Dr. Emanuel F Petricoin is the Chief Science Officer and Co-Founder of Perthera, Inc., Perthera is a leading precision medicine company that empowers all cancer patients and oncologists globally with the most comprehensive molecular profiling and data analytics process. Dr. Petricoin has been the Co-Director of the Center for Applied Proteomics and Molecular Medicine at George Mason University since 2005, where he is a University Professor. Prior to this position, he served as Co-Director of the FDA-NCI Clinical Proteomics Program and a Senior Investigator within the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research at the FDA from 1993-2005. He has authored over 360 peer-reviewed publications and invited reviews with an H Factor of 92, and is on the editorial board of over 10 high impact journals. He has received numerous awards including the University Professorship at George Mason University, the NIH Director’s Award, FDA Distinguished Scientist Award, 2015 Innovator of the Year Award, GAP50 Top Virginia Entrepreneurs, Nifty 50 Award, American Society of Cytopathology Basic Research Award, the Roche Diagnostics/CLAS Distinguished Scientist Award and the Harvard University Leading Edge Award and is a Kentucky Colonel.

Jay A. Perman, MD, is president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB)—Maryland’s only public health, law, and human services university.

A pediatric gastroenterologist, Dr. Perman continues to practice medicine through his weekly President’s Clinic, where he teaches team-based health care to students of medicine, nursing, dentistry, pharmacy, social work, and law.

Focused on invigorating UMB’s commercialization enterprise, Dr. Perman has overseen significant growth in UMB’s tech transfer metrics: In five years, the number of university startups launched each year has tripled, and the number of technologies licensed to commercial partners has doubled.  

Dr. Perman first came to UMB in 1999 as chair of the School of Medicine’s Department of Pediatrics. He left Baltimore in 2004 for the University of Kentucky College of Medicine, where he was dean and vice president for clinical affairs. In addition, he has served on faculty and in leadership positions at the University of California, San Francisco, Johns Hopkins University, and Virginia Commonwealth University.

Dr. Perman received a Doctor of Medicine Degree with Distinction from Northwestern University. He completed a fellowship in pediatric gastroenterology at Harvard Medical School and at the Children’s Hospital Medical Center in Boston.

As Chief Medical Officer for Pediatrics and Special Populations at the U.S. FDA CDRH, Vasum provides executive and clinical leadership on Center policies and initiatives associated with medical devices intended for use in pediatric and special populations. He is the Center’s senior clinical expert on pediatrics and pediatric medical device issues. He leads systems development to facilitate internal and external innovation and synergy that enhances the ability of the Center and the Agency to optimally meet the medical device needs of historically underserved populations.

Prior to joining the FDA, Vasum was the Joon Park MD Endowed Chair in Medical Excellence and Chief of Pediatric and Adult Congenital Cardiology at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC). With appointments in both the Departments of Pediatrics and (adjunct) Internal Medicine, he provided full spectrum cardiovascular critical care and outpatient services. He helped develop the TTUHSC Clinical Research Institute, promoting patient-oriented translational and outcomes research, and was inaugural faculty of the Department of Public Health, assisting in development of the curricula offering unique training in rural health.

Vasum is triple-board certified in Pediatrics, Pediatric Cardiology and Adult Congenital Cardiovascular Disease. He completed his undergraduate and graduate degrees at Yale University and the Yale School of Medicine Department of Epidemiology and Public Health, his MD at the University of Vermont College of Medicine, Residency at Yale-New Haven Hospital/Yale School of Medicine and Fellowship and Senior Fellowship at Children’s Hospital Boston/Harvard Medical School.

Kurt Newman, MD, is President and CEO of Children’s National Health System. Located in Washington, D.C., Children’s National is ranked one of the nation’s best pediatric hospitals by U.S. News & World Report and is a leader in NIH pediatric medical research funding. Dr. Newman has been a surgeon at Children’s National for over 30 years and also is professor of surgery and pediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Science. He guided the creation of the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation, with the goal of making children’s surgery less invasive and pain free. As CEO, he is a champion of innovation in research, operations, and clinical care. He is a strong advocate for expanding mental health access for kids and has led two national forums on this issue.  Dr. Newman also plays a critical role in improving pediatric health and well-being nationally through his work on the Boards of the Children’s Hospital Association and Safe Kids Worldwide and as the author of numerous scientific publications. His medical memoir, “Healing Children: A Surgeon’s Stories from the Frontiers of Pediatric Medicine,” debuted as an Amazon bestseller in Pediatrics and earned national attention and critical praise in The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post and Harvard Business Review.

Dr. Newman is a graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and of Duke Medical School. He completed his surgical residency at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School before joining Children’s National.

