Speakers
Dr. Peter Lamb, CSO and Executive VP Discovery, Exelixis
Peter Lamb, Ph.D., has served as Executive Vice President Discovery Research and Chief Scientific Officer since September 2009. Previously he served as Senior Vice President, Discovery Research and Chief Scientific Officer from January of 2007 until August 2009, Vice President, Discovery Pharmacology from December 2003 until January 2007 and Senior Director, Molecular Pharmacology and Structural Biology from October 2000 until December 2003. From June 1992 until September 2000 he held positions of increasing responsibility at Ligand Pharmaceuticals, most recently serving as Director of Transcription Research. Dr. Lamb has held post-doctoral research fellowships at the Carnegie Institution, Department of Embryology with Dr S.L. McKnight and the University of Oxford with Dr N.J. Proudfoot, working in the field of gene regulation. He has authored numerous articles in the fields of gene expression, signal transduction and oncology, and is an author on multiple issued and pending US patents. He has a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the ICRF/University of London and a B.A. in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge.
Dr. John Patton, Founder and CEO, Dance Pharmaceuticals
John is a biotechnologist and entrepreneur in the field of drug delivery, particularly pulmonary delivery and peptide and protein delivery. Prior to founding Dance in 2009, he was co-founder of Inhale Therapeutics (now Nektar), where he served as a Director, Head of Research and Chief Scientific Officer from 1990-2008. Before that he led the drug delivery group at Genentech (l985-1990), where he demonstrated the feasibility of systemic delivery of large molecules through the lungs. At Inhale/Nektar he initiated and helped lead the development and FDA approval of the first inhaled insulin product. Prior to joining Genentech, Dr. Patton was a tenured professor at the University of Georgia. Dr. Patton received his Ph.D. in biology from the University of California, San Diego, and held post-doctoral positions in biomedicine at Harvard Medical School and the University of Lund, Sweden. He serves on scientific advisory boards for Penn State University, Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Aridis Pharmaceuticals as well as the executive boards of Dance, Halozyme, Activaero, and Pleiades Cardiotherapeutics. He is author or coauthor of more than100 publications and inventor or co-inventor of more than 38 patents.

Dr. Kevin Moore, Executive Director, Amgen
Dr. Moore holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology and an AB in Chemistry and a Certificate of Proficiency in Russian Studies from Princeton University. He served in various positions at DNAX Research Inc. (1981-2003), and was a principal in the discovery of IL-10, IL-10 receptor, and IL-23 receptor, as well as a collaborator in the discovery of the cytokine IL-23. In addition his group made contributions to the molecular characterization of human Fc receptors for IgG and to the DNAX genomics-based discovery program in the 1990’s. He was leader of or key participant in several project teams for development and transition of major early discovery projects to the parent company Schering-Plough for development. During 2004 Dr. Moore was Visiting Distinguished Research Fellow at ChemoCentryx, Inc., a company focused on developing small molecule drugs that target the chemokine system. In November 2004 Dr. Moore joined Avidia, Inc. as Senior Director of Target Biology where he was responsible for the company’s assay development, in vitro pharmacology and preclinical safety/toxicology programs. After Avidia’s acquisition by Amgen in October 2006 he was retained as Executive Director and is now Site Head for Protein Sciences at Amgen South San Francisco. Dr. Moore is coauthor of more than 50 original research publications and 18 review articles, and coinventor on 20 issued patents. Among all authors in immunology, he was ranked 10th in number of citations and 18th in citation impact, 1990-1994 as reported by Science Watch (May 1995) and The Scientist (September 1995).
Dr. Hing Sham, Senior VP, Chemical Sciences, Elan Pharmaceuticals
Hing Leung Sham, Ph.D., from 2002 until August 2006, directed Abbott Laboratories’ medicinal chemistry research efforts in metabolic diseases, including diabetes and obesity. He was the Distinguished Research Fellow at Abbott until 2006. He also has drug discovery experiences in cardiovascular, oncology and infectious diseases (1983-2002). Dr. Sham is the primary inventor of Kaletra® (lopinavir/ritonavir), Abbott's advanced-generation protease inhibitor for the treatment of HIV infection, and a co-inventor of Norvir® (ritonavir), Abbott's first generation protease inhibitor. An expert in medicinal chemistry and drug discovery, Dr. Sham is a named inventor on 75 issued US patents and multiple pending U.S. patents; he is author/co-author on >160 peer-reviewed publications. He is now leading the Chemical Sciences department at Elan Pharmaceuticals in drug discovery efforts for Autoimmune, Alzheimer and Parkinson’s diseases and other neurodegenerative diseases therapeutics.
