Advisory Board

Dr. DiMarchi is presently a Professor of Chemistry and the Jack and Linda Gill Distinguished Chair in Biomolecular Science at Indiana University, partner at Twilight Ventures in Indianapolis, and Founding CEO and Board Member of Ambrx (San Diego, CA), a startup biotech company. Dr. DiMarchi is recently retired as the Group Vice President for Biotechnology and Product Development at Eli Lilly Research Laboratories, where he made major contributions to Lilly in biotechnology and endocrinology. Dr. DiMarchi was directly involved in the discovery and development of several Lilly drugs, including Humulin(R), Humatrope(R), Evista(R), Xigris(R), and Forteo(R). He was a co-inventor of Humalog(R), the first biosynthetic protein approved for human use. Additionally, at Lilly he championed the introduction and integration of cutting-edge biotechnologies, including genomics, proteomics, high-throughput screening, and combinatorial chemistry.

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Chairman, Department of Molecular Therapeutics
Chief, Section of Molecular Therapeutics
Professor of Medicine
Horne Professorship
Professor of Immunology (joint appointment)
The University of Texas
M.D. Anderson Cancer Center

Dr. Mills is an internationally recognized expert and thought leader in signal transduction, specifically involving the PI3-Kinase and PTEN pathway. He is currently the Chairman, Department of Molecular Therapeutics, Professor of Medicine at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. With more than 270 publications either published or in press, Dr. Mills has authored papers in such prestigious journals as Nature, Cell, Oncogene, Nature Genetics, Cancer Research, PNAS and Clinical Cancer Research. A testament to the quality of his research, Dr. Mills’ work in ovarian cancer, breast cancer and tumor immunology has been continuously funded by major peer-reviewed grants for nearly 20 years. He serves as principal investigator on five different NIH/NCI grants and three different Department of Defense grants, co-principal investigator on two additional NIH/NCI grants and one Department of Defense grant, and collaborator on multiple other national peer-reviewed grants. Dr. Mills has made significant contributions to the understanding of ovarian tumorigenesis, including the identification and development of lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) as a possible marker for early-stage ovarian cancer and as a potential target for therapy. He has also played a major role in our understanding of the genetic aberrations in the phosphatidylinositol 3 kinase/PTEN/AKT pathway forwarding this cascade as a major target for therapy in multiple different cancers.

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Dr. Pearce recently retired from Lilly Research Laboratories, where he served as a member of the executive leadership in discovery research. Of particular note was his tenure as vice president of cancer research and clinical investigation. At the time of his retirement, Dr. Pearce held the title of distinguished research fellow.

In his more than 27 years devoted to cancer drug discovery at Lilly, Dr. Pearce was involved in the development of more than 25 investigational drugs which entered clinical trials for cancer, of which three have resulted in regulatory approvals and others are still in development. These drugs, which include Gemzar® and Alimta®, achieved 2005 combined worldwide sales of nearly 2 billion dollars. Another drug which advanced during this period, the molecular targeted therapeutic, enzastaurin, is now in Phase III clinical trials.

Dr. Pearce currently serves as a business director or scientific advisor to a number of leading research institutions, foundations and biotechnology companies. The recipient of numerous awards throughout his career, Dr. Pearce was most recently named “A Hero of Chemistry” by the American Chemical Society. Dr. Pearce received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University and his undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University.

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Professor of Pathology, Chair of the Division of Medical Sciences, and Chair of the Department of Cancer Biology, Dana Farber Cancer Institute & Harvard Medical School.

SCIENTIFIC OVERVIEW OF THE ROBERTS LAB

Dr Roberts’ laboratory has played a key role in the development of the field of signal transduction from tyrosine kinases. Often using viral oncogenes as a models, it pioneered structure/function studies on tyrosine kinases showing how molecules such as pp60c-src are themselves regulated by tyrosine phosphorylation. The lab also pioneered work on the two key signaling pathways downstream of tyrosine kinases: The first definitive work on PI3’kinase was done by this lab in collaboration with those of Cantley and Schaffhausen. Similarly the Roberts lab first showed that the serine-threonine kinase Raf-1 was regulated by mitogens and then helped to elucidate the pathway from p21ras to Raf-1 to MAP kinases. The lab first characterized the novel NPXY binding site used by the SHC protooncogene product to bind to receptors and pointed out the interaction of the 14-3-3 molecules with key signal transducers. The lab has developed widely used technologies for the study of signaling, including the antiphosphotyrosine antibody 4g10 as well as the use of the baculovirus system for studying the kinases and interaction of signaling molecules. For the last 19 years Dr. Roberts has worked with Ciba Geigy-now Novartis to generate small molecule inhibitors of protein and lipid kinases. Dr Roberts lab provided the original expertise to Ciba, which allowed the establishment of high through put assay for kinases—This led to the discovery of a number of inhibitors including STI571. More recently the lab has moved into the development of mouse models to study the PTEN/PI3 kinase/Akt pathway in prostate and tumors and pioneered the study of signal transduction in zebrafish.

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Dr. Soule is the Executive Vice President and Chief Science Officer at Prostate Cancer Foundation (formerly CaP CURE). He is responsible for coordinating scientific and clinical research, bringing together academia and industry in unique ways to accelerate discovery and development of new treatments for prostate cancer. Prior to joining CaP CURE, Dr. Soule was a senior R&D executive for nine years at Corvas International, a public biotechnology company, where he was responsible for the discovery and development of innovative products for the treatment of life-threatening cardiovascular diseases such as heart attack and stroke. Dr. Soule received his Ph.D. from Baylor College of Medicine in Virology and Epidemiology and was a Post Doctoral Fellow in Cancer Immunology at the Scripps Research Institute.

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Dr Sweeney is currently a member of the Scientific and Clinical Advisory Board to Semafore and has been instrumental in setting up the initial clinical development activities of SF1126 while serving as Clinical Director of the Developmental Therapeutics Program in the Division of Hematology-Oncology at the IU Medical School Cancer Center. In 2008 Dr Sweeney moved from Indianapolis to Adelaide Australia where he assumed a position of Director of Clinical Trials at the Royal Adelaide Hospital Cancer Center. He holds a position of Professor at the University of Adelaide. He received his medical degrees from the University of Adelaide, South Australia in 1992, and completed an internship at the Royal Adelaide Hospital. From 1994 to 1997, Dr. Sweeney was an Internal Medicine resident at Gundersen Lutheran Medical Center, La Crosse, Wisconsin, and from 1997 to 2000, he was a Fellow in Hematology/Oncology at Indiana University Medical Center. Dr. Sweeney is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology. In addition Dr. Sweeney has been an active contributor to the American Society of Clinical Oncology having served on both the Program and Education Committees. He has authored and co-authored several articles and abstracts in peer-reviewed journals, as well as several monographs and book chapters. He has focused his academic career at cancer drug development by performing: 1. phase I dose escalation trials with pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic endpoints; 2. phase I trials of new chemotherapeutics in patients with organ dysfunction; 3. pharmacogenomic and biomarker discovery studies; 4. trials of targeted therapies and; 5. drug discovery in the laboratory.

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