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Board and Advisors

Board of Directors

Andrew Cates, Managing Member, Value Acquisition Fund

Value Acquisition Fund is a Delaware Limited Liability Company based in Memphis, TN. Value Acquisition Fund acquires and manages assets or businesses that are in need of capital, repositioning and/or redevelopment. It is focused primarily on commercial real estate assets in the Southern and Southwestern United States. Prior to creating Value Acquisition Fund, Mr. Cates was a founding partner of Viceroy Investments based in Dallas, TX. Mr. Cates continues to be affiliated with Viceroy and is a partner in three existing Viceroy partnerships. In 1999, Mr. Cates relocated to his hometown of Memphis to develop the Soulsville Revitalization Project. This $20 million non-profit project, which includes The Stax Museum of American Soul Music and The Stax Music Academy, serves as an anchor for what is now one of the largest inner-city revitalization projects in the United States. A native Memphian, Mr. Cates earned a Bachelor of Business Administration (Finance) degree at the University of Texas. He and his wife Allison have two children. Mr. Cates serves on the boards of Soulsville, Grizzlies Academy and Calvary Street Ministries, and is President of Hope & Healing Housing.

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James Gidwitz, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Continental Materials Corporation

Jim Gidwitz has held various positions at Continental Materials Corporation since 1978. Prior to his experience in business, Mr. Gidwitz served in the U.S. Air Force where his final rank was Sergeant. Co-founder and Director of the Jamestown Foundation, Mr. Gidwitz continues to be an active board member. Additionally, Mr. Gidwitz is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hotchkiss School and a member of the Board of Overseers of the Hoover Institution. Mr. Gidwitz attended the Hotchkiss School and received a B.A. in Political Science from Stanford University.

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Scott Johnson, President and Founder, Myelin Repair Foundation

See bio under Myelin Repair Foundation Management

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Casey McGlynn, Partner, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Casey McGlynn is an attorney who specializes in the fields of corporate law, securities, and mergers and acquisitions. Mr. McGlynn has spent his career assisting entrepreneurs in organizing, building and financing their businesses. He received a B.S. in Economics in 1975 and a J.D. in 1978 from Santa Clara University. He was admitted to the Bar in California in 1978. Mr. McGlynn joined the law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati upon his graduation from law school when the firm had only 14 attorneys. Today the firm has more than 550 attorneys. Mr. McGlynn is a member of the Executive Committee and has served on the Compensation and Nomination Committees of the firm. He is a frequent lecturer and writer, focusing on financing issues facing young companies. He is also a founding member of the American Heart Association Roundtable and the American Diabetes Association Leaders Forum, and assists these organizations in their fund-raising activities.

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Siddharth N. “Bobby” Mehta, Chief Executive Officer, TransUnion

Bobby Mehta is the CEO of TransUnion, a global leader in credit and information management. Prior to joining TransUnion, Mr. Mehta served as Chairman and CEO of HSBC Finance Corporation. He has also held positions as Senior Vice President at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Vice President of Citicorp’s information business division. Mr. Mehta received a B.A. in Economics from the London School of Economics, and a M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.

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Sharon Wienbar, Managing Director, Scale Venture Partners

Sharon Wienbar invests in mobile, Internet and enterprise software companies at Scale Venture Partners, which she joined in 2001. She sits on the boards of Bellamax, Biz360, Facetime Communications, Glue Mobile, Merchant Circle and Reply.com. Sharon holds a B.A. and a M.A. in Engineering from Harvard University, and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

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Scientific Advisory Board (SAB)

Stephen Freedman, Ph.D. (Also a member of the Drug Discovery Advisory Group)

Dr. Stephen Freedman has more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry including senior positions at Merck and Co. where he was a senior member of their CNS research group, and for Elan Pharmaceuticals as Sr. Vice President, Head of Global Research. He has interests in a number of therapeutic areas including neurology, psychiatry, pain, inflammation and a number of associated autoimmune diseases including multiple sclerosis, asthma, RA and IBD. During his association with Merck and Elan, Dr. Freedman worked on more than a dozen small molecules and biologics entering clinical development. He is an author on nearly 100 research publications and is an inventor on a number of patents in these therapeutic areas.

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John W. Griffin, M.D.

Dr. John Griffin is Director of the Johns Hopkins Brain Science Institute (BSI), University Distinguished Service Professor of the Department of Neurology, and Professor of the Departments of Neuroscience and Pathology in the School of Medicine.

