Alejandro Bernal
Dr Sarah Snykers
Sarah has over 10 years of experience in cell therapy, biomedical research and development.
She is a pharmacist from education and has a PhD in pharmaceutical and biomedical sciences, specialised in stem cell biology. In 2010, she joined Promethera BioSciences, a biopharmaceutical company dedicated to the development of cell therapy products based on allogeneic adult stem cell technology to treat liver diseases. She headed the R&D, QC and Preclinical Departments. In 2015, she joined Celyad, a biopharmaceutical company, specialised in autologous and allogeneic cell therapy. Celyad’s core business lies in the field of immune-oncology, and more specifically the development of NK-receptor based CAR T therapies. Sarah initially led the immune-oncology program at R&D level, focused on technology transfer, product characterization and optimization. Since 2016, she heads the QC Department.
Dr. Mark Primental
Dr. Mark Pimentel, serves as a Director of Cedars-sinai Gi Motility Program at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. Dr. Pimentel has been the Chairman of Clinical Advisory Board at Synthetic Biologics Inc. since April 2014. Dr. Pimentel is an Associate Professor of Medicine at CSMC in Los Angeles, California. Active in research, Dr. Pimentel has served as a principal investigator or co-investigator for numerous basic science, translational and clinical studies in such areas as IBS, and the relationship between gut flora composition and human disease. His work has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, Annals of Internal Medicine, American Journal of Physiology, American Journal of Medicine, American Journal of Gastroenterology and Digestive Diseases and Sciences, among others. Dr. Pimentel has been invited to present his work at meetings, grand rounds, and advisory boards in the United States and Internationally.
Scott Bultman
Betsy Herold
Betsy Herold, M.D. directs a basic and translational research program, which focuses on the prevention of HIV and HSV and other sexually transmitted infections. Basic research in the lab focuses on defining the cellular signaling pathways that HSV-2 usurps to promote infection. Current work from our laboratory demonstrates that HSV activates calcium (Ca2+), integrin, and phosphorylation signaling pathways and that these pathways play critical roles in the establishment of infection and in cell-to-cell spread of virus. .More recently, the lab has identified a novel cellular protein that plays a key role in the initiation of viral protein expression and could serve as a novel target for prevention strategies. Identification of the viral and cellular factors required for infection has led to development of candidate drugs, which have been formulated for vaginal delivery to prevent both HSV and HIV infection.
David Pride
David Pride’s laboratory focuses on identifying viral members of the human microbiome and in identifying their contributions to human health and disease. He is working on understanding the ecology of viruses and their consequences for our close contacts, characterizing their contributions to community antibiotic resistance, and developing model systems to understand how they respond to perturbations.
Larry J. Forney
The research done in Dr. Larry Forney’s laboratory centers on the diversity and distribution of prokaryotes. Both field and laboratory studies are done to explore the temporal and spatial patterns of community diversity, as well as factors that influence the dynamics of inter- and intra-species competition. In addition research is done to understand how spatial structure and the resulting environmental gradients influence the tempo and trajectory of adaptive radiations in bacterial species and the maintenance of diversity. Most of these studies are highly interdisciplinary in nature, and done in collaboration with mathematicians, statisticians, computer scientists, geologists, environmental engineers, physicians, and clinical scientists.
Iliyan D. Iliev
Iliyan Iliev is an Immunologist and an assistant professor at the Department of Medicine and the Jill Roberts Institute for Research in IBD at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York. He earned his PhD from the European School of Molecular Medicine and the University of Milan, and was previously associated with the Tohoku University in Japan and the Cedars Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. Dr. Iliev’s laboratory studies the interaction between commensal microbiota and the immune cells at the mucosal surfaces of the body.