Jeffrey A. Galvin is the CEO and Co-founder of American Gene Technologies™ (AGT). He earned his BA degree in Economics from Harvard in 1981. He has more than 30 years of business and entrepreneurial experience including founder or executive positions at a variety of Silicon Valley startups.  Several of his companies were taken public and/or sold to public companies, including one in the medical-technology arena that was sold to Varian, the leading maker of linear accelerators used in cancer therapy. Following his startup experience, he retired to become an Angel Investor in real estate and high tech. He came out of retirement to found and fund AGT after meeting Roscoe Brady at NIH.

Jeffrey M. Gallagher, CEO of Virginia Bio, is responsible for leading the premier statewide trade group that promotes the considerable scientific and economic impact of the life sciences industry in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Prior to taking on the leadership of Virginia Bio in May 2012, Jeff was a co-founder and served as VP & General Counsel for Lyotropic Therapeutics. This small specialty pharma company used its proprietary formulation technology to create new drug products based on both NCIs and already approved API for license, further development and commercialization by mid and large pharma. Previously he practiced corporate law in Richmond, focusing on new technology company formation, international business and intellectual property transactions. He was a co-founder and longtime Chairman of the Richmond based nonprofit World Pediatric Project. He holds an A.B. in Government from Harvard, a J.D. from the University of Wisconsin Law School, and an LL.M in Public International Law from the University of Virginia School of Law. He resides with his family in the Ginter Park area of Richmond, VA.

Brian K. Fitzgerald has served since 2005 as BHEF’s chief executive officer and developed long-term strategy for the membership organization. He is an internationally recognized leader in strategic business-higher education partnerships and innovative talent solutions. Under Dr. Fitzgerald’s leadership, BHEF’s National Higher Education and Workforce Initiative (HEWI) has emerged as the organization’s strategic enterprise. Through BHEF member collaboration, HEWI creates strategic partnerships between business and academic institutions to create new talent development models in high-skill emerging fields. BHEF presents insights from its partnerships in case studies, identifies workforce trends through its market intelligence publications and influences thought-leaders and policy makers through its public events.

Dr. Fitzgerald is widely published in domestic and international publications and while CEO has served on a number of commissions and working groups, most recently including the STEM working group for the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, which produced the widely cited 2012 report to President Obama: Engage to Excel, and recently served on a National Academies of Science study group of undergraduate computer science enrollment.

Aled Edwards is the founding and current CEO of the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC), a charity that generates research tools to support basic science and drug discovery.

The SGC has been sharing its science freely since 2003 and is widely acknowledged as a pioneer in open science.  In 2007 became the first research organization to adopt a policy not to file patents on any of its own research, or its collaborative research. More than 30 clinical trials have been launched based on SGC discoveries, and more than
10 companies have been formed based on SGC science.

Aled is a Professor at Toronto, Oxford and McGill Universities.  He studied biochemistry at McGill and did his post-doctoral work at Stanford with Roger Kornberg. In 2015, he was elected a Senior Ashoka Fellow for social entrepreneurship.

Ronald P. Dudek, is the Director of Technology Development and Marketing and Adapter CAR™ Program Manager at Lentigen Technology, Inc. (LTI).  Ronald is the past President and co-founder of Living Pharma, Inc., a universal CAR T cell company founded in January 2015 and acquired by LTI June 29, 2017. He is also the Former Vice President of Commercial Strategy at Juno Therapeutics, Inc., and one of the first members of the company.

In 2011, Mr. Dudek was the Founding President of Restoration Oncology, Inc. (ROI), a CAR T cell company that developed anti-CD19 CAR T cells for the treatment of acute lymphoblastic leukemia and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. The products, clinical program and intellectual property of ROI are now resident in Juno Therapeutics.

Mr. Dudek serves in executive roles at leading cell therapy companies including Xcyte Therapies, Inc., Aastrom Biosciences, Inc., and Miltenyi Biotec, Inc. He has 8 years of immunology research experience (Scripps Research Institute, Hybritech, Inc.), and 25 years of overall biotechnology business experience.

Eduardo Davila serves as Co-Program Leader for the Tumor Immunology and Immunotherapy Program within the University of Maryland Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center (UMGCCC). Dr. Davila is also the Director of the Science Training for Advancing Biomedical Research Postbaccalaureate Program (STAR-PREP).

