About Tizona
Tizona is applying novel scientific insights to change the course of cancer progression and relapse
Our Leadership Team
We believe success comes from a team of cross-functional experts focused on a common vision. For us, it is improving treatment outcomes for people with cancer. Our employees, leadership, Board of Directors, advisors, partners and investors live it. We hope one day, so will patients.
Leadership
Scott Clarke
Chief Executive Officer
Scott Clarke joined Tizona as Chief Executive Officer and member of the board of directors in January 2019, bringing with him more than 20 years of experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry.
Prior to Tizona, Scott served as Global Head of Oncology Partnering and Head of Asia and Emerging Markets Partnering at Roche. In this role he was responsible for licensing, clinical collaborations, and acquisitions in oncology, and for sourcing opportunities across all indications from Asia.
From 2005 to 2017, Scott held positions of increasing responsibility at BioMarin, where he most recently served as Senior Vice President of Product Development and had responsibility for advancing BioMarin’s portfolio of clinical and late preclinical product candidates through approval. In this role he was also responsible for portfolio strategy, project management, competitive intelligence, and alliance management.
Prior to his role as SVP of Product Development, Scott was Vice President of Business Development and Scientific Licensing where he was responsible for all preclinical and early clinical licensing and M&A at BioMarin.
Scott earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, a Master of Science in Biotechnology at Northwestern University and an MBA from London Business School.
Courtney Beers, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Courtney is the Chief Scientific Officer for Tizona. She is leading discovery and development work on Tizona’s immuno-oncology and autoimmunity programs.
Most recently, Courtney was the Head of Cancer Immunotherapy at Oncothyreon, where she spearheaded several novel immune modulatory biologic programs. Prior to that, Courtney held roles of increasing responsibility at Amgen and Immunex in the Therapeutic Innovation Unit, as well as the Oncology Discovery Research. Her immuno-oncology research resulted in multiple discovery programs that are key pillars in Amgen’s current immunotherapy strategy and product pipeline. During her tenure at Amgen, Dr. Beers was the Global Research Lead for Imlygic® (talimogene laherparepvec), the first oncolytic viral immunotherapy to win FDA approval. She also led Amgen’s AMG 228 program from inception to phase 1 clinical trials.
Courtney earned her Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Washington under Dr. Alexander Rudensky, the world leader in understanding the development and immune suppressive functions of regulatory T cells.
John Corbin, PhD
Chief Technology Officer
John is the Chief Technology Officer for Tizona. In his role, he is responsible for antibody discovery and engineering.
Prior to joining Tizona, John was at Gilead Sciences, where he oversaw antibody discovery and engineering. In addition, John was a project team leader for several therapeutics antibody programs ranging from early stage through Investigational New Drug-enabling development. Previously, he held several positions of increasing responsibility at XOMA LLC. At XOMA, he was responsible for all aspects of biomolecular interaction analysis required for the discovery and development of therapeutic antibodies. He also led XOMA’s insulin receptor antagonist program (XOMA 358) from inception through lead selection.
John received his Ph.D. in Biology from University of California at Santa Cruz and completed his postdoctoral research at the University of Colorado at Boulder. John has been published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and has U.S. patent and U.S. applications relating to therapeutic antibodies.
Joyson Karakunnel, MD, MSc, FACP
Chief Medical Officer
Joyson Karakunnel joined Tizona Therapeutics as Chief Medical Officer in July 2019. He is an experienced medical oncologist and hematologist with drug development expertise both in academics and industry. Currently, he serves as an advisor to the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy.
Prior to joining Tizona, he was Vice President at Arcus Biosciences where he led the regulatory, safety and clinical development of four immunotherapy molecules (small molecule and antibodies) in varying combinations in Phase 1/2 trials. As the first hire in clinical, he was able to build the safety, regulatory and clinical groups to execute and conduct multiple global clinical trials. During this time, he contributed to the company having a successful IPO. In addition, he led the collaboration efforts with Harbin Gloria Pharmaceuticals (Chinese company) and Strata Oncology. He led the clinical publication efforts producing the company’s first clinical publication and multiple abstracts for several oncology conferences.