His research career has been devoted to the neurobiology and neuropathology of the peripheral nervous system, and to studies of peripheral neuropathies. Dr. Griffin was brought up in Nebraska and attended Grinnell College, Grinnell, Iowa, and Stanford University School of Medicine. He was a medical intern and resident at Stanford, and did his neurology residency at Johns Hopkins, before going to the NIH as a clinical associate. He has been on the faculty at Johns Hopkins since 1976, and has been a professor of neurology and neuroscience since 1986.

In 1998, he was named Director of the Department of Neurology and Neurologist-in-Chief at Johns Hopkins. His honors include the Jacob Javits Award from the NIH, and multiple teaching awards, including the Professor's Award of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He has given many named lectures, including the Robert Wartenberg Lecture of the American Academy of Neurology and the Soriano Lecture of the American Neurological Association. He is a member of the National Advisory Council to the National Institute of Neurologic Disease and Stroke. He is Chair of the Burroughs Welcome Fund Program in Translational Research, Past President of the Peripheral Nerve Society and the Society for Experimental Neuropathology, and President of the American Neurological Association.

For more information on Dr. John W. Griffin click here.

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Stephen L. Hauser, M.D.

Dr. Stephen Hauser is the Robert A. Fishman Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF).

Dr. Hauser is a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Harvard Medical School. He trained in internal medicine at the New York Hospital - Cornell Medical Center, in neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), and in immunology at Harvard Medical School and the Institut Pasteur in Paris, France. He was a faculty member at the MGH before moving to UCSF in 1992. A neuroimmunologist, Dr. Hauser's research has focused on the biology of multiple sclerosis (MS). His laboratory described a disease model in which synergistic actions of T-cells and autoantibodies mediate a multiple sclerosis-like disease. He also leads a consortium to identify the genes that confer susceptibility to multiple sclerosis. Dr. Hauser is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Association of Physicians, is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, and serves as an editor of the medical textbook Harrison's Principles of Internal Medicine.

For more information on Dr. Stephen L. Hauser click here.

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Samuel Ludwin, M.D.

Dr. Samuel Ludwin attended medical school at the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, and followed this with residency and fellowship training in Pathology and then Neuropathology at Stanford University in California. He moved to Canada after his fellowship to take an academic position at Queen's University and Kingston General Hospital in Kingston Ontario where he is now a Professor of Pathology (Neuropathology). He has been at Queen's University and Kingston General Hospital since then, apart from a period of time where he served as Chairman of the Department of Pathology at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario. Dr. Ludwin also recently served as Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Health Sciences, Queen's University and Vice-President (Research Development) of Kingston General and Hotel Dieu Hospitals. Dr. Ludwin is the Past-Chairman of the Medical Advisory Board of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada, and has served on the Research Development Committee of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society of the United States. He has also been President of the International Society of Neuropathology.

Dr. Ludwin has had a long-standing research and clinical interest in multiple sclerosis. His research work has centered around mechanisms of remyelination and demyelination as well as oligodendrocyte and astrocyte behavior and the translation of these basic observations into clinical studies on multiple sclerosis.

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Henry F. McFarland, M.D.

Dr. Henry F. McFarland M.D. is Chief of the Neuroimmunology Branch of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Dr. McFarland received his B.A. degree from the University of Arizona and his M.D. in 1966 from the University of Colorado. Following a residency in neurology at Thomas Jefferson University, Dr. McFarland did postdoctoral research in neurovirology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and in immunology at University College London, before returning to Hopkins as a neurologist.  In 1994, Dr. McFarland became Chief of the Neuroimmunology Branch where he remains at present.

In 1975, Dr. McFarland came to NIH as deputy chief of the Neuroimmunology Branch of NINDS, where he has served as chief since 1993. In 1998 he was awarded the Dystal Prize for outstanding research in multiple sclerosis. Dr. McFarland's laboratory studies the cellular immune response to autoantigens of the CNS and examines therapeutic strategies targeting this response. Additional research includes studies of the natural history of multiple sclerosis using MRI and identifying effective designs for clinical trials of new therapies for multiple sclerosis.

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Martin Raff, M.D.

Dr. Martin Raff is a Professor Emeritus of Biology at the University College London.