Dr. Jimmy Zhang, Senior VP, Synergenics
Dr. Jimmy Zhang is a Senior Vice President at Synergenics, LLC, a professional service and investment company founded by Dr. Bill Rutter. Synergenics-invested companies cover areas such as therapeutic human mAb, gene therapy, cancer genomics, diabetes, diagnostics, and healthcare IT. Jimmy is responsible for the business development of Synergenics and its portfolio companies, and their businesses in China. Jimmy was previously a consultant at McKinsey traveling and working in China, US and Germany, a registered patent agent in Morrison & Foerster, and a project manager at Chiron Corporation. Jimmy received his Ph.D. from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, where he worked closely with two Nobel Laureates, and his MBA from MIT Sloan. Jimmy published in Cell, and Nature, and holds multiple patents. He’s a founding member and a Board Director of BayHelix Group. Jimmy is a frequently invited speaker and panelist at bio-pharma conferences and hi-tech meetings. He is also often quoted in both US and Chinese news media.
Dr. Douglas Ross, CSO, Clarient Inc.
Douglas T. Ross M.D., Ph.D. has been Chief Scientific Officer of Clarient, Inc. since its acquisition of Applied Genomics Inc (AGI) in December of 2009. Dr. Ross obtained his M.D. and his Ph.D. in Pathology from the University of Washington while studying at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. He completed two years of Clinical Pathology training including serving as Chief Resident at the University of California at San Francisco before doing genomics research as a Berry Fellowship Research Scholar at Stanford University beginning in 1996. He co-founded AGI in 2000 and has since led a research team translating insights from gene expression analysis of carcinoma into immunohistochemistry classifiers and clinically validated diagnostics. Together with his colleagues at Clarient and their academic collaborators, Dr. Ross has published numerous papers that translate insights from genomic scale analysis of cancer into clinical grade assays for managing cancer patients. He serves on the editorial board of BMC Genomics, and as adjunct visiting faculty at the University of Alabama at Huntsville and the Hudson-Alpha Institute of Biotechnology.
Dr. Ann Kapoun, Senior Director Translational Medicine, OncoMed Pharmaceuticals
Ann Kapoun, Ph.D., is Sr. Director of Translational Medicine at OncoMed Pharmaceuticals Inc. Redwood City, CA. She is responsible for developing clinical biomarker strategies and assays to demonstrate proof of principle in oncology trials. Ann leads the clinical execution and implementation of biomarkers and patient stratification approaches. Previously, she was Associate Director, Biomarker R&D, Clinical Pharmacology & Exp. Medicine, at ALZA, a Johnson & Johnson Company, in Mountain View, CA. Prior to that she was Head of Biomarker R&D at Scios, Inc in Fremont, CA. She received her Ph.D. in 1994 from Indiana University, Bloomington, IN.
Dr. Yuling Luo, Founder, President and CEO, Advanced Cell Diagnostics Inc.
Yuling has spent his entire career in biotech start-ups. Before ACD, Yuling was a founder of Panomics (previously named Genospectra before its acquisition of Panomics), a life science company that was acquired by Affymetrix in 2008. At Panomics, Dr. Luo served various roles including Vice President, Functional Genomics and Chief Scientific Officer and he led the development and launch of all of its flagship product lines. Prior to Panomics, Dr. Luo was one of the earliest senior scientists at Exelixis, where he led a team to identify and validate novel therapeutic targets. Yuling received his doctorate in biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University and conducted post-doctoral research at the University of Pennsylvania.
Dr. Gary Zweiger, VP, Business Development, BioNanomatrix Inc
Gary Zweiger joined BioNanomatrix in 2008. He has several decades of strategic business development experience with leading life sciences companies. Prior to joining BioNanomatrix, Dr. Zweiger led business development at Affymetrix. Previously, he led business development for Applied Biosystems' Cell and Molecular Biology division. Prior to Applied Biosystems, Dr. Zweiger held positions of increasing responsibility at Agilent Technologies. Earlier, he served as a strategic advisor and consultant to biotechnology and genomics companies and to the financial community. Dr. Zweiger received a Ph.D. in genetics and a B. S. in biological sciences from Stanford University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in molecular oncology at Genentech, Inc. He has published a popular science book on sequencing the human genome, authored numerous scientific publications and holds seven patents.