Prior to Arcus, he was at Astrazeneca/Medimmune and led some of the key Phase 1/1b clinical trials with immunomodulators including Durvalumab (Imfinzi) and Tremelimumab both as single agents and in combination in solid tumors and hematologic malignancies which supported the development of phase 3 randomized trials in multiple indications. While at AZ/Medimmune, he was the early phase clinical lead for BLA submissions in lung cancer and the program lead for other immunomodulators including agonists. He was the lead for programs at Medimmune with external partners such as Celgene and Innate.
Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, he was an investigator in clinical trials at the NCI and team leader for the hematologic group at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. He was an Associate Professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and medical reviewer at the FDA.
He completed his medical training at Annamalai University in India, internal medicine residency at Overlook Hospital/UMDNJ where he was chief resident and completed fellowships in Hematology, Oncology and Pain and Palliative Care at the National Cancer Institute. He holds a Masters in Pharmacology from the University of Maryland and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He was elected to be a Fellow in the American College of Physicians. Joyson has been a co-author on several papers, book chapters and given several invited oral presentations at conferences and academic centers.
Christine O’Brien
Chief Operating Officer
Christine O’Brien is the Chief Operating Officer for Tizona, where she is responsible for ensuring the successful execution and advancement of Tizona’s product portfolio, including project planning, operations and budget oversight, and management of external resources, alliances and contracts.
Prior to joining Tizona in 2015, Christine held the dual roles of Senior Director of Strategic Operations and Chief of Staff to the President, and Product Team Leader for Kyprolis® at Onyx Pharmaceuticals, an Amgen subsidiary. In the strategic operations role, she was accountable for building and managing effective operations of the Onyx leadership team, product governance, and leading strategic initiatives to advance the subsidiary’s multiple myeloma portfolio. As Product Team Leader, she was responsible for leading the Global Product Team to deliver on all aspects of the Kyprolis global product strategy, including key regulatory filings, lifecycle management and new investments, data review and publications, and partnerships and external collaborations. Prior to joining Onyx, Christine was the Transition Program Manager at Amgen (NASDAQ:AMGN), leading the cross-functional transition teams and delivery of effective change and engagement strategy following Amgen’s acquisition of Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ:ONXX). From 2003-2013, Christine held positions of increasing responsibility at Amgen in pipeline and portfolio management and new product development, where she was accountable for large, complex cross-functional initiatives to improve Amgen’s drug development process and pipeline planning & execution. Christine began her career as an organizational and human performance consultant, holding positions at Scientific Commercialization, LLC and Accenture, LLP.
Christine has a Master’s of Science in Management and Leadership from Pepperdine University and a Bachelor’s of Science in Labor and Industrial Relations and Psychology from The Pennsylvania State University.
Shelly Pinto
Vice President, Finance & Controller
Shelly Pinto is the Vice President of Finance and Controller at Tizona Therapeutics. In her role, she is responsible for the accounting, financial reporting, financial planning and analysis of the company. Prior to joining Tizona in 2016, Shelly was the Controller at InSite Vision, a publicly-traded biotechnology company in the San Francisco Bay Area. Prior to InSite Vision, Shelly was the Assistant Controller at Bare Escentuals, Director of Corporate Accounting & Financial Reporting at Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream and an auditor at Deloitte and Touch LLP. During her career, Shelly has worked with various publicly-traded companies with multi-billion annual sales. She has managed Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reporting, Sarbanes-Oxley implementation and compliance, financial planning and analysis, business development and the operational accounting function. In addition, she has acted as the key technical resource working on acquisitions, derivative & hedging transactions, revenue recognition, and large-scale ERP system implementations.
Shelly is a Certified Public Accountant in California and received her Bachelors of Science in Business Administration with a major in Accounting from Montana State University where she currently serves as an Accounting Advisory Board member.
