Speaker Biographies

Daniel Chung, D.O., Clinical Ophthalmic Lead, Sparks Therapeutics

Dr. Chung is the Ophthalmic Lead for Clinical Development at Spark Therapeutics and the companies inherited retinal disease expert. Prior to joining Spark Therapeutics, he was a senior investigator at the FM Kirby Center for Molecular Ophthalmology at the Scheie Eye Institute at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania, working in retinal gene therapy and transfer. Concurrently, he served as the scientific advisor on the RPE65 gene therapy study team at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). Dr. Chung earned his medical degree from the New York Institute of Technology College of Osteopathic Medicine and completed his residency in Akron, Ohio. He then completed fellowships in pediatric ophthalmology and ocular genetics research at the Cole Eye Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, with additional training in retinal gene therapy at the National Eye Institute/NIH in Bethesda, MD. In his current duties, he continues to be connected to the RPE65 gene therapy trial, as Spark Therapeutics is now the sponsor. As the global clinical ophthalmic lead, he works in the areas of clinical development and operations, medical affairs, research and development and business development.

Gerald F. Cox, M.D., Ph.D., CMO, Editas Medicine

Dr. Gerry Cox is Chief Medical Officer at Editas Medicine in Cambridge, MA, a leading genome editing company that is developing CRISPR medicines for patients with serious or life-threating diseases that have high unmet medical need. Dr. Cox oversees clinical development, medical affairs, and regulatory affairs and provides input to the pipeline strategy. Previously, Dr. Cox was Vice President in Rare Diseases at Sanofi Genzyme, where over 16 years he led the clinical development programs for several lysosomal storage disorders that resulted in the approvals of Aldurazyme® for Mucopolysaccharidosis type I in 2003, Elaprase® for Mucopolysaccharidosis type II in 2007 in Japan, and Cerdelga® for Gaucher disease type 1 in 2014. Dr. Cox is a board-certified clinical geneticist and pediatrician who sees patients part-time at Boston Children’s Hospital, where he was previously on staff and completed his pediatrics and genetics training. He is an instructor in pediatrics at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Cox received a BA in biology from Harvard College in 1980 and an M.D., Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego in 1989. His clinical interests include inborn errors of metabolism and genetic causes of eye diseases and cardiomyopathy.

Anne Douar, Ph.D., Project Director, GenSight Biologics

Anne Douar has 20+ years overall experience in life sciences and drug development, including bench and translational sciences, CMC, preclinical and clinical studies in research institutions and biotechnology industry. Anne has received a Ph.D. in human genetics and has a Professorial Thesis (HDR) in biology, genetics and biotechnology. Anne’s current role is project Director at GenSight Biologics SA (2013 – Present). Her key roles and responsibilities include, drive the development of complex ATMPs to treat blindness in a pioneering approach combining optogenetics gene therapy and medical device, elaborate, implement, drive and control the execution of the roadmap integrating cross-functional plans throughout the research and development, insure optimal interactions with regulatory, translational and clinical research, compliance, QA, manufacturing, legal and business. Anne has expertise is Gene Therapy, Molecular Biology, Genetics, Orphan Drugs, Rare Diseases, Drug Discovery, R&D, Technology Transfer, Drug Development, Clinical Development, intellectual property, project Portfolio Management and Innovation Management.

Jay S. Duker, M.D., Director, New England Eye Center; Professor and Chairman, Department of Ophthalmology, Tufts Medical Center, Tufts University School of Medicine; Founder, Hemera Biosciences

Jay S. Duker, M.D., is the Director of the New England Eye Center (NEEC) and Professor and Chairman of the Department of Ophthalmology at Tufts Medical Center and the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, MA. Dr. Duker received his medical degree magna cum laude from Jefferson Medical College. He completed his residency and fellowship in vitreo-retinal diseases at the Wills Eye Hospital. His clinical practice is limited to medical and surgical diseases of the posterior segment with particular emphasis on macular diseases, posterior uveitis, and intraocular tumors. He has published over 240 journal articles, with his major research interests including retinal imaging, retinal vascular diseases, and drug delivery to the posterior segment. He is a founder of Hemera Biosciences, which is developing gene therapy for dry AMD.

