Alan Sachs, Vice President, RNA Therapeutics, Merck Research Laboratories (MRL), assumed leadership of Sirna Therapeutics and established the global MRL RNA Therapeutics Department effective January 4, 2007. Prior to this, Dr. Sachs assumed responsibility for the scientific leadership at Rosetta Inpharmatics LLC effective July 2002, responsibility for the Rosetta site effective March, 2004, and overall responsibility for the Department of Molecular Profiling in 2006. Dr. Sachs joined Merck & Co., Inc. as Director of Clinical Genomics for MRL in July 2001. Dr. Sachs is one of the leading figures in the field of mRNA translation and regulation, and has made landmark contributions, particularly to the understanding of the role of the poly(A) tail in translation and mRNA stability.

Dr. Böhm obtained his Ph.D. in Theoretical Chemistry at the University of Karlsruhe in 1984. He worked for Siemens in Munich in field of Microelectronics from 1985-1987 and for BASF in Ludwigshafen as Computational Chemist from 1988-1996. At Roche Basel, he headed the Research Informatics Department from 1997-1998, the Discovery Technologies Department from 1999-2001, the Discovery Chemistry Department from 2002 – 2004 and Non-Clinical Development from 2005-2006. Dr. Böhm is currently President and Research Center Manager of Roche Palo Alto. He is also Global Head of Chemistry at Roche since July 2007.

J. Carmel Egan, Ph.D., was named vice president of project management for Lilly in March 2005. Prior to that, she had been vice president, manufacturing science and technology since 2001. She had been executive director of product development since July 2000. She is a member of the senior management council. She was a recipient of the 1999/2000 Chairman’s Ovation Award. Sponsored by Sidney Taurel, chairman and chief executive officer, the award is presented annually to a select number of leaders who demonstrate an exceptional ability to motivate and develop people.

Dr. Thomas Meek received a B.S. degree in Chemistry from the University of Virginia in 1976 and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the Pennsylvania State University in 1981. In 2000, Dr. Meek became the world-wide vice-president of Screening Sciences at GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals, which had responsibilities for implementation of high-throughput screening and compound management activities and infrastructure. Currently he is worldwide vice-president of Biological Reagents & Assay Development, a department which is responsible for provision of cell lines, purified proteins, antibodies, and assays in support of drug discovery programs. Dr. Meek is the author of more than 60 publications.

William B. Mattes, PhD, DABT, is the Director of Toxicology at the Critical Path Institute. He directs C-Path’s Predictive Safety Testing Consortium (PSTC), a collaboration of 16 of the world’s major pharmaceutical companies, with FDA and EMEA advisors. The PSTC qualifies new biomarkers for drug safety, and its goal is one of the priorities identified in the FDA's March 2006 Critical Path Opportunities List. In the PSTC over 200 scientists, share experience, expertise, and experimental data, and are creating a new, process to speed the development of safer drugs. Dr. Mattes’ background is in genetic toxicology, molecular toxicology, investigative toxicology, and toxicogenomics, spanning more than 23 years. Prior to joining the Critical Path Institute Dr. Mattes was senior scientific director of Toxicogenomics at Gene Logic, associate director of toxicogenomics at Pharmacia Corp, Kalamazoo, MI, group leader of experimental toxicology at Ciba Pharmaceuticals, Summit, NJ, and group leader of molecular and cellular toxicology, Ciba-Geigy Agricultural Chemical Division, Farmington, CT.

Dr. Patterson returned to Amgen Inc., California in 2003 and is an Executive Director in the Medical Sciences function leading the Molecular Sciences department (with the Computational Biology department also reporting into him). He is well known in the field of protein chemistry, and is one of the pioneers in the field of proteomics. He has published extensively and is a frequent guest lecturer. After leaving Amgen in 2000, he served as Vice President of Proteomics at the Celera Genomics Group and then as Chief Scientific Officer of Farmal Biomedicines, LLC. While at Celera, he established the company's initial foray into protein-based drug target discovery and validation in oncology, building a large group of cell biologists, protein chemists and mass spectrometrists whose efforts resulted in the identification of cell surface targets for therapeutic development and diagnostics, a number of which have been licensed to Pharma and Biotechnology companies. Dr. Patterson first worked at Amgen from 1993–2000 progressing from a Research Scientist to Department Head, ultimately leading the Department of Biochemistry and Genetics.

