Upcoming T3: Evolutionary Medicine

(all events)

New Opportunities at the Intersection of Evolution and Medicine

A gathering of scientists and entrepreneurs


Sponsored by Stanford University School of Medicine, Department of Neurology and Neurological Sciences
Co-presented by the Palo Alto Institute, the Evolution Institute and the Foundation for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health

 

May 8, 2012, 8:30 – 5:30
Talks 8:30 – 5:30
Cocktail reception to follow, 5:30 – 6:30

View the Agenda | View the Speaker Bios | View Reading List

Should medical professionals be as attuned to Darwin as they have been to Pasteur? Can aspirin and antidiarrheals block our evolved defense systems and sometimes delay recovery? Why do stress responses cause disease?

This one-day event aims to identify new opportunities in the field of evolutionary medicine by joining leaders in the field of evolutionary medicine with CEOs, venture capitalists, and social entrepreneurs. By keeping formal presentations short and allowing ample time for participants to explore common interests in a relaxed setting, we hope to foster the incubation of serious collaborations over the long term.

The first tenet of the Hippocratic Oath is to do no harm. And yet that's exactly how some of the best medicine works today—by inoculating people with a tiny dose of an actual virus, for example. Many revolutionary medical techniques are supported not by conventional medicine, but by the contrarian thinking that characterizes evolutionary medicine.

Since evolutionary theory provides a foundation for biology, which in turns underpins medicine, you might think that medicine already makes full use of evolutionary principles. Not so. Few physicians and medical researchers know the fundamentals of evolutionary biology, and even fewer have thought deeply about why natural selection has left the body so vulnerable to so many diseases.

Twenty years ago, the field of evolutionary medicine was born with a bold article titled “The Dawn of Darwinian Medicine” authored by Randolph Nesse, MD, and George C. Williams, an evolutionary biologist. But only now do we see the evolutionary perspective beginning to appear on the radar of the vast medical and health sciences communities. The opportunities for improving human health and welfare—including investment opportunities—are tremendous.

The time is ripe to connect physicians and scientists with entrepreneurs and investors. One agenda of this conference is to identify opportunities for projects that might be soon ready for further practical development. On the flip side, evolutionary theory may help to identify those ventures that are likely or unlikely to pan out. An equally important agenda is for scientists and physicians to have opportunities to learn strategies for developing new fields from those with first-hand experience.
 

This event is co-sponsored by The Evolution Institute, which formulates and implements public policy from an evolutionary perspective.

To learn more about the emerging field of evolutionary medicine, visit The Evolution and Medicine Review.

Agenda

 

8:00 - 8:30 Coffee and Registration

8:30 - 8:50 Welcome
Charles Cho, M.D.
Introductory Remarks by Joon Yun, M.D., and David Sloan Wilson

8:50 - 9:30 Keynote Address
Evolutionary Medicine: Envisioning the Opportunities
Randolph M. Nesse, M.D.

9:30 - 10:10 Session One: Infectious Disease
Evolution Proof Pharmaceuticals?
Andrew F. Read, Ph.D.

Panel discussion moderated by David Sloan Wilson
Panelists include James Holland Jones, Ph.D. and Nina Kjellson

Break

10:40 - 11:45 Session Two: Cancer
Why Evolution Holds the Key to Curing and Preventing Cancer
Carlo C Maley, Ph.D.

The Evolution and Ecology of Metastasis: Can we Control Cancer by Targeting Dispersal Evolution?
Athena Aktipis, Ph.D.

Panel discussion moderated by Randolph M. Nesse, M.D.
Panelists include Daniel S. Fisher, Ph.D., Casper de Clercq, Partner at Norwest Venture Partners

11:45 - 12:30 Session Three: Application of a Specific Theory
Inducing Adaptation
Introduced and moderated by Joon Yun, MD, Palo Alto Investors

Panelists include Ray Onders, M.D., Lorenzo DiCarlo, M.D., Richard A. Bond, Ph.D., Kari Nadeau, Ph.D.

Lunch

1:30 - 2:15 Session Four: Behavior
Improving Health by Changing Behavior: Evolution Science Shows How
Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D.

Panel discussion to follow moderated by David Sloan Wilson
Panelists include William H. Durham, Ph.D., and Camille Samuels

2:15 - 3:00 Session Five: Genetics and Mental Disorders
Where Darwin meets Freud: Psychiatric Conditions and Therapies at the Dawn of Evolutionary Genomics.
Bernie Crespi, Ph.D.