Scott Ellis, Ph.D., Head, Early Development, Oxford BioMedica

Dr. Scott Ellis is Head of Early Development at Oxford BioMedica plc. He obtained his Ph.D. in Genetics from University College London and in 1999 he started his first postdoctoral position at the Brunel Institute for Cancer Genetics and Pharmacogenomics at Brunel University (London) working on the identification of tumor suppressor genes. In 2002 he moved to the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics in Oxford to work on the genetics of heart disease. He joined Oxford BioMedica in 2006 and where he has been involved in the research and development of lentiviral-based gene and cell therapies. During this time he has helped to progress preclinical programs into the clinic for conditions that include wet age-related macular degeneration, Stargardt disease and Usher syndrome. This work has been extensively published in leading peer-reviewed journals.

Edward Feener, Ph.D., Co-Founder and CSO, KalVista Pharmaceuticals

Dr. Feener is the Chief Scientific Officer and a scientific co-founder of KalVista Pharmaceutical Inc., Cambridge, MA; a clinical stage pharmaceutical company that is developing plasma kallikrein inhibitors for the treatment of diabetic macular edema, hereditary angioedema, and other kallikrein-associated disorders. Prior to joining KalVista, Dr. Feener was an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a Senior Investigator in Vascular Cell Biology at the Joslin Diabetes Center, Boston, MA. He has nearly 30 years of research experience and over 80 publications in vascular biology and diabetic vascular complications. He received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Boston University and completed postdoctoral training at the Joslin Diabetes Center and Harvard Medical School. His main research interests include diabetic retinopathy and the role of the kallikrein kinin system in vascular physiology and disease.

Mehdi Gasmi, Ph.D., CTO & CSO, Adverum Biotechnologies

Dr. Gasmi is Adverum’s chief technology officer and chief scientific officer. He joined the company in 2013 and oversees process development, manufacturing and quality control efforts for the company’s gene therapy product candidates and he is also responsible for the development of Adverum’s novel vector technology platform. A gene therapy veteran, Dr. Gasmi has worked in the field since 1996 at various academic institutions (City of Hope, UCSD) as well as gene therapy companies (Chiron, Cell Genesys, Ceregene). Throughout his career he acquired expertise in the design, development and manufacturing of lentiviral and recombinant AAV vectors for clinical applications. Before Adverum, Dr. Gasmi held the position of vice president of biomanufacturing at Généthon. He obtained his MS and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Claude Bernard University in Lyon, France.

Sharon Klier, Vice President, Ophthalmology, Medical, Quark Pharmaceuticals

Dr. Sharon Klier is VP Ophthalmology at Quark Pharmaceuticals. In her role, Dr. Klier leads the Ophthalmology franchise at the company, overseeing global development programs from early clinical phase to registration studies, directly responsible for conceiving and implementing the clinical strategy of the development programs, as well as the design and execution of international clinical studies, oversight, interpretation and reporting of clinical trials data. Dr. Klier received her M.D. from the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, School of Medicine and her MPH in Public Health Policy and Management from UCLA where she also received her Bachelor of Science in Physiology.

Bo Liang, Ph.D., President, R&D, IVIEW Therapeutics, Inc.

Dr. Bo Liang is a serial entrepreneur with over 15 years’ experience in drug discovery research, material sciences, biotechnology and materials venture and management. He was a co-inventor of a combination drug of Povidone Iodine and Dexamethasone, for the treatment of viral conjunctivitis, and was acquired by Shire Pharmaceuticals for $300m in 2015. He obtained his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, MBA from NYU Stern School of Business and BS from Peking University in China.

Glenn Noronha, Ph.D., CSO, Clearside Biomedical, Inc.