Dr. Raff was born and educated in Montreal. He received his B.S. and M.D. degrees at McGill University and did a residency in medicine at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal and in neurology at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. He did postdoctoral training in immunology at the National Institute for Medical Research in London, after which he moved to University College London, where he has been a Professor of Biology since 1979. He is currently at the Medical Research Council Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology and Cell Biology Unit and in the Biology Department at University College London. His research has been in immunology, cell biology and developmental neurobiology. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Academia Europaea, a foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences, was president of the British Society of Cell Biology from 1991 to 1995, and chairman of the UK Life Sciences Committee from 1998-2001.

For more information on Dr. Martin Raff click here.

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Louis Reichardt, Ph.D.

Dr. Louis Reichardt is Professor of Physiology and of Biochemistry and Biophysics, and Director of the Herbert W. Boyer Program in Biological Sciences and the Neuroscience Graduate Program at the University of California, San Francisco.

Dr. Reichardt received his Ph.D. in biochemistry at Stanford University for work on control of gene expression by the phage λ. He entered the field of neurobiology as a postdoctoral Fellow at Harvard University where he studied factors that regulate the transmitter phenotype of neurons. Dr. Reichardt's honors include a McKnight Scholars Award, a Sloan Award, and a Guggenheim fellowship. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

For more information on Dr. Louis Reichardt click here.

Back to topArnon Rosenthal, Ph.D., MazoRx Inc.

Arnon Rosenthal received his Ph.D. from the Hebrew University Jerusalem, Israel and then conducted a post-doctoral fellowship at Genentech, Inc. He was appointed to a scientist position at Genentech Inc. in 1988, was promoted to a senior scientist in 1992 and then to a staff scientist and a permanent member of Genentech Research Review Committee in 1996. In 2001 Dr. Rosenthal founded and became the president, board member and CSO of Rinat Neuroscience, a privately-held company that discovered and developed novel medicines for neurodegenerative, neuroendocrine and pain disorders. The company was acquired by Pfizer with several drugs in clinical development including Tanezumab which is currently in Phase III for multiple pain indications and PF-04360365 which is currently in Phase II for Alzheimer’s disease. Dr. Rosenthal has co-authored 98 scientific publications, and 56 issued patents and applications. He is currently the President and CSO of MazoRx Inc.  a private biotechnology company focused on discovery of novel drugs for neurological disorders.

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Lee Rubin, Ph.D., Harvard Stem Cell Institute, Department of Stem Cell & Regenerative Biology

Dr. Rubin received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from The Rockefeller University and completed postdoctoral fellowships in Pharmacology from Harvard Medical School and in Neurobiology from Stanford University School of Medicine. He was then an Assistant and Associate Professor at Rockefeller University. Subsequently, he joined Athena Neurosciences (now Elan Pharmaceuticals) as head of their blood-brain barrier (BBB) and multiple sclerosis groups, ultimately initiating a project to discover an antibody that blocks lymphocyte trafficking across the BBB.  This work successfully identified an anti-integrin antibody, now known as Tysabri, which has been approved for treatment of multiple sclerosis and for Crohn’s disease.  After leaving Athena, he became Professor of Anatomy and Developmental Biology at University College London and Director of the Eisai London Laboratory of Neurodegenerative Disease. In 1998, he returned to Boston as Chief Scientific Officer of Ontogeny, Inc (now Curis, Inc) a biotechnology company in Cambridge, MA, founded by Dr. Douglas Melton. Dr. Rubin's work there centered on the hedgehog (Hh) pathway and its involvement in cancer and neurodegenerative disease.  Potent small molecule Hh antagonists were identified and partnered with Genentech for clinical development. Several phase II solid tumor studies are currently underway with one of the antagonists.

In July 2006, Dr. Rubin moved to the Harvard University Stem Cell Institute as Director of Translational Medicine and is a member of the new Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology.  Much of his effort there is devoted to identifying therapeutics for orphan neural disorders such as Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Huntington’s Disease and multiple sclerosis using new kinds of stem cell-based screens. He also directs a group that carries out a broad set of stem cell reprogramming and differentiation assays with numerous other members of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. Some of this work has been pulished recently in Cell, Cell Stem Cell, Nature Chemical Biology and Science.

Hartmut Wekerle, M.D., Ph.D., Max Planck Institute of Neurobiology

Hartmut Wekerle was born in 1944 in Waldsut, studied medicine at the University of Freiburg where he also received his Ph.D. As a post-doctoral researcher, he worked at the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel) and the Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology in Freiburg. Afterwards, he led the Research Group for Multiple Sclerosis at the Institute of Clinical Neurobiology at the University Hospital of the University of Würzburg. In 1988, he was appointed director at the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology.