Board of Directors
Luke Evnin, PhD
Chair, Tizona Therapeutics & Managing Director, MPM Capital
Prior to co-founding MPM in 1997, Luke Evnin was employed by the venture capital firm Accel Partners. He received his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of California – San Francisco. He has devoted significant efforts since 2000 to working with the Scleroderma Research Foundation, serving as Chairman since 2002. Dr. Evnin also devotes energy to the External Advisory Board at the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Quantitative Genomics at Princeton, the External Advisory Boards for QB3, the Mission Bay Capital Fund at UCSF, and the Boston University Scleroderma CORT.
Scott Clarke
CEO, Tizona Therapeutics
Scott Clarke joined Tizona as Chief Executive Officer and member of the board of directors in January 2019, bringing with him more than 20 years of experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry.
Prior to Tizona, Scott served as Global Head of Oncology Partnering and Head of Asia and Emerging Markets Partnering at Roche. In this role he was responsible for licensing, clinical collaborations, and acquisitions in oncology, and for sourcing opportunities across all indications from Asia.
From 2005 to 2017, Scott held positions of increasing responsibility at BioMarin, where he most recently served as Senior Vice President of Product Development and had responsibility for advancing BioMarin’s portfolio of clinical and late preclinical product candidates through approval. In this role he was also responsible for portfolio strategy, project management, competitive intelligence, and alliance management.
Prior to his role as SVP of Product Development, Scott was Vice President of Business Development and Scientific Licensing where he was responsible for all preclinical and early clinical licensing and M&A at BioMarin.
Scott earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, a Master of Science in Biotechnology at Northwestern University and an MBA from London Business School.
Nina Kjellson
General Partner, Canaan Partners
Nina Kjellson joined Cannan’s healthcare team from InterWest Partners where she has been investing in healthcare start-ups since 2002. She focuses primarily on investments in biopharmaceuticals and digital health. Nina is co-founder and co-chair of ConsumerMed.org, a forum to address the convergence of health care and consumer innovation and serves as a mentor to Blueprint Health, a digital health incubator and Springboard Life Sciences, an accelerator for healthcare companies driven by women entrepreneurs. Investment themes include innovative therapeutics for serious and underserved conditions, IT-enabled transformation of healthcare delivery and patient/consumer engagement.
Current investments include Cidara (CDTX), Eiger Biopharmaceuticals, Lycera, Ocera (OCRX), Paratek (PRTK), and WellTok.
Previous investments include Labrys Biologics (acquired by Teva), Alt12 (acquired by Honest Company), Trius Therapeutics (TSRX; acquired by Cubist), CNS Therapeutics (acquired by Covidien), NovaCardia (acquired by Merck), and Aspreva (ASPV; acquired by Galenica)
Prior to InterWest, Nina was an investment manager at Bay City Capital, a life sciences merchant bank, and a research associate at Oracle Partners, a health care-focused hedge fund. Nina began her career conducting health policy and survey research with the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Nina received a B.A. in human biology from Stanford University (1997).
She serves on the California Leadership Council for the Nature Conservancy and has been nominated to join the board of the California Family Health Council.
Pablo J. Cagnoni, MD
CEO, Rubius Therapeutics
Pablo Cagnoni joined Rubius Therapeutics as Chief Executive Officer in June 2018. Over the course of Pablo’s career as an oncologist and pharmaceutical executive, he has been committed to advancing the development of breakthrough treatments for people with cancer and other diseases. He has played a key role in the development, approval and commercialization of more than 20 life-changing treatments, including Afinitor®, Kyprolis® and Tarceva®.
