Peter Farina, Executive in Residence, Canaan Partners – Science Advisor

Peter is an Executive in Residence at Canaan Partners, a venture capital firm located in Westport, Connecticut that has invested in four of the ten antibiotics approved in the last decade. He is also the Managing Partner of Salient Science & Technology, LLC, which advises several US and Asian biotech firms on strategic and technical matters in pharmaceutical R&D. Previously, Peter served as Senior Vice President (SVP) of Development at Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in Ridgefield, Connecticut where he was responsible for North American pre-clinical development of drugs in the therapeutic areas of Immunology/Inflammation, Virology, and Cardiovascular Disease. His career spanned 28 years, and he retired from the company in 2008. During his tenure as SVP, his interdisciplinary team worked on the development and successful registration of Aptivus®, an HIV protease inhibitor, Viramune XR® for HIV, and Atrovent HFA® for COPD and emphysema. Prior to this position, he served as Vice President of Research at the Ridgefield Center. He has also held positions as Director of Inflammatory Diseases and Director of Biochemistry. Prior to joining BI, Peter spent six years in the Corporate Research Laboratories and Medical Products Division of Union Carbide Corporation in Tarrytown, New York where he worked on immunodiagnostics. His research interests have been focused on chemical and biological mechanisms impacting human disease. Peter has worked over his career to develop drugs to modulate inflammatory and immunological processes and was also engaged in HIV virology research, which led to the discovery and successful registration of one of the first non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors Viramune® (nevirapine).

Peter also serves as the Co-Chair and a Board Member of Connecticut United for Research Excellence (CURE); on the Advisory Board of the University of Connecticut School of Pharmacy (Emeritus); as a member of the NIH Blueprint Neurotherapeutics Network (BPN) Steering Committee; on the Emory University DRIVE Advisory Board; and on the State of Connecticut Bioscience Innovation Advisory Board. He was a Founder and CEO of Developing World Cures, a nonprofit company working on neglected diseases. Peter has a PhD in organic chemistry from SUNY Buffalo and did postdoctoral work in bioorganic chemistry at Pennsylvania State University.

Vincent Fischetti, Professor and Head, Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis, Rockefeller University – Science Advisor

Dr. Fischetti has over 40 years experience in the anti-infectives field. He is Professor and Head of the Laboratory of Bacterial Pathogenesis and Immunology at the Rockefeller University, in NY. Over those years his laboratory has been involved in understanding the earliest events in gram-positive bacterial infection, so that strategies may be devised to prevent infection. His laboratory was the first to identify lytic enzymes as novel therapeutics to decolonize human mucous membranes of bacterial pathogens and treat systemic infections caused by these organisms. The first lysin against serious Staphylococcal infections has successfully completed phase 1 and is currently in phase 2 testing in hospitals. His laboratory also identified the mechanism by which gram-positive bacteria attach their surface proteins in the cell, which is now being used as a target for antibiotic development. Dr. Fischetti is a fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, the National Academy of Inventors, and was the recipient of two NIH MERIT awards. He has been editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Infection and Immunity for 10 years, and serves as advisory editor for the Journal of Experimental Medicine and Trends in Microbiology among others. Dr. Fischetti serves on the scientific advisory board of ContraFect, Bioharmony, and the Trudeau institute and is also a trustee of the Trudeau Institute. He has published over 240 primary research articles and over 70 textbook chapters and is a co-editor of two major books on gram-positive pathogens. He is an inventor of over 40 issued patents dealing with the control of infectious diseases. Dr. Fischetti received a Ph.D. in Microbiology from New York University.

Susan Froshauer, President & CEO, CURE; President, CURE Innovations – Science Advisor

Susan is President and CEO of CURE and President of CURE Innovations, LLC. She is an experienced scientist, mentor, entrepreneur, and angel investor with skill at connecting academic expertise and technology with the commercial sector. Susan is involved with the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute, the CTNEXT-funded group, SECT Tech, the Creative Arts Workshop, and the Angel Investor Forum. Prior to joining CURE, Susan was Director of the Technology Exchange Portal at the University of Connecticut’s Office of Economic Development. In this role, Susan assisted Connecticut-based entrepreneurs and organizations with initiatives that train students, create jobs, and contribute to economic development. She connected ideas with business expertise, business plans with investors, and industry with scholars. Her passion and commitment is helping bioscience entrepreneurs build successful companies.

Until 2010, Susan served as President and CEO of Rib-X Pharmaceuticals, which she co-founded in New Haven in 2000 with Yale scientists Tom Steitz, Peter Moore, and Bill Jorgensen. Under her leadership, Rib-X raised more than $160 million in private equity, bridge financing, and government grants and built an emerging pipeline of antibiotics to treat serious multidrug-resistant infections. Prior to Rib-X, Susan served as a member of Pfizer’s Strategic Alliance Group where she was part of a team involved in the creation of a significant technology investment portfolio, introducing new approaches to the Pfizer global research and development strategy.