Jilly Evans began conducting biochemistry research more than 30 years ago. Jilly obtained a first class honors Masters degree in cell biology from Auckland University in New Zealand. She received her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of British Columbia in Vancouver working with Nobel Prize winner Michael Smith. Jilly started her post-doctoral career at McGill University and then served in various biochemistry research positions at Merck Frosst and Merck & Company, most recently serving as director of cardiovascular diseases. While at Merck, Jilly was a lead biologist responsible for Singulair®, Vioxx® and the 5-lipoxygenase-activating protein (FLAP) inhibitor MK-591. She also led the teams that identified FLAP and the CysLT1 and CysLT2 receptors. Jilly is a world authority in the eicosanoid field and her work includes research resulting in more than 100 published papers. She has published extensively on the subject of biological inflammatory mechanisms and inhibitors, particularly FLAP, the cysteinyl leukotriene receptors and COX-2.

Dr. Weiss completed her MSc and PhD in molecular genetics at the Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel and obtained her medical degree at Hadassah Medical Center, affiliated with The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel. After practicing medicine for a few years, Dr. Weiss joined an Israeli venture capital firm as a vice president responsible for analyzing and maintaining deal flow, and then moved on to become a medical and business development director at Genzyme Israel. Dr. Weiss joined Merck's Israeli subsidiary as medical director in the beginning of 2004 and this summer joined Merck's Licensing group in San Francisco as a scientific scout responsible for identification of licensing opportunities emanating from the West Coast.

Dr. Samuel Broder joined Celera at its founding in 1998, as the Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs and Chief Medical Officer. Before joining the company, he had been appointed by President Reagan to serve as Director of the National Cancer Institute in 1989, a position he held for 6 years. His lab was instrumental in developing several of the first drugs now widely used in the therapy of AIDS and its related disorders, especially nucleosides such as Retrovir® (AZT), Videx®(ddI), and HIVID®(ddC). He also oversaw the development of other agents, such as TAXOL®. While serving as NCI Director, he helped launch a number of large-scale clinical trials related to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer and inaugurated the SPORE Program. He is the author or co-author of over 330 scientific publications. He has received numerous scientific awards related to his research in cancer and AIDS. His current interests relate to applying knowledge of the human genome, DNA diagnostics, and proteomics to the development of new strategies to treat cancer.

Dr. Buetow is the Director of the NCI Center for Biomedical Informatics and Information Technology (NCICBIIT) and the Associate Director for Bioinformatics and Information Technology at the National Cancer Institute (NCI). As Director of the NCICBIIT, Dr Buetow initiated the cancer Biomedical Informatics Grid™ (caBIG™) and currently oversees its activities. caBIG™ was conceived as the “World Wide Web” of cancer research, providing the standards, tools, and grid-enabled computing infrastructure to address the needs of all constituencies in the cancer community – researchers, clinicians, and patients – to share data and knowledge and simplify collaboration, leading to better patient outcomes and the realization of personalized medicine in cancer care and beyond. Dr. Buetow received his Ph.D. in human genetics from the University of Pittsburgh.

Jeffrey Norenberg, Pharm D, is as Associate Professor and Director of Radiopharmaceutical Sciences, the Director of the Keck-UNM Small Animal Imaging Resource and the Associate Director of the New Mexico Center for Isotopes in Medicine at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center. He has expertise in the clinical pharmacology and targeted therapies in oncology focusing on targeted delivery of radiopharmaceuticals for diagnosis and therapy and the translation from basic to pre-clinical and clinical research. Dr. Norenberg has also developed a novel approach to using alpha-emitters for targeted therapy. Dr. Norenberg maintains a small-scale cGMP laboratory to provide novel parenterals for clinical studies.

Dr. Kole joined AVI BioPharma in April 2008. He is a pioneer in the use of oligonucleotides for the modulation of splicing. He received his Ph.D. from the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. As a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Sidney Altman at Yale University, Dr. Kole provided early evidence that an RNA component is essential for the activity of a tRNA processing enzyme, RNase P. Subsequent discovery that RNase P is a ribozyme was recognized by a Nobel Prize for Dr. Altman. After joining the Department of Pharmacology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as a faculty member, Dr. Kole’s work led to a discovery that splicing provides a novel target for gene based therapies of numerous disorders including cancer, genetic diseases and metabolic disorders such as obesity. Dr. Kole founded Ercole Biotech, Inc. to develop and commercialize this technology.