Sara joined NEA’s healthcare team in 2009 and focuses on investments in biopharmaceutical companies. She serves on the boards of Mersana, Cydan, Vtesse and Therachon, and Imara, as a board observer for Loxo Oncology (LOXO), Ziarco, Clementia, Millendo, and NightstaRx. She previously served as a board observer for Tesaro (TSRO), Epizyme (EPZM), Omthera (acquired by AstraZeneca), and Zyngenia.  She has also been involved in NEA’s investments in Prosensa (acquired by BioMarin), 3-V Biosciences, Edimer, XTuit, and Proteostasis. Prior to joining NEA, Sara was an Associate with Merrill Lynch’s Global Healthcare Group, where she advised biotechnology, pharmaceutical and medical device companies on numerous mergers, acquisitions and financing transactions. Previously, she worked as an Investment Banking Analyst at Morgan Stanley. She has conducted basic science research in mammalian cardiac development and clinical research in age-related macular degeneration. Sara concurrently earned her MD (cum laude) and MBA from Yale University, where she was a Yale MBA Scholar. She received her AB (magna cum laude) in Biology from Harvard University.

John received an MS from Stanford University and both an MS and PhD from MD Anderson Cancer Center where he discovered that IL-10 directly activates anti-tumor CD8+ T cells. John conducted post-doctoral work for a year at DNAX Research Institute and became a Scientist at Schering Plough where he developed PEGylated IL-10 (AM0010) as an immunoncology asset. He then founded Targenics, later merged with ARMO BioSciences (now a publicly traded company), to clinically develop AM0010 and other immune oncology assets. As a founder and Senior Director of Technical Operations at ARMO, John lead the manufacturing and pre-clinical research teams.

John is currently the Director of Immunoncology R&D at Medimmune LLC and is the author of 27 peer reviewed manuscripts and 18 granted or pending patents. Due to working through all of his education, John has over 20 years’ experience with a variety of biotechnology, (Anergen Inc., Introgen Inc., Bacterial Barcodes, DNAX Research Institute, Targenics Inc., ARMO BioSciences, ACIR BioSciences) and pharmaceutical, (Schering Plough, Merck Inc., MedImmune LLC) companies.

Jason Miller is the Chief Executive Officer of the Greater Washington Partnership. The Partnership is a civic alliance of the region’s leading employers and entrepreneurs committed to making the Capital Region of Baltimore, Washington, and Richmond, one of the world’s best places to live, work and build a business. Prior to this role, Miller was the Deputy Assistant to the President and Deputy Director of the National Economic Council in the White House, joining the Obama Administration in 2010.  Miller led the Obama Administration’s economic policy development and coordination on manufacturing and innovation, transportation and infrastructure, tax policy, energy, entrepreneurship, and Puerto Rico. Previously, Miller was a management consultant with The Boston Consulting Group in San Francisco and with Marakon Associates in Chicago, where he advised large corporations across industries on strategic, financial and organizational issues.  Miller received a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, a M.B.A. from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, and a M.P.A. from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

Mulvey holds a PhD in Virology from Ian Mohr’s lab at NYU Langone Medical Center. Mohr and Mulvey discovered, patented, and characterized the first oncolytic virus capable of resisting the anti-viral effects of innate immunity. This intellectual property was licensed to create talimogene laherparepvec (T-Vec), which was bought by Amgen for $1B and recently became the first FDA approved oncolytic virus. Mulvey is currently a founder and CEO of BeneVir and an inventor on all BeneVir patents protecting T-Stealth^TM, the first oncolytic virus to resist both innate and adaptive immunity. Prior to BeneVir, Mulvey spent 8 years at Sequella, Inc., a clinical stage anti-infectives company. At Sequella, he patented and developed a molecular diagnostic and licensed it to a major clinical diagnostics company. In addition, he designed and executed clinical trials and was involved in the development of Sequella’s antibiotic pipeline from pre-clinical to clinical.

Ms. Meagher has more than 19 years of experience leading strategic initiatives for clients in the commercial, government, and non-profit sectors. She leads Deloitte’s Federal Strategy practice, which has grown to more than 140 practitioners under her leadership. Within the strategy practice, Ms. Meagher focuses on Translational Science. She is leading efforts to support clients in analytics efforts, growth strategies, public private partnerships, strategic planning, program evaluation, stakeholder management, change management, executive leadership, and communication strategies. Ms. Meagher is an expert at Go To Market strategy development, routinely developing high performing teams that outperform the market. She has C-suite relationships across the Federal, Commercial, and Non Profit markets. Ms. Meagher holds a MA in Organization Effectiveness and a BA in Communication Studies and Entrepreneurial Studies.

Joel S. Marcus is the Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and Founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. and Alexandria Venture Investments (NYSE:ARE), an urban office REIT uniquely focused on collaborative life science and technology campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations. Mr. Marcus co-founded Alexandria in 1994 as a garage startup with $19 million in seed capital and has led its growth into an S&P 500 company with an approximately $18 billion total market capitalization and a total shareholder return of nearly 1,350% since the company’s IPO in 1997. In 1996, Mr. Marcus founded the company’s venture investments arm, Alexandria Venture Investments, to provide strategic investment capital to innovative life science and technology entities developing breakthrough therapies and technologies. Mr. Marcus serves on the boards of several organizations, including Accelerator Corporation and AgTech Accelerator Corporation, for which he was an original architect and co-founder, Applied Therapeutics, Atara Biotherapeutics, Boragen, Intra-Cellular Therapies, MeiraGTx Limited, Yumanity Therapeutics; Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), Friends of Cancer Research, The Scripps Research Institute; the 9/11 Memorial & Museum, the Navy SEAL Foundation, the Partnership for New York City, and Robin Hood Foundation.