Susan received her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Molecular Genetics from Harvard University and a B.A. from Connecticut College. She performed post-doctoral research at Yale Medical School in the Department of Cell Biology as a Jane Coffin Child’s Fellow.

Allan Goldberg, President & CEO, Avacyn Pharmaceuticals – Science Advisor

Allan is the founder, President and CEO of Avacyn Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a biotechnology company developing a new generation of antibiotics. He was a co-founder and director of ZyStor Therapeutics, Inc., a Milwaukee-based biotechnology company (acquired by BioMarin in 2010) that developed a protein manufacturing and delivery platform technology for the treatment of various lysosomal storage diseases, including an enzyme-based protein therapeutic for Pompe disease that is currently undergoing a Phase II/III clinical trial. He was a co-founder and Managing Partner of the venture-management company The Channel Group and served on several boards of private and public companies.  Allan was a director of the publicly-listed oncology company Astex Pharmaceuticals, and at one point was Chairman of its Scientific Advisory Board. Astex was sold in 2013 to Otsuka Pharmaceuticals. He founded the therapeutics company Innovir Laboratories and held various senior management positions including chairman, chief executive officer, and chief scientific officer. Prior to Innovir, Allan was a professor of virology at The Rockefeller University. He earned a B.A. from Cornell University, a Ph.D. from Princeton University, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Michelle L. Hutchings, Associate Director of Academic Affairs, Yale Young Global Scholars, Yale University – Science & STEM Education Advisor

Dr. Michelle L. Hutchings is dedicated to building innovative and transformative educational experiences for young people. She is currently the Associate Director of Academic Affairs for Yale Young Global Scholars (YYGS), a highly selective academic enrichment and leadership program which offers ten two-week summer sessions for about 2,000 students from all over the world (representing over 120 different countries and all 50 U.S. states), exposing students to new interdisciplinary concepts and facilitating the cross-cultural exchange of ideas and perspectives.

Dr. Hutchings received her B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Florida in 2010. She then spent a year as an Americorps member with the Student Conservation Association teaching environmental education and building hiking trails before going to graduate school. She received her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Yale University in 2016, and her research focused on investigating interesting properties of endophytes, organisms that live asymptomatically within inner plant tissues. She worked extensively with the innovative Rainforest Expedition and Laboratory course, which took students on research expeditions through the Amazon Rainforest in Ecuador and taught students interdisciplinary scientific concepts as they developed their own unique research projects.

Kaury Kucera, Chief Scientific Officer, Valisure – Science & STEM Education Advisor

Dr. Kaury Kucera is the Chief Scientific Officer at Valisure, which applies cutting-edge technology developed to provide consumers with chemically validated medications. Kaury has managed scientific challenges at Yale University as a Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry Graduate Student, Postdoctoral Fellow, and Research Scientist in the Department of Pharmacology. As a scientist educator, Kaury was the research director for a $2.5M HHMI matched grant program and personally oversaw development of 200+ unique assays to investigate bioactive molecules. In her current role, Kaury is dedicated to the highest standards of consumer transparency, safety, and education.

Elizabeth "Liza" Lee, Former Headmistress, The Hockaday School – Advisor

Elizabeth “Liza” Lee brings nearly 40 years of experience at some of the leading private schools in the country. Lee was interim headmistress at The Hockaday School in Dallas, Texas, from 2015 to 2017 after serving as head of school for five years at the Columbus School for Girls in Columbus, Ohio. Previously, she served as interim head of school at Trinity Episcopal School in Austin, Texas, as well as Porter-Gaud School and the College Preparatory School, both in Charleston, S.C. She was headmistress of The Hockaday School from 1990 until 2004.

Lee has also served on several independent day and boarding school boards, including The Brearley School in New York City, the Lawrenceville School in New Jersey and the Brooks School in Massachusetts. An advocate of all-girls education and service to the community, Lee has served many organizations over the years, including as president of the National Association of Principals of Schools for Girls and the Country Day, School Headmasters Association.

Everly Macario, Sc.D., M.S., Ed.M., Public Health Research and Communications Consultant – Public Health and Communications Advisor

Dr. Everly Macario is a health communications and social marketing expert. Everly has spent a career designing and evaluating public health campaigns. In 2004, Everly’s otherwise healthy 1½ year-old son, Simon Sol Sparrow, died suddenly from a community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) infection. Everly has been trying, since then, to sound the alarm of our impending post-antibiotic era and to rally us to reduce our misuse of antibiotics—both in human medicine and in the raising of food animals on industrial farms. For years, Everly served as spokesperson for Pew Charitable Trusts’ Supermoms Against Superbugs campaign. Her mantra is, "To save antibiotics, we must stop using antibiotics." Everly holds a doctorate in health and social behavior, a master’s degree in health policy and management, and a master’s degree in education—each from Harvard University.