In 2002 Professor Wekerle was awarded the “Foundation Louis D.” science prize by the Institut de France. The award recognized Wekerle’s pioneering research on autoimmune diseases of the central nervous system, in particular multiple sclerosis. Thirty years ago such disorders, according to the beliefs of the time, were considered “impossible”. Wekerle played a vital role in overturning this dogma, consequently founding the field of neuroimmunology – a research field where scientists work together with medics in trying to untangle the “self” destructive attacks of the immune system.

Professor Wekerle’s scientific research is focused on the underlying reasons and mechanisms of diseases which arise due to a conflict between the immune system and the nervous system, his main focus being on multiple sclerosis. Wekerle’s work led to a number of scientific findings. Among these were the discoveries of potentially autoaggressive antibodies in a healthy immune system, the specialized organization of the immune response in the nervous system, and the role of B cells in autoimmune reactions of the nervous system.

Personal Portrait: Hartmut Wekerle

Gary Westbrook, M.D.

Dr. Westbrook is a Senior Scientist and Co-Director of the Vollum Institute at Oregon Health & Science University.

Dr. Westbrook concurrently holds an appointment as Professor of Neurology in the School of Medicine at Oregon Health & Sciences University. Dr. Westbrook received an M.D. from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland in 1976 after undergraduate work in biology and graduate study in biomedical engineering. He was an intern and resident at Mt. Auburn Hospital in Boston and at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. After clinical training in Internal Medicine and Neurology, he spent six years at the National Institutes of Health before moving to the Vollum Institute in 1987. Dr. Westbrook has been the recipient of Javits and MERIT awards from NIH for his research. He is a former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Neuroscience and is a member of the Advisory Council of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

For more information on Dr. Gary Westbrook click here.

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Drug Discovery Advisory Group (DDAG)

Stephen Freedman, Ph.D. - Consultant

Dr. Stephen Freedman has more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry including senior positions at Merck and Co. where he was a senior member of their CNS research group, and Sr. Vice President, Head of Global Research for Elan Pharmaceuticals. He has interests in a number of therapeutic areas including neurology, psychiatry, pain, inflammation and a number of associated autoimmune diseases including multiple sclerosis, asthma, RA and IBD. During his association with Merck and Elan, Dr. Freedman worked on more than a dozen small molecules and biologics entering clinical development. He is an author on nearly 100 research publications and is an inventor on a number of patents in these therapeutic areas.

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Mike Gresser, Ph.D. – Consultant

Mike Gresser received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1976 from Brandeis University, where his thesis research was done under the supervision of W.P. Jencks on the mechanism of ester aminolysis. He did postdoctoral studies at the Molecular Biology Institute at UCLA on the mitochondrial and chloroplast proton translocating ATP synthases, under the supervision of Paul D. Boyer.

In 1980 Dr. Gresser joined the Department of Chemistry at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, and progressed through the ranks of Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, and Professor of Chemistry. While there Dr. Gresser received the Excellence in Teaching Award, and did research on the biochemistry of Vanadium V, and on the mitochondrial ATPase.

In 1988 Dr. Gresser joined the Merck Frosst Center for Therapeutic Research in Kirkland, Quebec as Director of Biochemistry. Over the next twelve years he progressed through the ranks of Senior Director, then Executive Director of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. His team worked on a variety of small molecule drug discovery programs, resulting in the introduction of numerous molecules into clinical trials. Two of these molecules, Singulair and Vioxx, became products.

In 2000, Dr. Gresser joined Amgen Inc. in Thousand Oaks, California, as Vice President Research for Inflammation, where he remained until April, 2006. For two years Dr. Gresser served as Head of Neuroscience Research as well as Inflammation Research. His team at Amgen worked on many molecular targets, introducing numerous small molecules, human antibodies, and other proteins into development.

Currently Dr. Gresser is a Visiting Scholar at the Molecular Biology Institute at UCLA, and works as a consultant with Clarity Therapeutics Consulting. He often consults jointly with Dr. David R. Fitzpatrick of Biotech Clarity Consulting.

