Purple Biotech, announced the inauguration of its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). Purple Biotech anticipates conducting regular SAB meetings to advise and assist management with significant scientific judgement regarding its clinical trials as well as to perform external scientific review of pre-clinical and R&D activities.
“I am delighted to welcome these highly distinguished cancer researchers and oncologists as inaugural members of Purple Biotech’s Scientific Advisory Board,” said Isaac Israel, Acting CEO of Purple Biotech. “Bringing together a group of key thought leaders in solid tumor research and medical practice has been a long-standing goal of the Company. We anticipate invaluable insights from them as they help us chart our strategic direction developing first-in-class cancer therapeutics.”
The members of the SAB are:
Eyal Gottlieb, PhD, is a Professor at the Department of Cancer Biology and Vice President for Research at The University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center (MD Anderson). Before joining MD Anderson in January 2023, he was Director of the Rappaport Institute for Biomedical Research, Vice Dean of Research and the Laura and Isaac Perlmutter Chair of Cancer Research at the Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine at Technion – Israel Institute of Technology. Previously, based on his independent research he became a Group Leader at the Cancer Research UK, Beatson Institute, where he established the Cancer Metabolism Research Unit and was appointed Professor of Molecular Cell Biology at the University of Glasgow. His research, which focuses on the metabolic vulnerabilities of cancer cells created by genetic or environmental constraints, has yielded several key discoveries on the tumor microenvironment that are useful to research and industry. He is a Senior Editor at Cancer Research, a member of multiple editorial boards and has co-founded two biotech companies.
Steven Maron, MD, MSc, is a medical oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) who specializes in treating gastrointestinal malignancies with a focus on esophageal and stomach cancers. His research focuses on applying informatics to identify novel therapeutic targets and to improve patient selection for targeting and immunotherapies. He has a particular interest in elucidating tumor heterogeneity and developing clinical trials aimed at overcoming this barrier. His research has been supported by grants from the National Cancer Institute, Conquer Cancer Foundation, American Association of Cancer Research, Society of MSK, Cycle for Survival, Ullman Fund for Cancer Immunology, and Castle Foundation.
Sunil Sharma, MD, MBA, is Physician in Chief, Deputy Director of Clinical Sciences and Professor and Division Director of Applied Cancer Research and Drug Discovery at Translational Genomics (TGen), and also Professor of Medicine at City of Hope. His laboratory focuses on drug discovery and translational research for novel cancer therapies, including epigenetics and immune pathways. Under his direction, his lab has discovered multiple compounds that are in pre-clinical and clinical development to treat various solid tumors. As a practicing oncologist, he focuses on treating patients with a range of gastrointestinal and rare cancers, collaborating with others to develop novel therapies and to strengthen early clinical research. His extensive experience in drug development includes over 200 clinical trials focusing on novel agents for translational and early clinical research. Previously at the Huntsman Cancer Institute he was the Deputy Director, the Co-Leader of the Experimental Therapeutics Program and the Director of the Center for Investigational Therapeutics.