Liliya Panusheva, Sr. Director Finance, TVision Insights, Inc. – Advisor

Liliya leads Finance at TVision, an advanced TV performance metrics company measuring viewability.  Prior to joining TVision, Liliya established and led finance and operations at Inpher, a venture funded company using secret computing technology for privacy-preserving machine learning and AI.  She has spent more than seven years in corporate finance and investment banking roles at JPMorgan Chase.  Prior to joining Inpher, Liliya worked on the Corporate Mergers and Acquisitions team, supporting the firm’s CFO and line of business CEOs in the execution of divestitures, acquisitions, investments, and strategic analysis.  Prior to that Liliya worked in the investment banking arm of the firm performing valuation, due diligence and credit analysis for Technology, Media, Telecom and Natural Resources clients.  Liliya completed the JPMorgan Chase Global Investment Banking Analyst Training Program.  Liliya received a BA magna cum laude from Mount Holyoke College. 

Bharath Prithiviraj, PhD – Science Advisor

Bharath is currently an Adjunct Research Faculty Member at the Advanced Science Research Center (ASRC) Graduate Center, City University of New York / Brooklyn College (CUNY). He is a microbiome researcher with doctoral training in the area of microbial symbioses using fungi as biological sensors. Bharath is an alumnus of the Rob Knight lab group that was responsible for the development of QIIME, a highly cited bioinformatics processing tool for microbiome datasets, and for running the American Gut Project and Earth Microbiome Project (EMP). Bharath was one of the initial contributing members to the EMP consortium that was published in Nature. This groundbreaking global project to 16S microbiome sequence data provides a framework for incorporating data from future studies and fosters increasingly complete characterization of Earth’s microbial diversity.

Bharath’s postdoctoral training included an overlap of metagenomic approaches using next generation sequencing to study microbial communities in diverse outdoor and indoor environments, including soils, plant-microbial endophytes, algal biofuels, soil crust seeding, hospitals (with Mark Hernandez), and subway systems. He is a member of the MetaSUB consortium led by Chris Mason at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York. Additionally, Bharath has done research stints at the Noble Research Institute – the second largest plant science research institute in the US, and collaborated with companies, including Droplet Measurement Technologies, Transvac Solutions, Terraderm, and Strion Air. Most recently, Bharath was a Senior Scientist at Prime Discoveries Inc. in New York.

Bharath completed his PhD degree under the mentorship of Prof. M.S. Swaminathan at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in Chennai, India. Prior to moving to the United States for his post-doctoral research, he worked at Anthem Biosciences, Bangalore, India as Senior Scientist. Bharath is passionate about microbiome research and co-organizes New York Microbiome Meetup events.

Joyce Sutcliffe, Former Senior VP, Biology, Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals – Science Advisor

Joyce has more than 35 years of experience in antibiotic research and development. She is the former Senior Vice President for Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, Inc. where her responsibilities encompassed managing discovery biology and preclinical development internally and with outside contractors. She was part of the executive team involved in strategy for clinical development, marketing assessments, budgeting, resource allocation, interactions with regulatory agencies, government contract writing, and management of awarded contracts. Tetraphase antibiotics eravacycline and TP-271 received support for their development from BARDA and NIAID respectively of $100 million.

Prior to joining Tetraphase, Joyce was Vice President of Research at NanoBio Corporation where she led antimicrobial, antiviral, and antifungal discovery activities. In addition, she was Chief Research Scientist for six years at Rib-X Pharmaceuticals and spent 20 years at Pfizer and Abbott where she played key roles in early-stage antibiotic discovery and development through Phase 2 activities. Antibiotics that entered phase 2 and beyond that she helped develop are eravacycline, radezolid, delafloxacin, nanoemulsions as antifungals and for adjuvant vaccines, and azithromycin.

Joyce is part of the Scientific Advisory Board for Innovative Platforms for Antimicrobial Therapy and Vaccine Development awarded to Harvard University by NIAID and has served as a scientific advisor to PEW Charitable Trusts and the Institute for Life Science Entrepreneurship.

Joyce received her Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Florida, Gainesville, followed by a postdoctoral position at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and a staff fellowship at the National Institutes of Health.

Pedro Velica, Senior Lab Manager, Karolinska Institute; Author, Pedromics – Artistic, Comedic, & Science Advisor

Dr. Pedro Velica is a scientist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, where his research focuses on the interplay between the immune system and cancer. In particular, his work revolves around identifying ways to engineer T-cells using retroviral gene delivery or gene editing to improve the ability of T-cells to destroy cancer. Pedro is also a skilled cartoonist who uses art and humor to make science fun, exciting, and, most importantly, accessible and has developed a large online fan base. He is the author of Pedromics, a humoristic webcomic about science and life in academia but, above all, a repository of cringe-inducing science puns. Aside from the Pedromics social media pages, Pedro’s art can be found in scientific and educational publications and on the cover of both scientific and non-scientific journals. Pedro graduated with a degree in Microbiology and Genetics from the University of Lisbon (Portugal) and received his PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Birmingham (UK). He completed his post-doctoral research at the University College London (UK) with Professor Hans Stauss.