Co-Founder and CEO
Co-Founder and CSO
Dr. Michael Lilly will support the team as a co-investigator on the Phase II grant. Dr. Lilly is a physician scientist who is one of the leading oncologists at the Hollings Cancer Center with national and international reputation. Dr. Lilly’s research efforts are focused on ways to improve the care of patients with advanced prostate cancer. His current laboratory is looking at the biochemical events that are regulated by PIM1 kinase, using both experimental and bioinformatics approaches. His laboratory is also studying mutations in the PIM1 kinase that occur in cancer patients.
Dr. Szulc is a Research Associate Professor at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, MUSC. Dr. Szulc is an organic chemist by training. His research is focused on understanding how sphingolipids (SPLs) act on the molecular level in cancer cells. Specifically, he is an expert in developing synthetic methods to develop novel lipid-based small molecules as anti-cancer drugs with improved water solubility, delivery, and efficacy.
Dr. Gruber is a trained biochemist who is involved in commercializing anti-microbial agents and materials for the market. He has a wealth of experience in developing small businesses and start-up companies for commercializing small molecules.
Sarita Ogretmen, a former CPA with experience in both public and private accounting, is responsible for the financial oversight of the company.
Dr. Dolloff’s research focuses on identifying and validating new molecular drug targets, therapeutics, and therapeutic drug combinations for the treatment of cancer. He has led projects that have delivered small molecules and monoclonal antibodies targeting alpha-PDGFR (olaratumab/LARTRUVO®), dual inhibitors of GSK-3beta and CDK1, CDK9, and protein disulfide isomerase (PDI). Entrepreneurship is a key mission of his lab and is driven by a commitment to translate the lab’s discoveries using commercialization as a vehicle to accomplish that goal. He is active in university spin-out company formation, SBIR/STTR programs, out-licensing of intellectual property to industry partners, and academic entrepreneurship training. Dr. Dolloff is founder of Leukogene Therapeutics, Inc (LTI), which is an NCI portfolio start-up company that focuses on exploiting immune cell mechanisms to generate new therapies for cancer.
As President and CEO at Apogee, Dr. Smith led the company through a licensing deal for its Phase II drug candidate ABC294640 and additional intellectual property rights to RedHill Biopharma. ABC294640 is a proprietary, first-in-class, orally administered sphingosine kinase-2 (SK2) inhibitor, with anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer activities, targeting multiple inflammatory, gastrointestinal (GI) and oncology indications. Apogee received cumulative funding exceeding $14 million to support the development of ABC294640, primarily through grants and contracts from U.S. federal and state government agencies. His experience in leading this company through clinical development and licensing will be very valuable to LipoImmuno.
Dr. DeMore is currently a BMW Endowed Chair in Cancer Research, SmartState Center of Economic Excellence at Medical University of South Carolina. She is very passionate and driven to create treatment options for cancer patients. In fact, Dr. DeMore was named 2020 fellow of the National Academy of Inventors for her work. Induction into the NAI fellows’ program is the highest professional distinction accorded solely to academic innovators. The program was established to highlight inventors who have demonstrated a prolific spirit in creating or facilitating outstanding inventions that have made a tangible impact on quality of life, economic development and the welfare of society. Beyond her academic career, she is also co-founder of Innova Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing a monoclonal antibody (mAb) platform targeting a protein that is highly expressed in various solid cancers and shown to correlate with patient outcome.
Dr. Nishimura is a Professor in the Department of Surgery at Loyola University Chicago with a secondary appointment in Cancer Biology. His postdoctoral fellowship at the California Institute of Technology is where the roots of his current research, the study of the genetics and biology of T cell receptor (TCR) genes and TCR gene modified T cells, began. When he joined the Surgery Branch, NCI, he began a more translational and clinical approach to study TCRs by developing the TCR gene transfer approach for generating anti-cancer T cells for adoptive cell therapy in cancer patients. The last 35+ years of studying T cells and tumor immunology has led to three clinical trials and 28 patients treated with gene modified T cells.
Dr. Sahin has published more than 60 peer-reviewed papers in the field of cancer research in high impact international journals (e.g. PNAS, Cancer Cell, Nature Communications, Cell Research, Molecular Systems Biology, Clinical Cancer Research and Oncogene, etc.) and filed multiple patent applications. To date, he has received multiple funding (as PI) for his research from the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), European Union FP7 Program, TUBITAK, American Cancer Society and the National Institutes of Health. He has received many awards, including Presidential Coin for Research Excellence from the President of USC and TUSEB Aziz Sancar (Nobel Laureate) Science Incentive Award from the Health Institutes of Turkey. Also, Dr. Sahin has begun to commercialize his work through his own company, Loxigen, Inc.