MODERATOR
Lester Kobzik, MD
Chief Medical Officer of Cellecta, Inc.
Lester Kobzik is a professor emeritus of Pathology at the Harvard Medical School and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. His research interests center on lung disease and how the lung defends itself against inhaled toxic and infectious challenges. His work has characterized scavenger receptors on lung macrophages and how they function to remove potentially harmful if inhaled particulates and bacteria. He is also actively engaged in studies of infectious agents, including use of functional genomic screening to identify novel pathways and therapeutic leads. He has authored over 300 research publications in the area of lung pathobiology and has served on numerous grant and scientific review panels for the NIH, EPA and other research organizations.
Dr. Kobzik received his undergraduate degree and medical degree from Tufts University. He completed residency training in anatomic pathology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, then joined the faculty there and at the Harvard Medical and Public Health Schools. Dr. Kobzik currently serves as Chief Scientific Advisor for BioAegis Therapeutics.
Mark J. DiNubile, MD, FIDSA
Chief Medical Officer
BioAegis Therapeutics
Mark J. DiNubile, MD, FIDSA is a board-certified physician in Internal Medicine and the subspecialty of Infectious Diseases and Fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of America (FIDSA). Prior to joining BioAegis in 2017, Dr. DiNubile spent 16 years at Merck & Co., Inc. where he was primarily focused on the therapeutic areas of Infectious Diseases and Vaccines. He has extensively published on a diverse spectrum of medical and scientific topics.
Dr. DiNubile graduated from the University of Pennsylvania summa cum laude and Yale School of Medicine, followed by internship and residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. As a fellow at Harvard Medical School, he completed his clinical infectious diseases requirements at Brigham & Women’s Hospital followed by hematology research focusing on neutrophil motility and phagocytosis at the Massachusetts General Hospital. For more than a decade, prior to joining industry at Merck, Mark cared for patients in the ambulatory and hospital setting; taught medical students, house officers and fellows; chaired the hospital Pharmacy and Therapeutics Committee; initiated an antibiotic-stewardship program; and pursued clinical investigation and basic research, largely related to host defense and immunosuppression.
David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc
President of the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network
Founding Director of the Center for Cytokine Storm Treatment and Laboratory
David Fajgenbaum, MD, MBA, MSc, is a physician-scientist at the University of Pennsylvania, co-Founder & President of the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network, founding director of the Center for Cytokine Storm Treatment and Laboratory. He is also the national bestselling author of ‘Chasing My Cure: A Doctor’s Race to Turn Hope Into Action‘. Dr. Fajgenbaum is also a patient battling a deadly disease which he discovered a treatment for that is saving his life and others. Through his work at Penn, he has also identified and advanced 11 other treatments for autoimmunity and cancer. He recently co-founded Every Cure, a non-profit on a mission to unlock the full potential of FDA-approved medicines to treat every disease possible. He has been profiled by The NY Times, TODAY, GMA, and others and received numerous awards including the 2016 Atlas Award along with then VP Joe Biden and Forbes 30 Under 30. Dr. Fajgenbaum earned a BS from Georgetown University, MSc from the University of Oxford, MD from the University of Pennsylvania, and MBA from The Wharton School.