Panel discussion to follow moderated by Randolph M. Nesse, M.D.
Panelists include Charles Cho, M,D. 

Break

3:30 - 4:15 Session Six: Diet
What did Humans Evolve to Eat? Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Nutritional Health
William R. Leonard, Ph.D.

Panel discussion to follow moderated by David Sloan Wilson
Panelists include John Morton, M.D., and Scott Wolf, M.D.

4:15 - 5:00 Session Seven: Aging
Can we Have it All? What Evolutionary Biology Says about Medically Slowing Aging.
Steven Austad, Ph.D.

Panel discussion to follow moderated by Joon Yun, M.D.
Panelists include Jim Glasheen, Ph.D.

5:00 - 6:30 Wrap, Cocktails & Networking

Keynote Speaker

 

133

Randolph M. Nesse, M.D.
University of Michigan
 
Randolph M. Nesse is Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Psychology at the University of Michigan, where he directs the Evolution and Human Adaptation Program.  He collaborated with the George Williams to write several seminal works on Darwinian medicine, including Why We Get Sick: The New Science of Darwinian Medicine. His early research on the neuroendocrinology of anxiety has been transformed into a focus on how selection shapes mechanisms that regulate defenses such as pain, fever, anxiety and low mood.  He is devoted to encouraging doctors and researchers to apply evolutionary insights in diverse areas of medicine and to helping organize the growing Evolution and Medicine community via many initiatives including EvolutionAndMedicine.org and The Evolution & Medicine Review. Nesse is also President of the Foundation for Evolution, Medicine, and Public Health.
 

 

Related links:
evolutionandmedicine.org
evmedreview.com
www-personal.umich.edu/~nesse

 
Moderators

 

134

Joon Yun, M.D.

Palo Alto Investors, Palo Alto Institute

Joon Yun is a partner and the president of Palo Alto Investors. Dr. Yun joined Palo Alto Investors in 1998 and specializes in the healthcare sector. Dr. Yun brings clinical expertise as well as medical industry experience to Palo Alto Investors where he focuses primarily on the evaluation of pharmaceutical, medical device and biotechnology companies.

Dr. Yun was a physician at Stanford in the Department of Radiology where he served on the clinical faculty from 1995 to 2006. Dr. Yun received his bachelor of arts in biology from Harvard University and his doctor of medicine from Duke University School of Medicine.

Dr. Yun is one of the founders of Palo Alto Institute and authors many of its publications.

 

Related links:
pa-investors.com
paloaltoinstitute.org/publications
View Dr. Yun's talk at our first T3.

 

 

135

David Sloan Wilson

Evolution Institute, Binghamton University

David Sloan Wilson is President of the Evolution Institute and SUNY Distinguished Professor of Biology and Anthropology at Binghamton University in New York. He has made fundamental contributions to evolutionary theory and helped to expand the study of evolution beyond the biological sciences to include all human-related subjects. His most recent book is The Neighborhood Project: Using Evolution to Improve my City, One Block at a Time, which explains how the evolutionary paradigm can be used to improve the quality of everyday life.

 
 
Speakers & PANELISTS

 

136

Athena Aktipis, Ph.D.
Arizona State University, UCSF Center for Evolution and Cancer
 
Cooperation theory and evolutionary modeling can be applied to diverse phenomena, from human altruism to the behavior of cancer cells. My work in cooperation theory has demonstrated that simple rules can underlie the evolution and maintenance of cooperation (as exemplified by the Walk Away strategy). I apply my knowledge and background in cooperation theory and evolutionary modeling in several practical domains including resource management, institutional design, medical decision making and cancer biology. I also use evolutionary modeling to improve our understanding of the social and spatial dynamics underlying cancer progression.
 
 

137
Steven N. Austad, Ph.D.
University of Texas
 
Steven N. Austad is a multiple award-winning comparative biogerontologist, who conducts research on diverse animal species with the goal of understanding cellular and molecular mechanisms of exceptionally successful aging. He is a Professor in the Department of Cellular & Structural Biology and an Interim Director of the Barshop Institute for Longevity & Aging Studies at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He is also an Affiliate Professor in the Department of Pathology at the University of Washington Medical School. Dr. Austad’s activities in the aging research community are widespread. He is on the Editorical Board of eight major journals in the field, serves as Vice President and Deputy Scientific Director of the American Federation for Aging Research, and is on the Initial Review Group of the Ellison Medical Foundation's Grant Program in Aging Research.
 