Pablo most recently served as President and Chief Executive Officer of Tizona Therapeutics. Prior to Tizona, he served as President of Onyx Pharmaceuticals, where he had global strategic oversight and accountability of the business from early product development to commercialization of the Onyx portfolio. At the time of his departure, Onyx was on track to deliver yearly revenues in excess of $1B and had more than 800 employees. Pablo joined Onyx in March 2013, as Executive Vice President, Global Research and Development and Technical Operations, and was named President in October 2013, when Onyx became an Amgen subsidiary. Previously, he was Senior Vice President and Global Head of Clinical Development at Novartis Oncology, where he was responsible for all clinical development, clinical operations, clinical pharmacology, and correlative sciences activities for the oncology development pipeline. From 2007 to 2009, Pablo was Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer at Allos Therapeutics (acquired by Spectrum Pharmaceuticals) and, prior to that, Chief Medical Officer of OSI Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Astellas).
Earlier in his career, he served as Assistant Professor of Medicine, University of Colorado Bone Marrow Transplant Program, where he cared for patients undergoing stem cell transplants. Pablo earned his medical degree from University Buenos Aires School of Medicine, and he completed his fellowship in Hematology and Oncology at the Mount Sinai Medical Center, New York and a fellowship in Stem Cell Transplantation at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. In addition to Tizona Therapeutics, Pablo serves on the board of directors of CRISPR Therapeutics and Tango Therapeutics. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the Bay Area Discovery Museum.
Shelley Chu, MD, PhD
Partner, Abingworth
Shelley joined Abingworth in 2015 and invests across a broad range of therapeutic areas and stages of development, from start-ups to late-stage. She has over 15 years of operating and investment experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, including most recently Gilead where she led R&D Strategy and Business Development in Oncology, Immunotherapy and Hepatitis B. Previously Shelley invested and co-founded biotechnology companies at Frazier Healthcare Ventures. Earlier in her career she was an investment professional at Flagship Ventures and a management consultant to healthcare and biotech companies at McKinsey.
Shelley holds an MD and PhD in Biochemistry and Biophysics from UCSF, and received her BA in Molecular Biology from Princeton University. She is a first author of publications in Science and other prominent journals and a Co-Chair of the Princeton Alumni School Committee.
Dan Hicklin, PhD
Co-founder & former CEO, Potenza Therapeutics
Dan Hicklin co-founded Potenza in 2014, and was the company’s President and CEO until Potenza was acquired by Astellas Pharma. He has served as a Managing Director at the life sciences venture capital investment firm MPM Capital since 2014 and is also a board member of Tizona Therapeutics and Harpoon Therapeutics. Previously, Dr. Hicklin served as President and Chief Scientific Officer of CoStim Pharmaceuticals, which was acquired by Novartis in 2014. From 2007 to 2013, he held several positions at Merck Research Laboratories and the former Schering-Plough Research Institute, most recently leading Biologics Strategy for Oncology and overseeing immuno-oncology discovery research at Merck Research Laboratories in Boston. Dr. Hicklin began his career at ImClone Systems where he held several positions of increasing responsibility from 1987 – 2007, most recently serving as Vice President of Experimental Therapeutics. Dr. Hicklin’s team at ImClone supported the development and FDA approval of the cancer treatment ERBITUX® (Cetuximab) and built a diversified portfolio of antibody therapeutics including Cyramza® (ramucirumab), necitumumab, and other cancer therapies that were acquired by Eli Lilly in 2008. Dr. Hicklin has co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications and is an inventor on numerous issued and pending patents. Dr. Hicklin received his Master’s and PhD in Microbiology & Immunology from New York Medical College and earned his BS from the University of Iowa.
Dan Spiegelman
EVP & CFO, BioMarin Pharmaceutical
Mr. Spiegelman is currently Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of BioMarin Pharmaceutical Inc.
Prior to joining BioMarin in May 2012, Mr. Spiegelman served as a strategic and financial consultant to a portfolio of public and private life science companies from May 2009 to May 2012. From 1998 to 2009, he served as Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of CV Therapeutics where he was responsible for Finance, Accounting, Investor Relations, Business Development and MIS. From 1991 to 1998, Mr. Spiegelman served in various roles at Genentech, Inc., (now a member of the Roche Group) most recently as Treasurer. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from Stanford University and an MBA from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Scientific Co-founders & Advisory Board
Ana Anderson, PhD
Assistant Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, Associate Scientist at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Associate Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and core faculty member of the Evergrande Center for Immunologic Diseases. Scientific Advisory Board Member of Tizona Therapeutics.
