Dr. David F. Smith, Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Smith spent 9 years as the Director of the Protein-Glycan Interaction Resources of the Consortium for Functional Glycomics with Dr. Richard Cummings at Emory University School of Medicine and the previous 15 years in various positions in the biotechnology industry. His more than 45 years of experience in academic and industrial research has been primarily in the areas of protein-glycan interactions, methods development in glycomics, diagnostic assay development, and manufacturing of research reagents and diagnostic tests. He has worked closely with Dr. Song during development of methods for functional glycomics and is a co-author on pending patent applications with Dr. Song.
Dr. Xuezheng Song, Chief Scientific Officer
Currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry at Emory University and Director of the Emory Comprehensive Glycomics Core, Song is an outstanding chemist, who was classically trained in synthetic carbohydrate chemistry. He worked in the laboratory of Dr. Richard Cummings at Emory from 2006 until Cummings moved to Harvard in 2015. The NIH currently funds his research, and his work has been peer reviewed and published in high impact journals. He developed the oxidative process that is the basis of our decision to start a company.
Dr. Janice Kimpel, Chief Business Officer
Dr. Kimpel has extensive business experience from 20 years in biotech corporations’ business development offices, including 10 years as Vice President for Business Development at AlphaVax, the last four years of which including a dual role in the Office of the CEO. In these roles, she negotiated numerous corporate transactions, including several multi-million dollar deals (one over $100 million), as well as partnerships with universities and the U.S. Government. She is a registered patent agent (Reg. No. 42,734) with experience working for clients while resident at a law firm in Atlanta, as well as managing outside firms for small-business clients in her current consultancy practice.
Dr. Richard D. Cummings, Chief Strategic Advisor
Dr. Cummings is the Director of the National Center for Functional Glycomics and Professor in the Department of Surgery at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School in Boston. He is an internationally recognized expert in the field of Functional Glycomics and was a Founder of Selexys Pharmaceutical Company in Oklahoma City, OK, which developed SelG1, an anti-P-selectin antibody, based on his research on the structure, function, and glycan binding specificity of P-Selectin. Selysis was acquired by Novartis in 2016 following receipt of results of a Phase II trial evaluating the use of SelG1 in the reduction of vaso-occlusive pain crises in patients with sickle cell disease. Dr Cummings was Dr. Song’s postdoctoral mentor at Emory University School of Medicine, and he and Dr. Smith have been long-time colleagues and collaborators. We are honored to have him as our Chief Strategic Advisor.