His tradebook Why We Age is available in nine languages. He is co-editor (with E.J. Masoro) of the 5th, 6th, AND 7th Editions of the Handbook of the Biology of Aging. He has also helped design two major museum exhibitions on the biology of aging.
 
 
Richard A. Bond, Ph.D.
University of Houston
 
Richard A. Bond earned a Bachelor of Science and a Bachelor of Pharmacy degree at St. Thomas University, Miami, Florida, USA, and the University of Houston, Houston, Texas, respectively. He received his Ph.D. in pharmacology with Dr. David E. Clarke, and did his postdoctoral training with Paul M. Vanhoutte, M.D., Ph.D., at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. His early work provided functional evidence for a β-adrenoceptor that was eventually found to be the β3-adrenoceptor. Then in collaboration with Robert J. Lefkowitz and others, he undertook studies on the spontaneous activity of G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and compounds functioning as inverse agonists. Most recently, he became interested in the paradigm shift that has occurred with regard to the use of β-adrenoceptor agonists and antagonists/inverse agonists in the treatment of congestive heart failure. This led him to examine whether the unexpected reversal in heart failure upon administration of beta blockers is a one-off event, or indicative of a more general pattern that is applicable to other diseases, such as asthma. His results indicate that the findings in heart failure are likely applicable to asthma and possibly other diseases. Dr. Bond’s work has been published in top scientific journals such as Nature, Science, and PNAS, and his work has been featured in numerous editorials and commentaries written by other scientists. He is currently Professor of Pharmacology at the University of Houston in Texas.
 
 
 

154

Charles Cho, M.D.
Stanford University
 
Charles Cho, is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology at Stanford University School of Medicine and also works as an analyst at Palo Alto Investors, LLC.
 

Related links:
pa-investors.com
paloaltoinstitute.org/publications

 

 

161

Casper de Clercq
Partnet at Norwest Venture Partners
 
Casper de Clercq, is a 25 year veteran of the medical device and life sciences industry. He brings extensive operating experience to NVP having led marketing and commercialization efforts for cardiovascular device, specialty pharmaceutical and diagnostic companies. Based in NVP's Palo Alto office, Casper focuses on mid to late stage investments in medical devices, specialty pharmaceuticals and healthcare services. Therapeutic products that address a critical unmet medical need, that are “less” traumatic or have a defined path to regulatory approval are of particular interest. His current board seats include Basis and Simpirica Spine.
 
 
 

139
Bernie Crespi, Ph.D.
Simon Fraser University
 
Dr. Bernie Crespi attended Phillips Academy Andover (high school), the University of Chicago (undergraduate) and the University of Michigan (Ph.D.), followed by Post-Doctoral Fellowships at Oxford, the University of New South Wales, and Cornell University. He took up an Assistant Professor position at Simon Fraser University in 1992, where he is now a Full Professor. Bernie has been awarded the Theodosius Dobzhansky Prize and the E. O. Wilson Award, and he was recently inducted into the Royal Society of Canada.

Bernie's research focuses on the evolutionary genetics and epigenetics of major diseases, including autism, schizophrenia, cancer, and the metabolic syndrome. He has developed and tested new evolutionary-medical theory for understanding the causes of these conditions, especially with regard to mental disorders. These studies have direct implications for pharmacology and other forms of therapy. Bernie is especially interested in motivating and coordinating research and applications that address the central, emerging roles of evolutionary epigenetics in human health and well-being.
 
Related link:

sfu.ca/biology/faculty/crespi/publicationsr.html

 
 

158

Lorenzo DiCarlo, M.D.
Proteus Biomedical
 
Lorenzo DiCarlo is currently Vice President for Global Clinical Affairs focusing on the development of wireless medical, health and wellness products at Proteus Biomedical. Previously he was Director of Medical Sciences and New Technologies for device-based therapies at Guidant Corporation, and Senior Director of Clinical Development at Pfizer Global Research and Development where he was responsible for early and late-stage drug development. His earlier medical career has included clinical and academic experiences.
 
Larry graduated from Tufts University School of Medicine, completed his internal medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, and specialty training at the University of California, San Francisco. He served on the faculty of the University of Michigan School of Medicine and co-led a bioengineering program in the School of Electrical Engineering. He was also served as a consultant to several device and pharmaceutical companies, and has co-founded two successful startups. Larry holds several patents and is the author of more than 250 peer-reviewed articles and scientific abstracts.
 
