Scientific Advisory Board

• George Stark, Ph.D., F.R.S., Chairman
• Inder Verma, Ph.D., M.Sc
• Bruce Blazar, M.D.
• Preet M. Chaudhary, M.D., Ph.D.

George Stark, is a distinguished expert in the fields of biochemistry, signal transduction and cancer biology who has pioneered many key technologies in the fields of molecular biology and genetics. The author of over 220 articles, Dr. Stark contributed to the development of the Western and Northern techniques in protein and nucleic acid chemistry. His newer work has focused on the application of systematic genetics to interferon signaling pathways leading to the discovery of the JAK-STAT family of proteins, which mediate responses to many different extracellular factors. Dr. Stark earned a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from Columbia University in 1959. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Rockefeller University, he joined the Department of Biochemistry at Stanford University in 1963, becoming Professor in 1971. In 1983, he moved to the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London. In 1992, he became the Chair of the Lerner Research Institute of The Cleveland Clinic. Dr. Stark was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 1986 and to the fellowship of the Royal Society in 1990. He was recently elected into the Medical Institute of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Stark serves on Scientific Advisory Boards of many biotech companies, including Amersham Biosciences, Sunesis, Lorus Therapeutics and others.

Inder Verma, Ph.D., M.Sc
Inder Verma is a distinguished member of the National Academy of Sciences, Professor of the Salk Institute for Biology Research, Founder and Scientific Advisor to several pharmaceutical and biotech companies including Cell Genesys, Signal Pharmaceuticals, Somatix Therapy Corporation, UroGenesys, Ventana Pharmaceuticals, Quark Biotech and others. Dr. Verma is an internationally recognized leader in cancer biology and inflammation.

Bruce Blazar, M.D.
Bruce Blazar has served in various academic positions at the University of Minnesota since 1978. Presently, he is a Professor in the Division of Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplantation, Director, Cytokine Reference Laboratory, Associate Director, Division of Pediatric Bone Marrow Transplantation and Andersen Chair in Transplantation Immunology. Dr. Blazar has received numerous professional honors and awards, including the American Cancer Society Clinical Fellowship Award, the NIH-NCI National Research Service Award and the MERIT Award. In addition to his past and present work on numerous editorial boards, he is a member of the FDA Advisory Committee on Biological Response Modifiers and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Translational Research Grant Committee. Dr. Blazar received a B.S. in biology at the Renssalear Polytechnic Institute and completed medical school in 1978 at Albany Medical College. He has multiple active grants supporting a substantial research effort and has published over 230 manuscripts.

Preet M. Chaudhary, M.D., Ph.D.
Preet M. Chaudhary is Professor of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School, Deputy Director of Translational Research of the University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute and Co-Director of the Hematological Malignancies Program of University of Pittsburgh. Dr. Chaudhary is an internationally renowned physician-scientist with research interests in several areas of cancer, including cancer drug resistance, biology of normal and leukemic hematopoeitic stem cells, programmed cell death, cellular signaling, molecularly targeted and biological therapies for leukemias, lymphomas, multiple myeloma and solid tumors, and novel strategies to improve the outcome of stem cell transplantation. Dr. Chaudhary has authored or co-authored numerous scientific publications and book chapters in some of the top scientific journals and holds 5 US patents in the areas of hematopoietic stem cell purification, multi-drug resistance to cancer chemotherapy and NF-?B signaling. Dr. Chaudhary has been the recipient of numerous honors, fellowships and awards form national and international research organizations including the National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, Cancer Research Fund of the Damon-Runyon Walter-Winchell Foundation, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Leukemia Research Foundation, March of Dimes Foundation, Childhood Cancer Foundation and the Nearburg Family Foundation.