; peptide vaccination therapy (peptide p277) of type 1 Autoimmune Diabetes (presently entering Phase III clinical trials); co-inventor of Reactive Animation (a computer-assisted, precise visual language for interactive and dynamic simulation of complex systems); and development of the antigen microarray chip for bioinformatic analysis of immune system patterns.

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Shelly Heimfeld, Ph.D.
Dr. Heimfeld is an Associate Faculty Member and serves as the Laboratory Director of the Cellular Therapy and cGMP Cell Processing Facilities at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. He has a broad range of research interests, with a particular focus on the development of improved therapeutic strategies using various human stem cell populations. His long-term goals for this area are to identify better markers for the characterization of stem and progenitor cells, to improve isolation technologies for enriching these types of cells, and to develop ex-vivo manipulation strategies that can enhance the therapeutic potential of these cells. Dr. Heimfeld has also been involved in the development of T-cell based immunotherapy for various diseases. Dr. Heimfeld currently serves as President for ISCT (International Society of Cellular Therapy). He is also on the Board of Directors for FACT (Foundation for the Accreditation of Cellular Therapy) and is a leading authority in GLP, GTP and GMP regulations, working with the FDA to facilitate exchange of ideas in the rapidly evolving area of Cell Therapy. Dr. Heimfeld received his Ph.D. in Cell Differentiation from the University of California, Irvine.

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Daniel R. Marshak, Ph.D.
Dr. Marshak is Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer for PerkinElmer, Inc. Dr. Marshak is responsible for setting the strategic direction of PerkinElmer's research and development functions, and helping drive its growth strategies in the emerging areas of personalized medicine and predictive diagnostics. Most recently, Dr. Marshak was Vice President & Chief Technology Officer, Biotechnology, for Cambrex Corporation, setting strategy in biosciences and participating in corporate and commercial activities. Dr. Marshak joined Cambrex in 2000, and through 2001 led R&D; worldwide for the Bioscience sector. Concurrently, Dr. Marshak also holds an appointment as Adjunct Associate Professor at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland.

Previously (1994-2000), Dr. Marshak was Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer for Osiris Therapeutics, Inc., a U.S. biotechnology company developing adult stem cell products for the regeneration of diseased or damaged tissues. He was previously (1986-1995) Senior Staff Investigator at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Long Island, New York, where he and the members of his laboratory conducted research in signal transduction, cellular growth control, and differentiation. Dr. Marshak was concurrently (1987-1994) Assistant Professor, School of Medicine, State University of New York at Stony Brook, where he taught graduate biochemistry.

Dr. Marshak received his B.A. from Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, and his Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University, New York City, in Biochemistry & Cell Biology. He did postdoctoral research in Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, Nashville, Tennessee, and at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Marshak has received several awards for scientific and academic achievements. He is also an inventor on six issued U.S. patents.

Dr. Marshak has extensive research experience in the growth control of human cells. Dr. Marshak is author of more than 100 scientific publications, including one textbook, and he has been editor of five monographs. The most recent monograph, Stem Cell Biology, was published in 2001 by The Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Press.

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Mark F. Pittenger, Ph.D.
Dr. Pittenger is a scientist with over 25 years of research experience and extensive training in biochemistry, cellular and molecular biology. For over 10 years Dr. Pittenger has worked for Osiris Therapeutics as a Senior Research Scientist. Manager of Cell Biology, Director of Discovery Research, and ultimately as Vice President for Research, performing extensive studies on the isolation, characterization and differentiation of the multi-potential stem cells found in adult bone marrow known as mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs). Stemming from his research, numerous developments have been made in this field including identifying key conditions for adipogenic differentiation of MSCs, analysis of chondrogenic differentiation and a further understanding of the intracellular signaling pathway leading to osteogenic differentiation. With his numerous publications and five United States issued patents under his belt, one thing in particular stands out amongst the others as a major accomplishment within his field of study. Dr. Pittenger's paper on clonally derived MSCs that established that MSCs were multipotent was published in Science in 1999; since then this paper has been cited in over 2000 reviewed publications. Dr. Pittenger received his Ph.D from Johns Hopkins Medical School, with post-doctoral research performed at Yale University. He has been invited to speak on both stem cell biology and regenerative medicine to many national and international audiences including England, Germany, Japan, China, etc.

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Jingwu Zhang, M.D., Ph.D.
Jingwu Zang, M.D., Ph.D. received his medical degree from the Shanghai Second Medical University (now JiaoTong University School of Medicine) and went on to earn his PhD in Immunology, where he started his illustrious pursuit of a cure for multiple sclerosis and other autoimmune diseases through basic and clinical research. He later received an advanced research fellowship award from the U.S. National Multiple Sclerosis Society and conducted his postdoctoral research on multiple sclerosis at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Zang joined the faculty of Neurology and Immunology at Baylor College of Medicine where he completed a clinical residency program. Prior to his career in Shanghai, he had been Professor of Neurology and Immunology, a U.S. licensed physician and Research Director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas . Dr. Zang has been a leading neuroimmunologist in the field of multiple sclerosis and has published over 130 scientific articles in chapters, books and such prestigious journals as Science, JEM, JCI, PNAS, Brain, Annals of Neurology, Nature Immunology, etc. He is well known for his pioneering work in T cell vaccination as a treatment for multiple sclerosis, which led to landmark publications in Science. In his recent career Dr. Zang established the Institute of Health Sciences as the founding director with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and JiaoTong University School of Medicine and co-founded the Institut Pasteur Shanghai with the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Institut Pasteur Paris. Institute of Health Sciences, a unique translational research institute, has thrived under his leadership and rapidly become one of top translational research institutions. Recently, Dr. Zang joined GlaxoSmithKline as Senior Vice President, to head GlaxoSmithKline's global Research and Development Center in Shanghai, China.