Dr. Cheryl L. Quinn

Independent Consultant

Former Director of Antibacterial Biology at Pfizer

Dr. Quinn has directed discovery research teams of over 40 scientists, leading collaborations and managing research and development projects to IND. She began her anti-infective discovery career at Cubist Pharmaceuticals where she was part of the team that took Cubist Pharmaceuticals to its IPO. Dr. Quinn then spent 10 years leading antifungal and antibacterial discovery groups at Upjohn/Pharmacia /Pfizer and was Director of Antibacterial Biology at Pfizer. She is an editor of Applied and Environmental Microbiology, and reviewer for Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy, PLoS, Eukaryotic Cell, Journal of Clinical Microbiology and Genetics. As a member of the NIH’s College of Scientific Reviewers, Dr. Quinn also serves on study sections reviewing SBIR and R01/R03/R21 grant applications in the infectious disease drug discovery areas. She has 3 issued patents, and 53 patent applications pending. Dr. Quinn received her B.S. magna cum laude with a double major in Biochemistry and Microbiology from the University of Minnesota and her PhD in biochemistry from the University of Illinois before pursuing postdoctoral research in molecular immunology at Oxford University.

Prof. Dr. Jordi Vila

Head of the Department of Clinical Microbiology

Hospital Clinic, School of Medicine, University of Barcelona

In addition to his role as Head of the Department of Clinical Microbiology at the principle tertiary care hospital in Barcelona, Dr. Vila is Full Professor of Microbiology at the School of Medicine of the University of Barcelona. He has authored or co-authored more than 250 publications and contributed more than 30 articles for textbooks on the clinical aspects of infectious disease. Dr. Vila is currently the program director of the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases and member of the Spanish Society of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases. He is in the editorial board of several journals. Prof. Vila has been awarded numerous honors including the August Pí i Sunyer Award, and the Bayer/SEIMC Award and the best Communication presented in Eurobiofilms 2011. Dr. Vila earned his Pharmacist degree, Masters and PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Barcelona and the specialty of Clinical Microbiology in the Hospital Clinic of Barcelona before pursuing post-doctoral studies at the Department of Microbiology, University of Virginia, School of Medicine. He has over the past decade been visiting Professor at Tufts University Center for Genetic Adaptation and Antimicrobial Resistance and the University of California, Berkeley Department of Cellular and Molecular Biology.

Dr. Magali Frugier

Director of Research at the ARN (Architecture and Reactivity of RNA) Dept.

Centre National de Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France

Dr. Frugier has devoted her distinguished career to the study of protein synthesis, with attention on aminoacylation reactions. She has also adapted the phage display technique to study protein/RNA interactions and for now, in addition to its interest into Plasmodium translation, she is currently involved in studying the regulation of aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases expression. Her group is part of the French research organisation: CNRS. It is integrated in the laboratory directed by E. Westhof (UPR 9002, Architecture et Réactivité des ARN, IBMC, CNRS, Strasbourg), well known for its expertise in studying RNA structure and function. Dr. Frugier earned her Ph.D. in Molecular Biology at the Louis Pasteur Institute and conducted her postdoctoral research on the E. coli tRNA^Ala microhelix at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Eugeni Roura

Senior Research Fellow and Lecturer, The University of Queensland, Australia

Dr. Roura’s professional career started at Laboratorios Dr. Esteve SA and Kemin Europe with managing responsibilities in technical services, and further developed at Lucta SA as global R+D manager. He has since been an invited speaker at more than 20 international technical and scientific events and authored more than 100 publications including peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and book reviews. Eugeni Roura earned his Veterinary degree at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), and his MSc and PhD in joint collaboration between the UAB and the University of California (Davis, USA). More recently, Dr. Roura completed his R+D managerial training at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (USA). His professional memberships include the Fellowship program at La Caixa and the Catalan National Agreement for Research and Innovation. Originally from Cassa de la Selva (Catalonia, Spain), Dr. Roura is currently a Senior Research Fellow and Senior Lecturer at The University of Queensland (Brisbane, Australia).

Prof. Dr. Paul Schimmel

Cofounder of Cubist, Alkermes, AND Repligen, and FOUNDER OF Alnylam

Professor of Molecular Biology and Chemistry at Scripps Research Institute

Having a longstanding interest in the applications of basic biomedical research to human health, Schimmel holds numerous patents and is a cofounder or founding director of several biotechnology companies, of which six (Alkermes, Inc., Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Sirtris Pharmaceuticals (sold to Glaxo in 2008), Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Repligen Corporation) became publicly traded, and three others were sold in private transactions. He was also a founding member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Illumina, Inc. Dr. Schimmel is author or co-author of more than 450 scientific papers and of a widely used three volume textbook on biophysical chemistry. He is the Ernest and Jean Hahn Professor at The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at The Scripps Research Institute and was formerly the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics in the Department of Biology at MIT. For his achievements and discoveries in scientific research in the biological sciences, Dr. Schimmel has been honored as an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Institute of Medicine. Additional honors, among others, related to research and educational achievements include the American Chemical Society’s Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry, the Stein and Moore Award (the highest honor of The Protein Society), the Biophysical Society’s Emily M. Gray Award (co-recipient) for significant contributions to education in biophysics, the Chinese Biopharmaceutical Society’s Brilliant Achievement Award, the Perlman Award (Lecture) of the American Chemical Society, and the Nucleic Acids Award (Lecture) of the Biochemical Society and Royal Society of Chemistry, UK. He has been active in many scientific and academic organizations and committees, including service as Chairman of the Division of Biological Chemistry of the American Chemical Society and as an editorial board member of ten different scientific journals.