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Jeffery D. Esko, Ph.D.
Co-founder and Chief Scientific Advisor’
Dr. Esko is currently a Professor at the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at University of California at San Diego.
Dr. Esko’s pioneering approach using mutant cells in his lab at the University of Alabama, Birmingham (1983-1996) and then later using genetically altered mice at the University of California, San Diego has helped bring to light many key functions played by glycans and has lead to over 100 publications, a March of Dimes Basil O’Connor Award (1984 -1986), a 10 year NIH MERIT award in 1999 and the Karl Meyer award in 2007. At UCSD, Dr. Esko’s lab continues to be a leader in the field of glycobiology. He also co-directs the Glycobiology Research and Training Center. Dr. Esko was President of the Society for Glycobiology in 2002-2003.
Dr. Esko recognized the importance of glycans as drug targets early on and served on the Scientific Advisory Board for one of the original glycobiology biotech companies, Glycomed (1990 – 1995). Since then he has had continuous demand for his expertise in glycobiology and has consulted for a number of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Technology developed by Dr. Esko has opened the glycobiology field to modern drug discovery. Dr. Esko received his Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Shripad S. Bhagwat, Ph.D.
Drug Discovery and Development Advisor’
Dr Bhagwat brings more than 25 years of successful experience in the pharmaceutical industry, most recently as Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery and Preclinical Development at Ambit Biosciences in San Diego, CA. After joining Ambit in January 2005, Dr. Bhagwat built and led all of drug discovery research as well as IND-enabling activities including CMC, toxicology, and IND-filing. Under Dr. Bhagwat’s leadership, Ambit’s drug discovery group identified four clinical candidates in as many years with the most advanced compound, AC220, currently undergoing Phase II clinical trials for the treatment of acute myeloid leukemia. From 1998 – 2004, he served as Vice President of Drug Discovery at Signal Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Celgene) where he was responsible for managing screening, medicinal chemistry, structure-based drug design, PK/ADME, and in vivo pharmacology activities. While at Signal, he supervised multiple drug discovery projects in cancer and inflammation with a focus on kinases and helped identify six drug candidates, two of which are currently in phase II clinical trials (CC-401 and CC-8490). From 1994-1998, Dr. Bhagwat served as Senior Group Leader, Neuroscience Research at Abbott Laboratories, where he managed medicinal chemistry, combinatorial chemistry, and structure based drug design activities. Beginning in 1985, Dr. Bhagwat contributed to the drug discovery research at Ciba-Geigy Corporation, where his work led to the identification of three candidates for clinical development. Dr. Bhagwat has published over 50 papers and is an inventor on over 50 issued or pending patents. He received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and conducted postdoctoral research at Columbia University.
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