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David R. Fitzpatrick, Biotech Clarity Consulting

David R. Fitzpatrick, Biotech Clarity Consulting Owner of Biotech Clarity Consulting, Dr. David R. Fitzpatrick has more than 30 years of experience in research and development that includes consulting with venture capital, startup biotech, listed biopharma and big pharma clients in the U.S., Canada, UK, China and Australia. Dr. Fitzpatrick held senior positions at Immunex and Amgen where his group helped advance multiple projects into phase I clinical trials, and more than a dozen other projects toward clinical development, for diseases such as asthma, atopic dermatitis, cancer, hepatitis, inflammatory bowel disease, lung fibrosis, lupus, multiple sclerosis, psoriasis and rheumatoid arthritis. He also served on the Licensing, Extramural Research, Portfolio Review, Patent Review, R&D Training and R&D Strategy Committees.

Dr. Fitzpatrick has an international reputation for his research in epigenetics, T-cell immunology and cytokine biology, in the context of transplantation, autoimmunity, cancer and infectious diseases. He is an author on more than 70 publications, an associate editor or reviewer for more than 15 journals, and an active member of a number of scientific associations and advisory boards.

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Christopher Lipinski, Ph.D. – Consultant

Dr. Christopher Lipinski was Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the Pfizer Global R&D Groton CT Laboratories until his retirement in June 2002 and is now a Scientific Advisor to Melior Discovery, a drug repurposing startup. He is a member of the American Chemical Society (ACS), AAPS, Society of Biomolecular Sciences (SBS) and EUFEPS. A consultant on drug-like properties, he serves on numerous scientific advisory and journal editorial boards.

Dr. Lipinski is the author of the “rule of five” a widely-used filter to select for acceptable drug oral absorption. In 2006 he received an honorary law degree from the University of Dundee and is also the 2006 Society for Biomolecular Sciences Achievement Award winner. In 2005 he was the American Chemical Society winner of the E. B. Hershberg Award for Important Discoveries in Medicinally Active Substances and in 2004 the winner of the Division of Medicinal Chemistry Award of the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry. He is an adjunct faculty member at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and has published and presented more than 225 journal articles and invited presentations and issued 17 U.S. patents.

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Bruce McCarthy, M.D., M.B.A. – Eleio, Inc.

Bruce McCarthy, M.D., M.B.A., is Founder and President of Eleio, Inc., an early stage start-up company with a mission to discover and develop breakthrough treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and other neurological and psychiatric disorders.  Dr. McCarthy previously held various leadership roles in neuroscience drug development at Pfizer, most recently as Vice President of Neuroscience Development.  Prior to joining Pfizer, he served as Neuroscience Venture Head at Abbott Laboratories and led development teams for new drugs in pain and psychiatry indications and also for Depakote.  Dr. McCarthy obtained his M.B.A. from the Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University, completed his neurology residency at the University of California San Francisco and obtained his M.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

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Michael A. Pleiss, Ph.D. – Consultant

Michael A. Pleiss, Ph.D. is a medicinal chemist with more than 25 years of industrial experience in pharmaceutical research and a proven track record of novel small molecule drugs in several therapeutic areas. Compounds that he has advanced into clinical trials or that are in predevelopment represent novel therapeutics for asthma, rheumatoid arthritis, multiple sclerosis, neuropathic pain and Alzheimer's disease. Dr. Pleiss is currently a private consultant with expertise in all aspects of drug design and development through Phase 1, including medicinal chemistry and outsourcing, computational chemistry, patent construction and breaking, DMPK, and CMC.  Dr. Pleiss was most recently Vice President of Chemistry and Drug Metabolism & Pharmacokinetics (DMPK) at Elan Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Pleiss has also held positions at Genentech and Syntex prior to joining Athena Neurosciences / Elan Pharmaceuticals.

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Mark Scheideler, Ph.D. - NIH/NINDS

Dr. Mark Scheideler is a Senior Scientific Officer for NIH Roadmap Initiatives, and Program Director at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (Bethesda, MD, USA).  Dr. Scheideler works with the Roadmap Molecular Libraries Initiative (http://mli.nih.gov/), where he has responsibility for the development and scientific direction of Assay Development Programs, and is also NIH Coordinator for the Public-Private Partnerships Steering Committee of the Clinical-Translational (CTSA) Consortium (http://www.ctsaweb.org/).  He came to the NIH in mid-2005 with twelve years of international Drug Discovery experience, including roles as VP-Discovery Research at MDS Proteomics, Head of Neurobiology Research at SmithKline Beecham (then GSK), and as Principal Scientist and Program Head at Novo Nordisk.  Dr. Scheideler has held academic posts as Research Assistant Professor of Neurological Surgery at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Postdoctoral Fellow in Biochemistry at Duke University Medical Center.  Dr. Scheideler earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Chicago, and a B.A. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Northwestern University.

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