Optimata - Navigating Drug Development

About Us

Vision

Management

Board of Directors

Scientific Advisory Board

Optimata benefits from the interdisciplinary expertise of highly regarded scientists with a worldwide reputation. Serving on the Optimata Scientific Advisory Board are:

Professor Ruth Arnon

Formerly Vice-President of the Weizmann Institute of Science (1988-1997), Professor Arnon is a noted immunologist. Prof. Arnon joined the Weizmann Institute in 1960. Prior to her appointment as Vice-President, she served as Head of the Department of Chemical Immunology, and as Dean of the Faculty of Biology. From 1985 to 1994, she was Director of the Institute's MacArthur Center for Molecular Biology of Tropical Diseases. Prof. Arnon has made significant contributions to the fields of vaccine development, cancer research and to the study of parasitic diseases. Along with Prof. Michael Sela, she developed Copaxone® a drug for the treatment of multiple sclerosis, which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and is presently marketed in the USA, Canada and many other countries worldwide. Prof. Arnon is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences, and presently chairs its Science Division. On the world scene, she is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). She has served as President of the European Federation of Immunological Societies (EFIS), and as Secretary-General of the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS). Her awards include the Robert Koch Prize in Medical Sciences, Spain's Jiminez Diaz Memorial Prize, France's Legion of Honor, the Hadassah World Organization's Women of Distinction Award, the Wolf Prize for Medicine, the Rothschild Prize for Biology and the Israel Prize. Prof. Arnon is also the Advisor for Science to the President of Israel. Prof. Arnon is the incumbent of the Paul Ehrlich Chair in Immunochemistry.

Professor David Sidransky

Professor David Sidransky is the Director of the Head and Neck Cancer Research Division at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In addition, he is Professor of Oncology, Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Cellular & Molecular Medicine, Urology, Genetics, and Pathology at Johns Hopkins University and Hospital. Dr. Sidransky is certified in Internal Medicine and Medical Oncology by the American Board of Medicine. Dr. Sidransky has served as a director of Imclone since January 2004. He is a founder of several private biotechnology companies and has served on numerous scientific advisory boards of many private and public companies, including Medimmune, Roche, and Amgen. He was formerly on the board of scientific counselors at the NIDCR and a member of the Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee at the National Institute of Health NIH (RAC).

Dr. Sidransky sits on numerous editorial boards, has over 250 peer-reviewed publications, and has contributed more than 40 cancer reviews and chapters and also holds numerous issued biotechnology patents. He has been the recipient of many awards and honors, including the 1997 Sarstedt International prize from the German Society of Clinical Chemistry, the 1998 Alton Ochsner Award Relating Smoking and Health by the American College of Chest Physicians and the 2004 Hinda and Richard Rosenthal Award from the American Association of Cancer Research.

Professor Roger Stupp

Roger Stupp, M.D., serves as head of the Department of Oncology of the Riviera/Chablais region at the hospitals of Vevey and Monthey, Switzerland, and as Attending Physician at the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Lausanne Medical Center (CHUV) where he leads the multidisciplinary brain tumor clinic.

Dr. Roger Stupp has been the lead investigator for establishing temozolomide chemotherapy in conjunction with radiotherapy in newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients, and for determining the predictive value of MGMT gene promoter methylation. He co-chairs a randomized clinical trial by the Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK) investigating chemotherapy and concomitant radiotherapy in lung cancer brain metastases.

He serves as the chairman of the Clinical Research Division and as Member of the Executive Committee of the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC). Dr. Stupp is a member of the editorial boards of numerous journals including Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lancet Oncology and Neuro-Oncology.

Dr. Stupp received his medical degree from Zurich University Medical School, Zurich, Switzerland and pursued and completed specialization in hematology and oncology at the University of Chicago Hospitals and Cancer Center, Chicago, Illinois.