 
 

153

William Durham, Ph.D.
Stanford University
 
Professor Bill Durham's research focuses on environmental anthropology, the "coevolution" of genetic and cultural change in human populations, and the challenges of sustainable development in the tropics, especially Galapagos, Peru, and Costa Rica. A MacArthur Prize recipient, Dr. Durham is Bing Professor in Human Biology, the Stanford Director of the Center for Responsible Travel (CREST), and Co-Director of the Osa-Golfito Sustainability Initiative in Costa Rica (INOGO). Author or editor of many books, including Coevolution: Genes, Culture, and Human Diversity (Stanford Press, 1991), Bill was also Editor of Annual Review of Anthropology for 16 years. 
 

 

150

Daniel S. Fisher, Ph.D.
Stanford University
 
Daniel Fisher has been at Stanford University since 2007 as Professor of Applied Physics and, by Courtesy, of Bioengineering and Biology, after holding positions at Harvard and Princeton Universities and at Bell Laboratories. His theoretical research on collective and dynamic phenomena spans condensed matter physics, geophysics, and, more recently, biology. His primary current focus is evolutionary dynamics in a spectrum of contexts. He also works on dynamical processes in cells and neural networks. He was elected a Fellow of the American Physical Society in 1986, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1999.
 
 
 
 
151
Jim Glasheen, Ph.D.
Technology Partners
 
Jim Glasheen has been with Technology Partners since 2002. Jim leads the firm's efforts in Consumer Medicine, investing in both medical device and bioharmaceutical companies.
 
He serves on the boards of ElCelyx, Essentialis, Incline Therapeutics, Medley Health, Revance Therapeutics, Transcend Medical, and TRIA Beauty while having led Technology Partner's investment in two companies that have since gone public; Iomai (IOMI) and Candence Pharmaceuticals (CADX). Jim is also an advisor to the Lester Center at the University of California, Berkeley and the National Science Foundation (NSF) in Washington, DC.
 
Previously, Jim was Mananging Director at CIT Venture Capital, leading the Group'd effort in Life Science investing. Also, Jim was a leader within McKinsey & Company's Pharmaceutical and Medical Products Practice. Jim earned a B.S. from Duke University and a M.A. and a Ph.D. from Harvard University in Biology. He was a Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD) fellow at Universitaet des Saarlandes, Germany and a post-doctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley. Jim has published several research papers and had his research highlighted in major media outlets, including: Nature, The New York Times, Scientific American, and CNN.
 

Related link:
technologypartners.com

 

140
Steven C. Hayes, Ph.D.
University of Nevada
 
Steven C. Hayes is Nevada Foundation Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Nevada. An author of 34 books and over 480 scientific articles, he has shown in his research how language and thought can lead to behavioral rigidity and has developed "Acceptance and Commitment Therapy," an acceptance, mindfulness, and values based psychological intervention that fosters great psychological flexibility and greater selection of action by valued ends. His popular book Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life (New Harbinger, 2005) was featured in Time Magazine among several other major media outlets and for a time was the number one best selling self-help book in the United States. Dr. Hayes has been President of several scientific societies and has received several national awards, such as the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapy.
 

Related link:
stevenchayes.com

 
 
 

147

James Holland Jones, Ph.D.
Woods Institute for the Environment
 
An Associate Professor of Anthropology and a Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment, James Holland Jones is a biological anthropologist with interests in biodemography, life history theory, and the human ecology of infectious disease. Biological anthropology is the study of the origins and maintenance of human diversity and the axis of diversity that defines his research interest is the stunning variation across populations and through time in the fundamental quantities of demography: age-specific mortality and fertility rates. Two major sources of variation in human mortality are the differential impact of (1) infectious disease and (2) violence across populations and through time. Theory, in turn, predicts that fertility should respond to the variation in mortality. As a consequence, he sees studying both infectious disease and violence as necessary predicates for understanding the diversity of the human demographic experience. His work is broadly comparative and he uses studies of nonhuman primate life histories and infectious disease to provide a broad perspective on these phenomena in humans.
 
He has a Ph.D. in biological anthropology from Harvard and did a post-doctoral fellowship at the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences, the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology, and the Center for AIDS and STDs at the University of Washington.
 

Related link:
woods.stanford.edu/

 
 
152
Nina Kjellson
Interwest
 
Nina Kjellson has been part of InterWest's life sciences team since 2002, focusing primarily on investments in biopharmaceuticals. She is a board member of Alvine Pharmaceuticals, Cebix, CNS Therapeutics, Eiger Biopharmaceuticals, Lycera, PrimeraDx and Truis Therapeutics (TSRX). Kjellson led InterWest's investment in APT Pharmaceuticals where she is anobserver on the board and co-sponsored InterWest's observe. She also leads InterWest's initiative in healthcare IT and is a director of the Consumer Medicine Summit.
 