She obtained her B.S. in Microbiology and Immunology in 1993 from the University of Miami, where she graduated summa cum laude. She obtained her Ph.D. in Immunology from Harvard University in 1999. During her Ph.D. she was awarded a fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Dr. Anderson works in the field of cancer immunology, specifically on the role of co-inhibitory receptors in regulation of the anti-tumor T cell response. Her laboratory identified the inhibitory molecule Tim-3 as a key regulator of T cell dysfunction in cancer. Prior to working in the field of cancer immunology, Dr. Anderson worked in the field of autoimmunity.
Dr. Anderson has published over 44 original papers, 12 reviews, and 5 book chapters. Her work on T cell cross-reactivity in autoimmunity was selected by Nature Immunology as a ‘Classic Paper in Autoimmunity’. She has also had several papers selected as either ‘must-read’ or ‘recommended’ by the Faculty of 1000.
Dr. Anderson is on the editorial board for OncoImmunology, Cellular Immunology, and Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer. She served on the scientific advisory board for CoStim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which was acquired by Novartis and currently serves on the scientific advisory boards for Potenza Therapeutics, Idera Pharmaceuticals, and Tizona Therapeutics.
Charles G. Drake, MD, PhD
Co-Director Prostate Cancer Multi-Disciplinary Clinic, Professor, Oncology, Immunology and Urology, Johns Hopkins Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Scientific Co-Founder and Advisory Board Member of Tizona Therapeutics.
Dr. Drake has published extensively, has won numerous awards and honors for his research and scholarship, and holds several patents. He is a diplomate of Medical Oncology with the American Board of Medical Examiners and a member of the American Association of Immunology, the American Association for Cancer Research and the American Society of Clinical Oncology. His areas of expertise include immunotherapy and the diagnosis and treatment of cancers of the prostate, kidney, bladder and testes.
Dr. Drake graduated with a B.S. in electrical engineering and M.S. in biomedical engineering from Rutgers University in Piscataway, NJ. He then received a Ph.D. in immunology from the National Jewish Center for Immunology, and in 1997 completed an M.D. at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center. He conducted an internal medicine residency on the Osler Service at Johns Hopkins, and in 2002 he completed a fellowship in medical oncology, also at Johns Hopkins. He joined the Johns Hopkins faculty as an assistant professor in 2002.
Vijay K. Kuchroo, DVM, PhD
Co-Director of the Center for Infection and Immunity, Samuel L. Wasserstrom Professor, Department of Neurology, Associate Member, Broad Institute; Director, Evergrande Center for Immunologic Diseases, Harvard Medical School. Scientific Co-Founder and Advisory Board Member of Tizona Therapeutics.
Dr. Kuchroo currently holds a title of Professor of Neurology at the Harvard Medical School and Associate Immunologist at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston. Dr. Kuchroo has published over 340 original papers and numerous review articles. Dr. Kuchroo’s major research interests are studying the autoimmune diseases, particularly the role of co-stimulation (Cell; 80: 707-18,1995), genetic basis of EAE and type 1 diabetes (Nature Genetics, 21: 158-161, 1999) and cell surface molecules and regulatory factors (Nature 2002. 415:536-41; Nature Immunol. 2003 4:1102-10. ) that contribute to susceptibility and resistance to autoimmune diseases. Dr. Kuchroo’s laboratory has made several transgenic mice that serve as animal models for human disease (Proceedings National Academy of Sciences USA, 97: 3412-3417, 2000; J Exp Med. 2003; 5;197:1073-81 ). Dr. Kuchroo is on the Editorial Boards of the journals: Journal of Experimental Medicine, International Immunology, Scandinavian Journal of Immunology, Cellular Immunology and an ad hoc reviewer for a number of Immunology related journals. He was a permanent member of the grants review board of the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, New York and scientific review board of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, New York. Dr. Kuchroo is also an ad hoc reviewer for the research grants for various study sections at the National Institutes of Health. Based on his contributions, Dr. Kuchroo was awarded the Javits Neuroscience Award by the National Institutes of Health in 2002 and Ranbaxy Prize, 2011. Dr. Kuchroo is the first incumbent of the Samuel L. Wasserstrom Chair in Neurology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Kuchroo is an inventor on 25 patents and has been a founder of five different start-up biotech companies. Dr. Kuchroo is on the scientific advisory boards of Pfizer, Glaxo Smith Klein and Novartis.