Dr. Spier was educated in Biological Sciences at Oxford University, and obtained his Ph.D. in molecular neuroscience from Cambridge University, UK, at the MRC-Laboratory of Molecular Biology in the laboratory of Dr. Nigel Unwin. Dr. Spier trained as a postdoc at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI), La Jolla, CA, in the laboratory of Dr. Gregor Sutcliffe. Following the identification of a promising family of neuroprotective neuropeptides, in 2001 Dr. Spier co-founded Allon Therapeutics, Inc. to develop these peptides into therapeutic products for neurodegenerative conditions including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and stroke. As its President and CEO, Dr. Spier led the company through two financing rounds and up to its September 2004 entry onto the Toronto Stock Exchange with two products entering clinical trials. In November, 2004, Dr. Spier joined GNF as Director of Business Development where he is responsible for developing commercial opportunities and strategic alliances stemming from the Institute’s leading position in genomics, proteomics and drug discovery research technologies

Peter G. Ulrich, has served as an executive in the health care and biotechnology industry for over 30 years, including 8 years at Baxter HealthCare where he held domestic and international marketing management positions. He has over 16 years experience in CEO or senior management capacities in the biotechnology industry with companies including NeuroVir Therapeutics, La Jolla Pharmaceutical Co. and TargeGen. In conjunction with co-founding TargeGen Inc., Mr. Ulrich served as the first Entrepreneur in Residence for Forward Ventures and assumed the role of president & CEO of TargeGen, Inc. in March, 2002. TargeGen has attracted more than $110M in venture funding and is working on the development of four internally discovered drug candidates. TargeGen was named one of the top 100 venture backed companies in North America by Venture Reporter Magazine. TargeGen’s TG100-115 compound received the UCSD Connect “Most Innovative Product of the Year Award” in 2004. Mr Ulrich was the recipient of the 2006 Ernst & Young “Entrepreneur of the Year Award” in the emerging company category. Mr. Ulrich received his B.A. from the University of Texas (Austin) and an M.S. in International Business Administration from the University of Dallas.

Maryellen de Mars, Ph.D. is Director, Clinical Biomarkers, at the . Dr. de Mars has worked in biosciences for over 15 years. She was Executive Director of Genomics Services at Gene Logic, Inc., where she also served as Director of the Biorepository and Director of Program Management. Prior to Gene Logic, Dr. de Mars worked at Invitrogen (Life Technologies, Inc.) for 11 years, contributing in several positions, including Training Center Scientist, Business Development Manager and Marketing Manager. Dr. de Mars holds a B.A. from Smith College and a Ph.D. in Virology from the University of Texas. She completed postdoctoral training in transcriptional regulation at The Johns Hopkins University.

Dr Park manages the discovery research portfolio for the development of new monoclonal antibody and antibody-drug conjugate therapies for oncology. He has been overseeing numerous antibody projects for different oncology indications at various stages. Oversees departments that include Discovery, Antibody Engineering, and Cell Line Development; - Discovery department includes scientists that lead different antibody projects from target validation to assembly of pre-clinical package for the lead antibody compounds. Also includes hybridoma group responsible for antibody generation. - Antibody Engineering department is responsible for the humanization of antibodies and the upstream and downstream processing of research antibody candidates. -Cell Line Development department is responsible for the generation and the optimization of upstream processes for manufacturing cell lines.

Dr. Irina A. Antonijevic leads the Translational Research Group at Lundbeck Research USA with a focus on Depression and Anxiety. She will discuss the problems that the pharmaceutical industry faces today with regard to new drug development, particularly in Depression research. She will present how biomarkers can be used as a risk reduction strategy within drug development and also as a way to improve treatment outcomes in psychiatry. She will present some examples of how Lundbeck seeks to increase the odds of success in clinical development and what are critical prerequisites. Awaiting final confirmation

Dr. Diwan is currently the Chairman and President of NanoViricides, Inc. Nanoviricides(tm) are anti-viral nanomedicines that are designed to specifically attack virus particles, and to dismantle them in vivo. Nanoviricides against bird flu (H5N1), highly pathogenic influenzas (HPAI), common influenza and rabies have been shown to be far superior to existing therapies using in vivo and in vitro studies. Nanoviricides technology may represent a new plateau in antiviral therapy, a highly sought after goal. The Company is now developing nanoviricides against HIV, Dengue Fever, and many other virus targets in various collaborations. The Company is seeking alliances for further drug development. Dr. Diwan is the inventor of TheraCour technology that enables NanoViricides drugs. Several patents are pending on these novel technologies. Anil holds a Ph.D. from Rice University, TX, a B.Tech. from Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B), India.