Olivier Danos is the Chief Scientific Officer of REGENXBIO.
He is a pioneer in the field of gene therapy, and has dedicated his career to advancing the use of this technology to develop life-saving therapies for patients. Olivier joined REGENXBIO in 2017 from Biogen where he was a Senior Vice President in charge of Cell and Gene Therapy. Over the past twenty years, he has played leadership roles in cell and gene therapy as Director of the Gene Therapy Consortium of the University College of London, at the Necker Hospital – Enfants Malades in Paris, as Chief Scientific Officer of Genethon and as senior director of research at Somatix Therapy Corporation. He has held senior research positions at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. Olivier is the former President and a founding member of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy.
Olivier received a Master’s in Genetics and Molecular Biology at University of Paris Orsay, and his Ph.D. at the Pasteur Institute and University of Paris Diderot.

Dr. Walter G. Copan was confirmed by Congress as Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and NIST Director on October 5, 2017.

As NIST Director, Dr. Copan provides high-level oversight and direction for NIST.

He has had a distinguished and diverse career as a science and technology executive in large and small corporations, U.S.  government, nonprofit and other public-sector settings.

Dr. Copan formerly served as president and CEO of the IP Engineering Group Corporation, providing services in intellectual property strategy, technology commercialization and innovation. Until June 2017, he was founding CEO and chairman of Impact Engineered Wood Corporation, an advanced materials technology company. He also is a founding board member of Rocky Mountain Innovation Partners, where he led technology transfer programs and innovation services on behalf of the U.S. Air Force Academy, U.S. federal labs and academic institutions and helped foster entrepreneurial businesses in the Rocky Mountain West. He also served with the National Advisory Council to the Federal Laboratory Consortium for more than 5 years, providing industry inputs to advance the U.S. economic impacts of the federal laboratory system.

Dr. Copan is a patent holder, has authored numerous professional publications and presentations, and has served on the boards of many organizations, including the Licensing Executives Society (LES) USA and Canada, where he recently served as regional vice president for LES USA. He has contributed to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, the Council on Competitiveness, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the United Nations on innovation, technology transfer, energy and economic development matters.

Ángel Cabrera is the president of George Mason University, Virginia’s largest public research university operating several campuses across the Washington, D.C., metropolitan region and in Incheon, South Korea. Since 2016, Mason is one of the 115 universities in the United States selected for the highest research category of the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

Before becoming Mason’s president in 2012, Cabrera led IE Business School in Madrid, and Thunderbird School of Global Management, now affiliated with Arizona State University. Cabrera is the first native of Spain to have served as president of an American university.

Cabrera chairs the Commission on International Initiatives for the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, and serves on the advisory boards of the Council for the International Exchange of Scholars (Fulbright Program), Georgia Institute of Technology, and ITESM in Monterrey, Mexico. He serves on the boards of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, National Geographic, the Bankinter Foundation of Innovation in Madrid, and other civic organizations. He has served on the corporate boards of three public companies: eFunds, PetSmart and, currently, Inovio Pharmaceuticals.

Jarrod Borkat is a 15-year veteran in the biopharmaceutical industry. He joined MedImmune in 2010, where he currently serves as Senior Director/Head, Global External Partnerships & Collaborations. In this role he is responsible for establishing and overseeing global strategic collaborations with universities, non-profit organizations and government entities, across all the therapeutic areas relevant to MedImmune. His team led the creation of several multi-million dollar collaborations, including one with Johns Hopkins University and one with University of Maryland. Prior to this role, Jarrod led the Portfolio Strategy & Management function for MedImmune, helping the organization optimize its R&D portfolio. Before joining MedImmune, Jarrod worked at Boehringer Ingelheim (BI) Pharmaceuticals, Inc. for 11 years, rising through the ranks in the sales and commercial organization. During his time at BI, he spent two years in Germany, working at their corporate headquarters, leading the global commercial strategy for their CNS franchise. His last position prior to leaving BI was Director of U.S. Marketing, HIV. Jarrod has won multiple awards throughout his career, including being recognized as an industry “Top 25 Direct-to-Consumer Marketer of the Year” in 2007. He is also active in several industry organizations and has served on industry-related panels. In addition to his professional accomplishments, Jarrod serves on the Kentlands Board of Trustees and the Kentlands Community Foundation Board. He also ran a marathon on all 7 continents with his father, making them the first father/son duo to have accomplished this challenging endeavor. Jarrod earned an M.B.A. from Kennesaw State University, with concentrations in finance and marketing, and earned a B.S. in Biology from the University of Georgia.