Glenn Noronha has 20 years of experiences following post-secondary education and training. He has held progressive leadership positions in large and small biotech and pharma companies including two start-ups; his experiences span clinical and nonclinical development with expertise in both biologicals and small molecules. Currently he is CSO at Clearside Biomedical, Inc. Previously, he held leadership positions at Sucampo, Novartis/Alcon, and TargeGen.

Dario A. Paggiarino, M.D., Vice President, CMO, pSivida

Dr. Dario Paggiarino is Chief Medical Officer of pSivida Corporation, a leader in the development of sustained release drug delivery products. Prior to joining pSivida, Dario served as Senior Vice President and Chief Development Officer at Lpath, Inc., a biotechnology company specialized in bioactive lipids. He had previously served as Vice President and Therapeutic Unit Head for retina diseases at Alcon, a division of Novartis, and as Executive Director of Clinical Development and Medical Affairs at Pfizer Global R&D with focus on global clinical development in glaucoma, diabetic and degenerative retinal diseases. Dario earned his degree in Medicine and General Surgery at the University of Rome La Sapienza.

Amar Sawhney, Ph.D., Chairman, President and CEO, Ocular Therapeutix

Amarpreet Sawhney, Ph.D., has served as President, Chief Executive Officer and a member of our Board since co-founding the Company in 2006, and he was elected as Chairman of the Board in June 2014. Dr. Sawhney served as CEO of Augmenix, an affiliate of Ocular Therapeutix, from 2008 until April 2014. In addition, he is a general partner of Incept, LLC, an intellectual property holding company. Dr. Sawhney’s innovations are the subject of over 100 issued and pending patents. He holds MS and Ph.D. degrees in chemical engineering from the University of Texas at Austin, as well as a B.Tech. in chemical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi India.

Naj Sharif, Ph.D., FARVO, FBPhS, Executive Director; Head, Global Alliances & External Research, Santen, Inc.

Dr. Naj Sharif is a graduate of Southampton University, England (UK) where he received his BSc (Joint Honors: Biochemistry and Physiology) and his Ph.D. (Neuroscience). Dr. Sharif has been in the pharmaceutical industry for 30-years holding leadership positions of increasing scope and responsibility, spanning Discovery Research, Drug Development and Regulatory Affairs. He has worked at Parke-Davis/Warner-Lambert (Pfizer), Syntex Research (Roche), Synaptic Pharma Corp., Alcon-Novartis, and is currently at Santen Inc. Dr. Sharif’s 22-tenure at Alcon resulted in his contributions to the discovery/development and US FDA approvals of Travatan, Patanol, Simbrinza, Izba and Pazeo to treat glaucoma/ocular hypertension and ocular allergies. Dr. Sharif was recently elected as a Fellow of ARVO (FARVO), and was also honored as the first recipient of the inaugural Dr. Roger Vogel award for pharmaceutical research presented by the ARVO Foundation. He has been an organizer, chairman and invited speaker at numerous global symposia and workshops. Dr. Sharif serves on the editorial boards of numerous scientific journals, is an adjunct professor at several universities, and a thesis advisor for MS- and Ph.D.-level students. He has published >190 scientific articles and edited 2 Neuroscience books. Dr. Sharif is also a prolific inventor, having secured >22 issued US and EU patents on ocular cell-lines and small molecules to treat human diseases of the CNS and the eye.

Timothy Shiau, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, Chemistry, Verseon

Timothy Shiau is a senior scientist at Verseon Corporation, a computationally-driven drug discovery company. His previous experience includes NovaBay Pharmaceuticals developing topical, ophthalmic anti-infectives and Sunesis Pharmaceuticals studying PTP1B, a phosphatase linked to type II diabetes.

Ming Yang, Ph.D., Director, Research, Graybug Vision

Ming has over 15 years of experience in the field of biomaterials and drug delivery, including the development of novel long-lasting drug products for ophthalmic indications. He received his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University and joined Genentech, where he gained ocular drug delivery expertise. Ming also received an MS in Bioengineering from Pennsylvania State University and a BE in Materials Science and Engineering from Tsinghua University, China.