Edwin W. Rubel, PhD
Edwin W. Rubel, PhD
University of Washington, Chaired Professor
Hearing Sciences
Dr. Rubel is Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery and Physiology and Biophysics at the University of Washington (UW). Until July 2017 he held the Virginia Merrill Bloedel Professor of Hearing Sciences endowed chair and was also a Professor in the Departments of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Physiology and Biophysics, and Adjunct Professor of Psychology. He received his PhD from Michigan State University where he studied Physiological Psychology and Zoology. Prior faculty appointments were at Yale University and the University of Virginia. Dr. Rubel has won many awards and honors in the field of Hearing Science, including the Jacob Javitz award from the NIH, Presidency of the Association for Research in Otolaryngology (ARO) and Award of Merit from the ARO. He was the founder and Founding Director of the Virginia Merrill Bloedel Hearing Research Center at the UW. For the past 45 years, Dr. Rubel’s laboratory has studied a broad range of topics related to the development, injury and repair of the inner ear, auditory pathways in the brain and sound perception. His laboratory discovered inner ear hair cell regeneration in birds. More than 10 years ago, he joined forces with Drs. Raible and Simon in a collaboration aimed at the prevention of hearing loss resulting from environmental- and age-related injury to the inner ear. See publications.
David W. Raible, PhD
David W. Raible, PhD
University of Washington, Professor
Zebrafish Molecular Biology and Development
Dr. Raible is Professor in the Department of Biological Structure at the University of Washington School of Medicine, where he has held a position since 1995. He received his PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Pennsylvania and postdoctoral training at the University of Oregon. Dr. Raible is an expert in molecular genetics and a pioneer in the development of the zebrafish system as a model for human diseases. A decade-long collaboration with Drs. Rubel and Simon resulted in the identification of ORC-13661 as a potential therapeutic for aminoglycoside antibiotic-induced hearing loss. See publications.
Henry Ou, MD
Henry Ou, MD
University of Washington, Assoc Professor
Pediatric Otolaryngology
Dr. Ou is Associate Professor of Pediatric Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery at Seattle Children’s Hospital and the University of Washington. He did his residency training at the University of Washington followed by pediatric otolaryngology fellowship training at Seattle Children’s Hospital, where he is currently the medical director of the Hearing Loss Clinic. Dr. Ou has more than 15 years of experience in hearing research with a particular emphasis on the use of the zebrafish lateral line to study ototoxic injury from anti-cancer drugs. See publications.
Julian Simon, PhD
Julian Simon, PhD
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
Assoc Member;
University of Washington, Affiliate Professor, Medicinal Chemistry
Dr. Simon is Associate Member in Clinical Research and Human Biology Divisions at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Affiliate Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Washington. He received his PhD in Chemistry at Columbia University and postdoctoral training at Harvard University. Dr. Simon is an expert in medicinal chemistry, phenotypic drug screening and target validation. A long-standing collaboration with Drs. Rubel and Raible led to the identification and preclinical assessment of ORC-13661 for the prevention of aminoglycoside antibiotic-induced hearing loss. See publications.
Vince Groppi, PhD
Vince Groppi, PhD
ORICULA THERaPEUTICS CEO
Molecular Pharmacologist
Dr. Groppi is the Director, Center for Discovery of New Medicines and Director, Center for Chemical Genomics at the University of Michigan and a consultant for the NIH/NINDS Blueprint Therapeutic Network (BPN). Dr. Groppi teaches translational pharmacology at University of Michigan (U-M) and serves on U-M’s Protein Folding Disease Initiative. He received his PhD in Molecular Pharmacology at Rutgers Medical Schools and did his postdoctoral training at University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Groppi is an expert in pharmacology, neuroscience drug discovery and development, including effectively utilizing cell-based assays to drive SAR. Dr. Groppi was the vice president and chief scientific officer of Essen BioScience, an integrated bioscience company. Previously he held positions at Upjohn, Pharmacia and Pfizer leading discovery, development and strategy teams. See publications.
Graham Johnson, PhD
Graham Johnson, PhD
NuPharmAdvise, President
Medicinal Chemistry
During an extensive medicinal chemistry career, Dr. Johnson held a number of senior leadership positions in biotech and large pharmaceuticals. These roles included: Senior Vice President, Preclinical Development and Research for AVI BioPharma (now Sarepta Therapeutics), Chief Research Officer for Rib-X Pharmaceuticals (now Melinta), Vice President of Bristol-Myers Squibb Discovery Chemistry for Connecticut and Canada, and Director of Neuroscience Chemistry for Parke-Davis Pharmaceuticals. Dr. Johnson has worked in such diverse areas as neuroscience, infectious and genitourinary diseases, inflammation and RNA therapeutics, is an inventor on more than 59 patents and has co-authored 70 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Johnson is currently President of NuPharmAdvise LLC, a drug discovery consulting practice that serves the medicinal chemistry needs of biotechnology companies, the National Institutes of Health, Venture Capital and Intellectual Property firms. Since its inception, Dr. Johnson has been a medicinal chemistry consultant to the Blueprint Neurotherapeutics Network (BPN). One of the first BPN programs generated the IP on which Oricula was founded. Currently Oricula Therapeutics CSO, Dr. Johnson has directed the CMC activities including the selection and management of vendors involved in the identification and cGMP manufacturing of ORC-13661. See publications.
Marc Bailie, DMV, PhD
Marc Bailie, DMV, PhD
Chief Development Officer, INDS
Drug Safety and Toxicology
Dr. Bailie is the Director of the In Vivo Facility at Michigan State University and the Chief Development officer of Integrated Nonclinical Development Solutions (INDS), a drug discovery and development consulting company. Prior to his roles at MSU and INDS, Dr. Bailie spent eleven years at Parke-Davis/Pfizer, developing and directing the Safety Pharmacology Group within Drug Safety Research and Development. He has extensive experience in a broad array of models for the evaluation of pharmacologic and toxicologic activity of compounds. During his tenure in the pharmaceutical development arena he served on numerous Discovery and Development project teams, provided scientific direction for safety pharmacology both locally and on a global basis, and served as expert council for cardiovascular and general safety pharmacology, both within and outside of Pfizer. While at Pfizer, Dr. Bailie contributed significantly to the co-development and characterization of novel animal models to assess the impact of pharmaceutical agents on parameters of cardiac conduction and function.