Professor Gerard Wagemaker

Gerard Wagemaker (1948), PhD, is Professor of Hematology holding the Chair of Stem Cell Gene Therapy at Erasmus University Medical Center, Rotterdam, The Netherlands. He was trained in medicine, radiation and transplantation biology. From 1974-1992 he was a staff scientist at the Radiobiological Institute TNO, Rijswijk, The Netherlands, with last positions held including Head of its Department of Experimental Hematology, as well as Head of the Department of Radiation Biology at Erasmus University’s Medical Faculty. He holds numerous international advisory functions in radiation protection, and in the ‘90s served the Dutch government as well as the European Commission, the World Health Organization and the International Atomic Energy Agency in analyzing the health consequences of the Chernobyl accident. He also coordinated Euratom’s health research projects among the victims in the Russian Federation and Ukraine. He has made significant scientific contributions to the areas of radiation biology, bone marrow and stem cell transplantation, hematopoietic cytokines, and gene therapy with a total of over 160 publications.

These focus on stem cell regulation by hematopoietic cytokines, such as thrombopoietin, and on preclinical evaluation of experimental therapy. He has been and continues to be coordinator of several European projects, as of 2000 coordinating the European Commission’s research projects on stem cell gene therapy for inherited diseases. Currently he is also advisor of the stem cell transplant centers in St. Petersburg, Russia and in the Children’s Hospital of Ankara, Turkey, as well as at Hollis Eden Pharmaceuticals, San Diego, CA, USA.

Web sites: http://www.erasmusmc.nl/; http://www.genetherapy.nl/

Professor Glenn F. Webb

Professor Glenn Webb is a world-leading mathematician having obtained a PhD in Mathematics from Emory University (Georgia, USA). With a focus over the last twenty years on the formalization and analysis of physiological and pathological cell proliferation processes, his professional experience includes Chair of the Department of Mathematics at Vanderbilt University (Tennessee, USA), a research fellowship for foreign mathematicians at the Instituto Matematica, Universita di Roma, Italy, visiting professorship in many universities including the Universita di Padova, Italy (1980,1996,1998,2000), Universitat Graz, Austria (1981), Scuola Normale Superiore, Pisa, Italy (1982), University of Pau, France (1997) and others. Prof. Webb is a member of several noted organizations including the American Mathematics Society, Mathematical Association of America, Society of Mathematical Biology, Society of Industrial and Applied Mathematics, and more. He has authored many articles and books on mathematics and is a senior member of many editorial boards of prestigious journals, including the Journal of Differential and Integral Equations, Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications, Discrete and Continuous Dynamic Systems, Nonlinear Studies, Communications in Applied Analysis, Qualitative Theory of Differential Equations and Applications, Communications on Applied Nonlinear Analysis, Abstract and Applied Analysis, Journal of Biological Systems, Journal of Evolution Equations, and the Journal of Dynamics of Continuous, Discrete, and Impulsive Systems.

Professor Yosef Yarden

Yosef Yarden is professor in the Department of Biological Regulation at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, where he earned a PhD degree in 1985. He trained at Genentech Inc. in San Francisco and in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Cambridge, MA) before establishing his own research laboratory in 1989 at the Weizmann Institute. He currently serves as Chair of the Israel National Committee on Biotechnology and Chair of the Research Committee of the Israel Cancer Association.

Dr Yarden has been involved in many crucial discoveries that unraveled the roles for growth factors in cancer. He pioneered the isolation of several growth factors and their receptors. His extensive research on the structure and function of growth factor receptors has lead to their recognition as targets for cancer therapy.

Yarden has received numerous awards for his work, including the H. Dudley Wright Research Award in Biomembranes, the Somech Sachs Prize in Chemistry, the Andre Lwoff Prize, the Lombroso Award for Cancer Research, the Michael Bruno Prize of Yad Hanadiv Fund, the Teva Founders’ Prize, the EMET Prize of the State of Israel, the Hamilton Fairly Award of the European Societies of Clinical Oncology (ESMO), and the MERIT Award of the U.S. National Cancer Institute. Yarden is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, the European Molecular Biology Organization and the Asia-Pacific International Molecular Biology Network.