October 18, 2010 Program
Introduction: Ronald G. Weiner, President Perelson Weiner LLP
Keynote Speaker: Robert K. Weiss, President X Prize Foundation
Weiss has served as a consultant and team partner to the Boeing Corporation in the development of a global consortium dedicated to the distribution of space related multimedia entertainment and educational programs, products and services. Additionally, he served as Executive Producer for the American Rocket Company producing multimedia connected with the development, testing and launch attempt of their pioneering hybrid rocket.Weiss served on the Board of Directors of IS Robotics (now called iRobot in Cambridge, Massachusetts) from 1990 to 1994. In 2000, he was Executive Vice President and Executive Producer for the Blastoff! Corporation in Pasadena, California; an entertainment company founded to conduct actual space missions as the foundation for high value media and marketing platforms.Weiss currently serves on the Board of Directors of the Rocket Racing League, a 21st Century sport launched to become the NASCAR of the skies (www.rocketracingleague.com).Under the banner of Earthlight (a multimedia production company),Weiss has produced award winning productions for the X PRIZE Foundation, The Boeing Company, the Zero Gravity Corporation and Anousheh Ansari, the first female private space explorer. Mr. Weiss has been the Vice Chairman and Executive Producer for the X PRIZE Foundation since 1996. In the fall of 2004, he produced the award-winning live telecast & webcast of the Ansari X PRIZE space flights. Weiss has been the President of the X PRIZE Foundation since July, 2008.
Presentations
Jim Chinitz: CEO Population Diagnostics
Mr. Chinitz is the CEO and co-founder of Population Diagnostics Inc. (“PDx”), which has pioneered a methodology to rationally interpret the human genome and mine it systematically to reveal rare variant mutations that cause common complex disease. Mr. Chinitz is a 20+ year life science industry veteran who is globally recognized for introducing leading edge technology to the research, pharmaceutical and diagnostic communities. Prior to co-founding Population Diagnostics, he held various positions which included Director and Executive Management roles, on elite commercial teams within the pioneering life science companies, Hoffmann-La Roche, Applied Biosystems (nyse:LIFE acquired by Invitrogen), Affymetrix (nasdaq:AFFX), Third Wave Technologies (nasdaq: TWTI acquired by Hologic) and Enzo Life Sciences (nyse:ENZ). He has played essential roles in the commercialization of DNA sequencing, PCR, gene expression and genotyping technologies, which have today, become the mainstream tools used in human disease genomic research. His role in the worldwide market adoption of microarrays has led Mr. Chinitz’s vision for the acceleration of genetic discoveries and their conversion into simple predictive tests used by physicians for personalizing medicine.
Phillip P. Chan, MD, PhD: Chief Executive Officer and President CytoSorbents Corporation
Dr. Phillip Chan is the CEO and President of CytoSorbents Corporation. Prior to CytoSorbents, Dr. Chan led healthcare and life science investments as Partner for NJTC Venture Fund. He was responsible for numerous investments in therapeutics, medical devices and diagnostics. Dr. Chan also co-founded Andrew Technologies, a venture-backed medical device company developing novel, advanced surgical instruments. Dr. Chan is a Board-certified internal medicine physician with a strong background in clinical medicine and research, having completed his residency at Harvard Medical School at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. Dr. Chan received his MD/PhD from Yale University School of Medicine and his BS in cell and molecular biology from Cornell University.
Manish Singh, Ph.D., MBA: Chief Executive Officer and President ImmunoCellular Therapeutics Ltd.
Prior to joining ImmunoCellular Therapeutics, Dr. Singh was a Director of California Technology Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm in Pasadena, California, from June 2003 to December 2007. During his tenure at California Technology Ventures, Dr. Singh co-lead investments by that firm in several life sciences companies, including Aliva Biopharmaceuticals, SurgRx, Vivant Medical, Angioscore and Ceregene. He also acted as the interim CEO of Aliva Biopharmaceuticals, a human monoclonal antibody production company focused on creating a greater diversity of antibodies, and was a board member or observer for several companies, including Aliva, Angioscore and Ceregene.
Before joining California Technology Ventures, Dr. Singh spent 14 years in various scientific and managerial positions in research, product development, manufacturing, and business development at Genetic Therapy, Inc. (acquired by Novartis Pharmaceuticals), Chiron Corporation, and Cell Genesys, where he was responsible for the process development, scale-up, technology transfer, and manufacturing of several gene therapy products. During this time he worked on a number of preclinical and clinical programs in oncology and hemophilia.
Dr. Singh holds ten issued patents and patent applications, and has been an invited speaker at several national and international conferences on gene therapy, cell therapy and drug delivery. Dr. Singh received his BS in Chemical Engineering from IIT (Roorkee, India), MS in Chemical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and his Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and did his post-doctoral work at the American Red Cross in Biomedical Sciences. He also received his MBA at the Anderson School at UCLA, where he was a Deutschman Venture Fellow and a Patrick J. Welsh Entrepreneurship Fellow.