Prior to joining InterWest, Kjellson was an investment manager at Bay City Capital, a life sciences merchant bank, and a reasearch associate her career conducting health policy and survey research with the Kaiser Family Foundation.
 
Kjellson received a B.A. in human biology from Stanford University. She also serves on the Advisory Board of the Consumer Med Summit.
 

Related link:
interwest.com

 

142
William R. Leonard, Ph.D.
Northwestern University
 
William R. Leonard is the Abraham Harris Professor and Chair of Anthropology, and the Director of the Global Health Studies Program at Northwestern University. Dr. Leonard received his bachelor’s degree in Biology from the Pennsylvania State University, and his Master’s and Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from the University of Michigan. He has done extensive research on aspects of nutrition, energy expenditure, and child growth among contemporary and prehistoric human populations. He has conducted research among indigenous agricultural populations of highland and lowland regions of South America (Bolivia, Ecuador, and Peru), and among traditional herding populations of Siberia. His research among modern, subsistence- level groups has focused on how these populations adapt to their nutritional environments, and how the transition to a “modern” (Western) diet and lifestyle influences their health (particularly obesity and chronic disease risks). In addition, he has also drawn on information from human and primate ecology to develop models for examining the evolution of nutritional requirements in our hominid ancestors. These models have provided important insights into the origins of obesity and metabolic diseases among modern human societies.

Dr. Leonard has published widely in the leading journals of biological anthropology, human biology and nutritional science. His work has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research and the National Geographic Society.
 

143
Carlo C. Maley, Ph.D.
U.C. San Francisco
 
Carlo C. Maley is an Associate Professor in the Department of Surgery, a member of the Thoracic Oncology Program and a Principal Investigator in the Thoracic Oncology Lab and Maley Lab. The UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center has also tapped Dr. Maley to lead a new Center for Evolution and Cancer.


Dr. Maley received his B.A. in computer science and psychology from Oberlin College in 1991 and his M.Sc. in Zoology (evolutionary theory) from University of Oxford in 1993 where he worked with William D. Hamilton. In 1998, Dr. Maley received a Ph.D. in Computer Science from MIT where he worked with Michael Donoghue and Rodney Brooks.

Prior to joining UCSF, Dr. Maley was an assistant professor at the Wistar Institute, and a member of two other graduate programs at the University of Pennsylvania: Genomics and Computational Biology, and Cellular and Molecular Biology.

Dr. Maley is interested in the evolution of cancer, both at the level of cells evolving in neoplasms and at the level of the effects of cancer as a selective pressure on multicellular organisms. The Maley laboratory is exploring fundamental concepts in neoplastic progression, the process by which normal tissue be comes cancerous, and the evolution of therapeutic resistance, for purposes of developing better methods for cancer prevention and therapy.



Related link:
cancer.ucsf.edu/evolution

 

148

John Morton, M.D.
Stanford University

Dr. John Morton is Associate Professor of Surgery at Stanford University serving as Section Chief of Minimally Invasive Surgery and Director of both Bariatric Surgery and Surgical Quality. He also heads the Minimally Invasive Surgery fellowship and the Stanford Center for Outcomes Research and Evaluation (SCORE) and is Co-Director of the Stanford Digestive Health Center.

Dr. Morton received undergraduate, Masters in Public Health, and Medical Doctor Degree from Tulane University and a Masters in Health Administration from University of Washington. He was the first surgical resident to receive a Robert Wood Johnson Clinical Scholar Fellowship in the program's history at University of Washington and completed an advanced laparoscopic fellowship at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He served on Capitol Hill as Senator Bill Frist's Health Policy Intern.

 

157

Kari Nadeau, Ph.D.
Stanford University

Dr. Kari Nadeau is an associate professor of pediatrics (immunology and allergy) and otolaryngology (head and neck surgery) and faculty member of the Institute of Infectious Disease, Transplantation and Immunology. She is a fellow of the American Academy of Asthma, Allergy, and Immunology and was the recipient of the EPA STAR grant, Clinical Immunological Society Faculty Award, the American Lung Association National Faculty Award, and the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology National Faculty Award.