Dr. Hewitt, a clinician-scientist and practicing pathologist, is an acknowledged world-leader in the field of tissue micro-arrays. He currently heads the Tissue Array Research Program (TARP) at the US National Cancer Institute. Dr. Hewitt has been directly involved in key technological developments within this arena, including the pioneering use of infrared spectroscopy for assessment of histological specimens (Fernandez et al., Nature Biotech, 2006).

Professor Kuo-Chen Chou is the chief scientist of Gordon Life Science Institute. He is also an Advisory Professor of several Universities. Professor Chou has published over 330 papers in the fields of bioinformatics, computer-aided drug design, protein-structural prediction, low-frequency internal motion of protein and DNA and its biological functions, graphic rules in enzyme kinetics and other biological systems, and diffusion-controlled reactions of enzymes. Professor Chou is on the editorial board of several noted scientific publications including: Editor-in-Chief (2008-present), The Open Bioinformatics Journal ; Editor-in-Chief (2008-present), Journal of Biomedical Science & Engineering ; Editorial Board (2005 – present), Journal of Theoretical Biology

Dr. Bahija Jallal joined MedImmune as vice president, translational sciences, in March 2006. Dr. Jallal is developing the translational sciences group to assess biomarkers and to establish a preclinical knowledge base for MedImmune’s therapeutic agents that will guide clinical studies. She also directs the company’s toxicology/pathology clinical assays and in vivo/ex vivo biology efforts. Previously, Dr. Jallal worked with Chiron Corporation where she served as vice president, drug assessment and development, and successfully established the company’s translational medicine group. Prior to Chiron, she worked at Sugen, Inc. where she held positions of increasing responsibility leading to senior director, research.

Dr. Moskowitz majored in Chemistry (summa cum laude) at Harvard College, Biochemistry (first class honours) at Merton College, Oxford, and received an MD (cum laude) from the Harvard-MIT Division in Health Sciences and Technology (Harvard Medical School). He trained for 7 years in Internal Medicine, Biochemistry, and Nephrology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis before spending 11 years on the faculty of St. Louis University School of Medicine. Since 1994, Dr. Moskowitz has experienced first hand the clinical effectiveness of knowing a disease-associated gene (the angiotensin converting enzyme, or ACE, gene). Dr. Moskowitz is a pioneer in the field of medical genomics, and has been recognized for his groundbreaking treatment of diseases associated with the angiotensin I-converting enzyme, such as chronic renal failure due to hypertension or type II diabetes.

Since Dr. Jamieson's discovery of candidate cancer stem cells involved in progression of chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML) to acute leukemia, and the molecular events involved in enhancing CML cancer stem cell proliferation and self-renewal, she has devised robust methods to detect cancer stem cells in vivo, thereby permitting a comprehensive assessment of novel cancer stem cell diagnostics and therapeutics. She has applied molecular progenitor profiling, used for the discovery of cancer stem cells in advanced phase CML, to other myeloproliferative disorders and found that a specific mutation in the JAK2 signaling molecule occurs at the stem cell level in polycythemia vera and changes cell fate decisions in primitive hematopoietic cells.

Dr Gintant heads the Early Preclinical Studies Group. He is actively involved in various cardiac risk assessment / QT interval committees (including the ILSI/HESI Cardiovascular Risk Assessment Committee and Abbott QT Working Group) and has served on various NIH study sections and as advisor to the National Institutes for Drug Abuse regarding cardiac toxicity. Gary also reviews for numerous cardiovascular journals, and is a member of the Editorial Advisory Board for JPET. Research interests are centered on cardiac electrophysiology, ion channels, arrhythmias, and cardiovascular pharmacology, with numerous publications. He gained his M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia University (College of Physicians and Surgeons) and was a member of the Depts. of Cardiology and Pharmacology at Wayne State University School of Medicine prior to joining Abbott. Gary is a member of the Safety Pharmacology Society, Biophysical Society, a Fellow of the American Heart Association, and an Associate Research Fellow of the Volwiler Society.

Chris Beck has more than twenty years of human capital strategic planning, operations management, and project management experience. His pharmaceutical experience includes establishing Astra Merck’s first Project Management Office and human resource forecasting capability, building and implementing a Global Project Office for AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, and creating and implementing a resource and decision management methodology and organization for Merck and Co. Currently at Shire Pharmaceuticals he is responsible for the creation and management of the project and resource capacity planning capability. Outside of work Chris enjoys spending time with his wife, Maryann, and his four children. He is actively involved with coaching youth sports. Beck holds a BS in Information Systems Management from Drexel University and a MBA from Pennsylvania State University. Other education includes the successful completion General Electric’s Information Systems Management Program.