CaPtivate Pharmaceuticals

Scientific Advisory Team

Timothy M. Block, PhD
President, Hepatitis B Foundation and its Institute for Hepatitis and Virus Research
President, Pennsylvania Biotechnology Center
Director, Drexel Institute for Biotechnology and Virology Research
Professor, Microbiology and Immunology Drexel University College of Medicine

Dr. Timothy Block is the Co-Founder and volunteer President of the Hepatitis B Foundation and its research affiliate the Institute for Hepatitis and Virus Research. He has been involved in viral hepatitis research for more than 25 years and is internationally recognized for his outstanding scholarship and scientific contributions. Dr. Block is a Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Drexel University College of Medicine, and Director of the Drexel Institute for Biotechnology and Virology Research. Dr. Block received his Ph.D. from SUNY - Buffalo: Roswell Park Memorial Institute, Buffalo, NY and completed his post-doctoral training at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. He later studied at the University of Oxford, Oxford, England as a Sabbatical Fellow. He received an honorary M.D. in 1999, when he was elected to the Bulgarian National Academy. At Oxford University, working with Dr. Baruch S. Blumberg (Nobel Laureate) and Prof. Raymond Dwek (Fellow, Royal Society), he discovered a plant sugar that has now received the trade name "glycovir", which is in preclinical studies. It may open the door to a new family of anti-hepatitis B agents and provide a valuable tool in the fight against hepatitis B. Dr. Block continues to study chronic viral diseases, including the management and early detection of hepatitis B/C and the molecular pathogenesis of herpesviruses infection.

William H. Velander, PhD
D.R. Voelte Jr. and N.A. Keegan Endowed Chair in Engineering, Professor, Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering, University of Nebraska-Lincoln

Dr. Bill Velander is the chairperson of the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln since 2003. Dr. Velander is the principal investigator of a $10 million NIH grant awarded to the University of Nebraska-Lincoln for research on recombinant hemophilia factors. He was also the principal investigator of a $5 million grant from the US Army for the production of a fibrinogen hemostatic bandage. Dr. Velander has been working on safer, more abundant sources of biotherapeutics since 1987 when contamination of blood plasma-derived medicines by HIV and Hepatitis B and C became a world-wide epidemic. To help reduce that risk, Velander worked jointly with the American Red Cross Holland Laboratory to pioneer genetically engineered versions of human anticoagulant Protein C, human anti-hemophiliac factors VIII and IX, and fibrinogen from the milk of transgenic livestock. Dr. Velander's group also helped in pioneering efforts to humanize pig tissue to provide stop-gap alternatives for organ transplants. Dr. Velander received his BS degree in Biochemistry and MS degree in Chemical Engineering. He received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania.

Banu Onaral, PhD
H. H. Sun Professor & Founding Director, Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA.

Dr. Onaral is the Founding Director of the Biomedical Engineering and Electrical Engineering, Drexel University. Dr. Onaral's has founded the Translational Research in Biomedical Technologies program at Drexel. Under her leadership, the program has been awarded $10 million from the Wallace H. Coulter Foundation toward the creation of the $20 million Coulter Translational Research Partnership Endowment. She has facilitated the translational research partnerships with the Institute for Drug Research of Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. She is currently facilitating similar partnerships with the Med-X Research Institute / School of Biomedical Engineering of Shanghai Jiao Tong University; Life Sciences and Technology Center, Bogaziçi University, Turkey; Human Neuropsychology and the Faculty of Physiology, University of Seville and the National Hospital for Paraplegics in Spain. She founded several laboratories throughout her career: the most recent are CONQUER and CollabOrative. She is currently leading the creation of the regional Health Innovation Partnership-South Eastern Pennsylvania. She received a BS and MS in electrical engineering from Bogaziçi University, Istanbul, Turkey, and PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

Fred Klaessig, PhD
Professor, Institute for Hepatitis and Virus Research Manager, Pennsylvania Bio Nano Systems

Dr. Klaessig is currently with Pennsylvania Bio Nano Systems, a small firm focusing on reference materials for investigating chromatographic effects at the nanoscale. He is also a faculty member of the Institute of Hepatitis and Virus Research. Dr. Klaessig received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In recent years, he was the Technical Director for Aerosil & Silanes and then the Business Director for the Aerosil Business Line, which are currently in the Inorganic Materials Business Unit of Evonik Degussa GmbH. Dr. Klaessig is an External Science Advisory Committee member for the University of California's Center for Environmental Implications of Nanotechnology (CEIN), and participates in International Alliance for nanoEHS and the nanoWG at NCI's caBIG®. His earlier industrial experiences were with Bio Rad Laboratories as a Quality Control Chemist for their chromatographic products and in various R&D management positions at Betz Laboratories, now a division of GE Water Services. Calcium phosphate (CaP) chemistry has been prominent at several points in his career: as the favored barrier layer in phosphate-based corrosion inhibitor packages at Betz Laboratories and a chromatographic substrate at Bio Rad.