Dr. Nadeau received her undergraduate degree at Haverford College and her M.D. at Harvard Medical School with a Ph.D. in Biochemistry. After completing her internship and residency at Children's Hospital of Boston, she worked as associate director of medical research at Biogen, research director at Coutler Pharmaceuticals, and chief medical and scientific officer of Clearview Pharmaceuticals. She enabled the successful FDA approval of two drugs for autoimmune disease and cancer and she has directed over 35 clinical translational studies as Principal Investigator. Dr. Nadeau then conducted a fellowship in allergy, asthma, and immunology at Stanford University, joining the faculty in 2006.

 

149

Raymond P. Onders, M.D.
Synapse Biomedical
 

Dr. Raymond P. Onders graduated from NEOUCOM in 1988, and completed a general surgical residency at Case Western Reserve University in 1993. In addition to medical school and a surgical residency, he also served in the United States Air Force during that time and was promoted to the rank of major in 1994.

Dr. Onders became the first director of minimally invasive surgery at University Hospitals Case Medical Center and associate professor of surgery at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. A born overachiever, he has a keen curiousity for research and finding ways to make things happen that can impact the lives of others. Over the past 12 years, he has focused his research on ways to help people breathe naturally using their own diaphragm.

Dr. Onders has over 100 papers, books, chapters and published abstracts on this and other research. His advancements in the technology of pacing a diaphragm have lead to numerous patents. He is also co-founder of Synapse Biomedical, which is helping to bring his technology to patients all over the globe.

 

Related link:
synapsebiomedical.com


144
Andrew F. Read, Ph.D.
Pennsylvania State University
 
Andrew F. Read is Alumni Professor in the Biological Sciences and Professor of Entomology at Pennsylvania State University and director of PSU’s Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics. His research focuses on the ecology and evolution of infectious disease research, particularly evolution driven by drugs, vaccines and insecticides that undermines human and animal well being.

Best known for his controversial views on malaria evolution, Read argues that the logic of natural selection has profound implications for public health that have yet to be realized. He is a passionate advocate for evolution-proof medicine. This involves the development of medical practices and products that will not be rapidly undermined by pathogen evolution. Just as important, it means identifying evolutionary mismanagement where short-term thinking creates so-called superbugs.

Read has been awarded Fellowships from the Royal Society of Edinburgh, and the Institute of Advanced Studies, Berlin. His book The Selfish Germ: The Future of Infectious Disease in a Pharmaceutical Age is due to published by Princeton University Press in 2013.
 
 
 

160

Camille Samuels
Versant Ventures
 
Camille Samuels specializes in early-stage biotechnology investing with a focus on specialty therapeutics and orphan disease. She also spearheads Versant's Consumer Medicine investments. She brings 16 years of venture capital and operating experience to her portfolio companies.
 
Cami joined Versant shortly after its formation in early 2000. Prior to Versant, she was responsible for business development at Tularik, Inc. (acquired by Amgen) where she in-licensed two of the company's clinical-stage products and led Tularik's Technology Acquisition Group. Before Tularik, Cami worked in corporate development at Genzyme and Millennium Predictive Medicine, and was a managment consultant to healthcare and biotech companies at LEK Consulting.
Cami earned her Bachelor's degree in Biology from Duke University and an MBA from Harvard Business School, where she graduated as a Baker Scholar. In 2002, the Aspen Institute name Camille a Henry Crown Fellow.
 

Related link:
versantventures.com

 
 

159

Scott Wolf, M.D.
Aerin Medical
 
Scott Wolf is currently founder and CEO of Aerin Medical, which is developing a novel, non-surgical procedure to dramatically improve nasal breathing in patients with daytime and sleep breathing problems.
 
Scott is a serial device entrepreneur. Among his companies are Zeltig, which markets the first effective non-invasive method of bodysculpting and cellulite therapy. Zeltig completed its IPO in 2010. Scott also founded Primaeva, aquired by Syneron Medical (ELOS), which developed and is marketing advice for office based aesthetic procedures.
Scott was also a founder of companies Cardiac Dimensions and Endogastric Solutions.
Scotts companies are funded by the leading life sciences corporations and venture capital firms including Venrock, ATV, Interwest, Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation, Medtronic, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and Frazier Healthcare Ventures. These companies have rasied in excess of $400M.
Scott received his M.D. from George Washington University and his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania.
 
 
READING LIST
 

Details

May 8, 2012 - 8:30am - 5:30pm

Stanford University Medical School's Li Ka Shing Center for Knowledge and Learning

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