Dr. Jim Larrick, Managing director, Panorama Research Institute; Director, Life Science Angels and Venture Partner, CMEA
Dr. Jim Larrick has an international reputation in biotechnology and pharmaceutical drug development, having written or co-authored eight books, over 220 papers/chapters and fifteen patents. He also serves on the editorial board of six journals. After an MD and PhD degrees from Duke University School of Medicine and a post doctoral fellowship in the Stanford Cancer Biology Research Labs, he joined Cetus Immune Research Labs and pioneered the use of PCR for the construction of recombinant antibodies. Later on, Dr. Larrick founded the Palo Alto Institute of Molecular Medicine and has started up more than a dozen biopharmaceutical companies. Currently he serves on the Boards of five early stage companies and continues to pursue venture activities through partnering with CMEA.
Dr. Yiyou Chen, CSO & Co-founder, Crown Biosciences
Dr. Yiyou Chen is the Chief Scientific Officer and Co-founder of Crown Bioscience Inc., a leading biology outsourcing company with expertise in oncology and cardio-metabolic disease. The company leverages its strength in translational research and structure based drug design to provide value-added, Target-to-Candidate solutions. Before CrownBio, Dr. Chen was Chief CSO and co-founder of Starvax Inc., an R&D driven bio-pharmaceutical company based in Beijing. Prior to that, Dr. Chen was a senior scientist at Genencor. Dr. Chen obtained his BS in Biochemistry from Peking University, and his Ph.D. from University of Utah School of Medicine in Experimental Pathology.
Dr. Xiaowei Yang, CEO, BayesSoft
Dr. Yang is the CEO of the BayesSoft Inc., which is a provider of telehealth solutions to medical researchers, healthcare providers, and individual consumers. He is an expert in the Bayesian methods specialized in Bayesian variable selection in generalized linear models and MCMC algorithms for incomplete longitudinal data analysis with nonignorable missing data. After his graduation from UCLA-school of Public Health with Ph.D. in 2002, he has successfully applied these methods to hierarchical modeling in profiling health providers and developed biostatistical solutions to enhance the quality of healthcare and disease control, providing an ultimate solution to challenges in the coming era of healthcare that emphasizes personalized medicine, patient-centered care, and prevention-oriented management.
Dr. Dawei Lin, Director Bioinformatics Core, UC Davis
Dr. Dawei Lin received his PhD from Peking University, China in Computational and Structural Biology. He created the China’s first Bioinformatics server in 1995. He started his career at the Protein Data Bank (PDB) at Brookhaven National Laboratory, a worldwide repository for macromolecular structures. He is currently the Bioinformatics Core Director at the UC Davis Genome Center. In his current position, he is leading his team to provide expertise and infrastructure to carry out acquisition, curation, and distribution of complex data sets as well as to develop and perform computations, analyses and simulations addressing a wide variety of biological questions from genomics to network biology.
Mr. Joel Dudley, Bioinformatics Specialist, Butte Lab
Joel Dudley is a Bioinformatics Specialist in the laboratory of Atul J. Butte MD, PhD in the Department of Pediatrics at the Stanford University School of Medicine. His work involves the development of a genomics-based classification of human disease, known as the Genomic Nosology, and other projects leveraging translational bioinformatics for genomic and personalized medicine and drug discovery. He has authored a number of peer-reviewed publications on topics related to genomics, bioinformatics, molecular evolution, drug discovery, and personalized medicine. Prior to joining Stanford, Joel was the Chief Technical Officer at the Center for Evolutionary Functional Genomics where he participated in the development of the popular Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis (MEGA) software package among other bioinformatics projects.
Professor David Robinson, Haas Business School, UC Berkeley & Santa Clara University
Mr. David Robinson is Senior Lecturer in Marketing at the Haas School of Business where more than 10,000 Berkeley students have taken his Principles of Business over the last 15 years. In addition to the introductory business course he teaches the core undergraduate courses in marketing and business communication. He has traveled and taught extensively in Asia. At Santa Clara University he teaches the core MBA courses in Marketing and an MBA elective in Pricing Strategy. After studying in England for four years, he earned his PhD in Psychology from Brown and his MBA at UNC Chapel Hill.