Scientific Advisory Board
Homer L. Pearce
Dr. Pearce recently retired from Lilly Research Laboratories, where he served as a member of the executive leadership in discovery research. Of particular note was his tenure as vice president of cancer research and clinical investigation. At the time of his retirement, Dr. Pearce held the title of distinguished research fellow.
While he was VP of cancer research at Eli Lilly, Dr. Pearce led Lilly’s collaboration with Isis Pharmaceuticals. The relationship with Isis was to discover antisense drugs to inhibit specific gene targets associated with cancer, especially antisense compounds directed at cellular regulators of apoptosis. The Isis-Lilly relationship also looked to discover new antisense drugs in the fields of inflammatory and metabolic diseases.
In his more than 27 years devoted to cancer drug discovery at Lilly, Dr. Pearce was involved in the development of more than 25 investigational drugs which entered clinical trials for cancer, of which three have resulted in regulatory approvals and others are still in development. These drugs, which include Gemzar® and Alimta®, achieved 2005 combined worldwide sales of nearly 2 billion dollars. Another drug which advanced during this period, the molecular targeted therapeutic, enzastaurin, is now in Phase III clinical trials.
Dr. Pearce’s graduate work at Harvard – the total synthesis of picrotoxinin, which was considered to be an impossible problem by none other than the scientist who originally decoded the structure of the picrotoxinin family – remains one of the landmark achievements in the area of natural products total synthesis. What makes it even more remarkable is that it was a feat he accomplished single-handedly.
Dr. Pearce currently serves as a Board Member, Scientific Advisor, or Business Director to a number of leading research institutions, foundations and biotechnology companies. The recipient of numerous awards throughout his career, Dr. Pearce was most recently named “A Hero of Chemistry” by the American Chemical Society, for his discovery and development of Alimta®, the first drug ever approved for the treatment of malignant pleural mesothelioma.
Dr. Pearce received his Ph.D. in chemistry from Harvard University and his undergraduate degree from Texas A&M University.
Rodney Pearlman, Ph.D.
Rodney is currently CEO of Nuon Therapeutics, a company focused on developing novel agents for treating diseases of the immune system, including Rheumatoid Arthritis and Multiple Sclerosis. Prior to joining Nuon, he was a co-founder, president and CEO of Saegis Pharmaceuticals until its acquisition by H. Lundbeck A/S in January 2007. Saegis developed drugs to improve memory and prevent cognitive decline in diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease, mild cognitive impairment and schizophrenia, taking several new chemical entities into clinical development. He was formerly Senior Vice President of Research and Development at Valentis, a gene therapy company that utilized non-viral vectors to administer gene therapeutics in a variety of applications including cystic fibrosis, cancer and DNA vaccines. Before joining Valentis, he was Director of Pharmaceutical Research and Development at Genentech, where he and his group developed novel formulations, processes and delivery systems for a number of recombinant human proteins. Prior to that, he taught at the University of Texas in Austin and was previously a Senior Scientist with Eli Lilly and Company. Rodney received his Ph.D. in pharmaceutical chemistry from the University of Kansas in the area of delivery of drugs to the brain.
David Johnston, Ph.D.
Dr. David Johnson is Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer for Esoterix Clinical Trials Services, the clinical trials division of LabCorp. LabCorp is one of the world’s largest clinical reference laboratories; Esoterix Clinical Trials Services provides specialized and routine laboratory analyses for pharmaceutical and diagnostic product development worldwide.
Dr. Johnston earned his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine in Microbiology and Immunology, and has been involved in clinical research for over 15 years. Dr. Johnston studied gene regulation and surface virulence determinants in the pathogenic Neisseriae, and developed a novel mutagenesis strategy to engineer genetically modified bacteria for virulence studies without the introduction of antibiotic resistance. Dr. Johnston later studied drug resistance mutations in HIV, and worked on the first clinical diagnostic assays to detect HIV drug resistance mutations.
Previously Dr. Johnston served as Assistant Director of Research and Development for LabCorp, where he participated in the development of several novel clinical genotyping assays in the areas of infectious disease, genetics and pharmacogenomics. He also previously directed the clinical quality assurance department. He is an authority on ICH GCP, GLP and CAP/CLIA regulations, and has supported numerous clinical and non-clinical research studies leading to IND, NDA, PMA and 510(k) regulatory submissions to FDA and international regulatory authorities. Dr. Johnston participated in the DIA workshops on pharmacogenomics data submissions and served on the AACC Advisory Committee on pharmacogenomic assay validation.
In addition to his current role in clinical trials, Dr. Johnston serves on several internal committees at LabCorp, including the Scientific Management and Strategy Committee, the National Office of Quality and Science, and Discipline Committees for Infectious Disease, Genetics/Genomics and Automation/Diagnostics Assessment. Dr. Johnston is a member of Gene Express, Inc.’s Scientific Advisory Board, a company developing the market standard for quantitative and quality-controlled multi-gene transcript abundance measurement for research and development of drugs, biomarkers and molecular diagnostics. He is also a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Drug Information Association, American Association for Clinical Chemistry, and American Society for Microbiology.
Olke C.Uhlenbeck, Ph.D.
Dr. Uhlenbeck is Professor and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Cell Biology at Northwestern University, and he is also a researcher at the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center at Northwestern. Dr. Uhlenbeck is an expert in the fundamental mechanisms of RNA biochemistry, nucleic acid enzymes, the analysis of protein-RNA interactions, and the synthesis and purification of RNA. He has won a number of awards for his research, teaching, and service, including the NIH Career Development Award, the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Scholar, and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Scholarship. In 1993, Dr. Uhlenbeck was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences in Biochemistry. He has served on a number of corporate scientific advisory boards, including Isis Pharmaceuticals, Sirna Therapeutics (being acquired by Merck), and NeXstar Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Gilead). Dr. Uhlenbeck received his B.S. from the University of Michigan in 1964 and his Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1969.
Peixiuan Guo, Ph.D.
Dr. Guo joined Purdue University in 1990 and has been a full Professor of Molecular Virology since 1997. His lab is affiliated with a number of programs, including Genetics, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Virology, the Cancer Research Center, Veterinary Pathobiology, and Nanotechnology. He is also founder of the Graduate Program in Viral Research as well as the Director of the Bionanotechnology Program at Purdue.
Dr. Guo has recently accepted a position as Endowed Chair, Director of the University of Cincinnati Nanomedicine Center and full professor with tenure in both the College of Medicine and the College of Engineering at the University of Cincinnati. Dr. Guo will start this new position in July, and at that time the NIH-supported Nanomedicine Center currently located at Purdue University will move to the University of Cincinnati to take advantage of the school’s existing expertise and College of Medicine.
Dr. Guo’s main research expertise is in viral assembly and DNA packaging, RNA structure and function, and nanobiotechnology. He constructed an imitating phi29 DNA-packaging motor which has been shown to be one of the most powerful biomotors studied to date. He discovered a novel viral RNA (pRNA) that has a unique function in phi29 DNA packaging and forms a hexamer to drive the motor.
For his research efforts at Purdue, Dr. Guo received an NIH First Award in 1992 and the “Pfizer Distinguished Faculty Award for Research Excellence” in 1995, and he was conferred with the status of Purdue Faculty Scholar in 1998.
Dr. Guo received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Minnesota.
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