Dr. Vijay K. Kuchroo obtained a degree in Veterinary Medicine from the School of Veterinary Medicine, Hisar, India. He obtained a Ph.D. in Pathology from the department of veterinary pathology at the University of Queensland, Brisbane (Australia). Dr. Kuchroo received the Fred Z. Eager Research prize and medal for his Ph.D. research work at the University of Queensland. He served as Fogarty International Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda for a year before joining the Department of Pathology, Harvard Medical School as a Research Fellow in the fall of 1986. Dr. Kuchroo joined the Center for Neurologic Diseases, Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1992.
Drew Pardoll, MD, PhD
Abeloff Professor of Oncology, Medicine, Pathology and Molecular Biology and Genetics, Johns Hopkins University, School of Medicine; Director of the Cancer Immunology, Sidney Kimmel Comprehensive Cancer Center. Scientific Co-Founder and Advisory Board Member of Tizona Therapeutics.
Dr. Pardoll attended Johns Hopkins University, where he earned his M.D., Ph.D., in 1982, and completed his medical residency and Oncology Fellowship in 1985. He then worked for three years at the National Institutes of Health as a Medical Staff Fellow. Dr. Pardoll joined the departments of oncology and medicine in 1988.
Dr. Pardoll has published over 300 papers as well as over 20 book chapters on the subject of T cell immunology and cancer vaccines. He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and Cancer Cell, and has served as a member of scientific advisory boards for the Cancer Research Institute, the University of Pennsylvania Human Gene Therapy Gene Institute, Biologic Resources Branch of the National Cancer Institute, Harvard-Dana Farber Cancer Center, Cerus Corporation, Global Medical Products Corporation, Genencor Corporation, CellGenesys Corporation, Mojave Therapeutics, the American Association of Clinical Oncology and the American Association of Cancer Research.
Dr. Pardoll has made a number of basic advances in cellular immunology, including the discovery of gamma – delta T cells, NKT cells and interferon-producing killer dendritic cells. Over the past two decades, Dr. Pardoll has studied molecular aspects of dendritic cell biology and immune regulation, particularly related to mechanisms by which cancer cells evade elimination by the immune system.
He is an inventor of a number of immunotherapies, including GVAX cancer vaccines and Listeria monocytogenes based cancer vaccines. Dr. Pardoll’s basic immunology discoveries include the identification of gd-T cells, NKT cells and IKDC. He elucidated the role of Stat3 signaling in tumor immune evasion and in Th17 development, leading to the discovery that Stat3-driven Th17 responses promote carcinogenesis. Dr. Pardoll discovered one of the two ligands for the PD-1 inhibitory receptor and leads the Hopkins cancer immunology program that developed PD-1 pathway-targeted antibodies, demonstrating their clinical activity in multiple cancer types.
His more than 300 articles cover cancer vaccines, gene therapies, cancer prevention technologies, recombinant immune modulatory agents for specific pathways that regulate immunity to cancer and infectious diseases.
George Plitas, MD
Assistant Attending in the Department of Surgery at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and Assistant Professor at Weill Cornell Medical College. Scientific Advisory Board Member of Tizona Therapeutics.
Dr. Plitas holds the Jeanne A. Petrek Junior Faculty Chair and is a surgical oncologist specializing in the care of breast cancer patients, as well as pursuing translational tumor immunology research in the laboratory of Dr. Alexander Rudensky, Chair of the Sloan Kettering Institute’s Immunology Program. Dr. Plitas’ research focuses on the role of regulatory T cells in the development and progression of breast cancer.
