Gokul Swaminathan
Gokul Swaminathan received his Ph.D. degree in microbiology & immunology from Drexel University. At Drexel, he uncovered the interplay between innate immune receptors, non-coding RNAs, HIV-1 infection. For his post-doctoral work, Dr. Swaminathan joined Merck Research Laboratories and trained at the vaccines division at Merck & Co. Inc, West Point, PA. After 2 years of post-doc work, he accepted a senior scientist position within the same group at Merck, West Point. While at Merck WP, Gokul was focused on uncovering the mode-of-action of novel lipid nanoparticle (LNP) based vaccine formulations in the context of viral infections and immuno-oncology. In 2016, Gokul transitioned into a new role at the new Merck Exploratory Science Center (ESC) in Cambridge, MA, where he is currently a principal scientist in the investigational biology group. At the Cambridge ESC, he leads innovative clinical & pre-clinical programs aimed at understanding the influence of the microbiome on the host immune system.
Erick Pierstaff
Erick Pierstaff joined the NSF as Program Director in November 2019. Prior to NSF, he was Chief of Operations and led Research and Development at O-Ray Pharma, where he focused on integrating biology and biomedical engineering for the goal of drug development and sustained drug delivery for the treatment of hearing loss and other ear disorders. During his time working at early stage companies, he helped secure both Angel investment and non-dilutive funding in the form of licensing and co-development deals. Additionally, he served as Principal Investigator on several Phase I, II and IIB SBIR grants from the National Institutes of Health and NSF. His research interests have focused on the intersection of the biotic and abiotic, spanning molecular and cell biology, materials science, gene therapy, nanomaterials and drug delivery. Erik has a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.S. in Biology from Emory University.
Colleen Cutliffe
Susan Nicholson
Scott Jackson
Sara Naseri
Dirk Gevers
Dirk Gevers, Ph.D., is Global Head of the Microbiome Solutions team. As a team, we combine our pioneering expertise in the microbiome with the drug discovery, product development, and commercialization know-how of a leading global healthcare company. Together with our colleagues across Janssen and Johnson & Johnson, we have the knowledge and resources to identify the most promising innovations taking place across the microbiome ecosystem and help our partners translate early-stage innovations into product concepts and, ultimately, new solutions with the power to impact human health. Dirk joined from his previous role as Senior Group Leader of Microbial Systems and Communities at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. In this position, Dirk served as a scientific liaison between different organizational components, including the Broad Institute’s data generation platforms and both clinical and analytical collaborators on a number of microbiome-related projects. Dirk’s research efforts at the Broad Institute included the characterization of the microbial imbalance associated with diseases such as Crohn’s disease, type 1 diabetes and colorectal cancer. He was also involved with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Human Microbiome Project (HMP), holding a leading role in the Data Analysis Working Group, consisting of over 50 investigators focused on human microbiome research. Dirk received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Ghent University (UGent), Belgium, and completed postdoctoral training at UGent and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in bioinformatics, comparative and evolutionary genome analysis and microbial ecolog
Ru-fong Joanne Cheng
Christopher Missling
Christopher U Missling, PhD is President and CEO of Anavex Life Sciences, has over 20 years of healthcare industry experience within large pharmaceutical and biotech industry. Prior to joining Anavex, he served as Officer at Curis and ImmunoGen and previously at Aventis (now Sanofi). Christopher’s work is dedicated to finding potential cures for rare neurodevelopmental diseases, like Rett syndrome, autism spectrum disorder as well as degenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease by utilizing precision medicine. Dr. Missling is working with his team to advance new potential treatments through clinical trials involving the respective patient’s advocacy groups. Dr. Missling has an MS and PhD from the University of Munich in Chemistry and an MBA from Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management and WHU.
