Scientific Advisory Board
Professor Rima McLeod, MD - University of Chicago
Rima McLeod is internationally recognized for her expertise and extensive research in toxoplasmosis. She specializes in the comprehensive care of congenital toxoplasmosis and other Toxoplasma gondii infections. In the laboratory, Dr. McLeod leads investigative studies designed to ultimately develop more effective screening, detection, vaccination and treatment strategies for toxoplasmosis. She is an expert in vaccine design with experience in adjuvant formulations and has been working with SAPNs for many years. Dr. McLeod's is a member of the committees on Molecular Medicine, Immunology, and Genetics, and a fellow with the Institute for Genomics and Systems Biology at the University of Chicago.
Professor Jörg Stetefeld, PhD - University of Manitoba
Jörg Stetefeld is a professor and (Tier 1) Canada Research Chair in Structural Biology and Biophysics at the Department of Chemistry at the University of Manitoba. He studies the structural and functional aspects of receptor-ligand interactions that play important roles in biology and human disease. The overarching goal is to obtain detailed mechanistic insights of how ligand binding is structurally coupled to receptor activation, and to exploit this information to manipulate signaling with resulting in cancer therapeutics. The Stetefeld laboratory focuses on “dependence receptors”, and their role in targeted apoptosis. His lab develops novel approaches for boron neutron capture therapy (BNCT) of cancer. Dr. Stetefeld has published over hundred peer-reviewed research papers, including articles in e.g. in Nature Communications, Cancer Cell, Nature Genetics, Nature Structural Biology, EMBO J, PNAS, and many more. He has filed three international patent applications.
Professor Roger Schibli, PhD - ETH Zürich (TBC)
Roger Schibli is a Full Professor at the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences (ETH Zurich) and Head of the Center for Radiopharmaceutical Science (CRS), a collaboration between ETH Zurich and the Paul Scherrer Institute. Prof. Schibli's research interests cover targeted tumor diagnosis and therapy using radiolabeled compounds. Apart from the chemical modification and radioactive labeling of molecules, his group emphasizes on the biological and pharmacological characterization and optimization of the radioactive compounds including non-invasive PET and SPET imaging. New, medically relevant radionuclides for his pre-clinical and clinical studies are produced at the cyclotron and neutron facilities of the ETH and the Paul Scherrer Institute.
Professor Mazhar I. Khan, PhD - University of Connecticut
Mazhar Khan has been working in the Department of Pathobiology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT since 1989. His research interests and expertise are in the development of influenza vaccines (human and animal vaccines). He is further involved with molecular diagnostic techniques such as the development and application of DNA based probes. He has been working on molecular epidemiology and on Salmonella enteritidis-specific vaccine. Molecular characterization of S genes of infectious bronchitis virus (IBV) and pathogenesis of IBV serotypes. Development of recombinant DNA-vectored vaccine and in ovo vaccination trial of a recombinant DNA vaccine for IBV. He has several publications on the use of SAPNs as vaccines.