He earned is M.D. degree from New York University in 2002, and completed a General Surgery residency in 2010. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Immunology and a Surgical Oncology Clinical fellowship at MSKCC.
Mark Smyth, PhD
Professor Mark Smyth is a Senior Scientist and Immunology Coordinator at QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute. He completed his PhD in 1988 and trained at the NCI (1988-1992), before commencing his independent research career in Australia. Over the last 20 years he rekindled world-wide interest in cancer immune surveillance, defined immune-mediated dormancy of cancer, and the role of the host in chemotherapy and targeted therapy responses in mice and humans.
More recently, he has provided new means of classifying natural killer cell (NK) subtypes and two new targets for cancer immunotherapy. He is a past winner of the Coley Medal and Brupbacher Foundation Prizes in Cancer Research. He is the highest cited immunologist in Australia and is a Senior Editor and Advisory Board Member for Cancer Research and Science, respectively.
Dario Vignali, PhD
Vice Chair and Professor of Immunology, Department of Immunology, University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine; Co-Leader of the Cancer Immunology Program, University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute (UPCI), Hillman Cancer Center. Scientific Co-Founder and Advisory Board Member of Tizona Therapeutics.
Dr. Vignali’s labs focus on analysis of immune cell function in mouse model systems and disease models of cancer and autoimmune disease, and on inhibitory immune pathways in human cancers. Dr. Vignali’s research findings have been published in some of immunology’s leading journals, and he has been awarded five patents worldwide with several more awaiting approval. He also is a current member of the scientific advisory boards at two biopharmaceutical companies.
Since 1993, Dr. Vignali worked at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, and served as vice-chair of its immunology department since 2008. He taught in the Department of Pathology at the University of Tennessee Medical Center since 1996.
He received his undergraduate education at North East London Polytechnic, now East London University, and completed his doctoral studies at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine at the University of London. Dr. Vignali completed two postdoctoral fellowships, one at the Institute for Immunology and Genetics at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg, Germany, and the second in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Harvard University.
Jedd Wolchok, MD, PhD
Lloyd J. Old/Virginia and Daniel K. Ludwig Chair in Clinical Investigation, Chief, Melanoma & Immunotherapeutics Service, Associate Director, Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy, Associate Member, Ludwig Cancer Research, Professor of Medicine, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. Scientific Co-Founder and Advisory Board Member of Tizona Therapeutics.
Dr. Wolchok is Chief of the Melanoma and Immunotherapeutics Service and holds The Lloyd J. Old Chair in Clinical Investigation at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) with an expertise in the treatment of metastatic melanoma. His additional appointments include: Head of the Swim Across America – Ludwig Collaborative Laboratory; Associate Director of the Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy (LCCI). He has helped establish MSKCC as a leader in the discovery and treatment of cancers with novel immunotherapies.
Dr. Wolchok was instrumental in the clinical development leading to the approval of ipilimumab for advanced melanoma. He is principal investigator of numerous ongoing clinical trials at MSKCC in the area of immunotherapy. He supervises an R01-funded basic science laboratory which is focused on investigating novel immunotherapeutic agents in pre-clinical mouse models. In 2011, he established the Immunotherapeutics Clinical Core, a specialized phase 1-2 outpatient unit at MSKCC that is focused on the conduct of novel immunotherapy trials, with a specific emphasis on pharmacodynamic biomarker identification. This group treats patients with a broad spectrum of malignancies.
Partnering with Tizona
We are developing cancer treatments that have the potential to be first- and best-in-class treatments, and core components of immunotherapy combination regimens. We are interested in collaborations with pharmaceutical and biotech companies as well as academic institutions around the world to jointly discover and develop treatments that will improve outcomes for cancer patients. Currently we are engaged in partnering/in-licensing discussions related to our existing programs. For additional information on partnering with Tizona, please contact our business development team at bd@tizonatx.com.