Rob Burgess, PhD
Chief Business Officer, Sino Biological

Dr. Rob Burgess is currently Chief Business Officer at Sino Biological, Inc. and has over 25 years of scientific and business development experience. His previous positions include Vice President, Global Business Development at RayBiotech; Vice President, Business Development for the U.K.-based firm Stem Cell Sciences; Vice President, Research and Development at the nanotechnology company Zyvex Corporation; Director of Scientific Sourcing and New Technologies for the bio-reagent and services company Serologicals Corporation; and Senior Director, Functional Genomics and Corporate Business Development for the Serologicals subsidiary Chemicon International. In addition, he has published in major scientific journals including Nature and Science on a variety of research in genetic engineering, developmental biology, and the molecular control of cellular identity. He has received numerous awards including appointment to the Governor’s Blue-Ribbon Steering Committee for the Southern California Life Sciences Summit and Visiting Scholar at Georgia Tech University. He has also authored two college textbooks: "Understanding Nanomedicine: An Introductory Textbook" available from Pan Stanford Publishing and “Stem Cells: A Short Course” available from Wiley-Blackwell. Dr. Burgess holds a BA in biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin and a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Texas, MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. 

Michael P. Busch, MD, PhD
Director, Vitalant Research Institute; Senior Vice President for Research and Scientific Programs, Vitalant; Professor of Laboratory Medicine, University of California, San Francisco

Dr. Michael Busch earned his MD and PhD degrees at the University of Southern California followed by residency training in Pathology, Laboratory Medicine and Transfusion Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He is currently Director of Vitalant Research Institute (BSRI) and Senior Vice President for Research and Scientific Affairs at Vitalant, a national network of blood centers and donor testing laboratories. He is also a Professor of Laboratory Medicine at UCSF. Dr. Busch’s major research interests include:  1) The epidemiology, pathogenesis, and laboratory evaluation of transfusion-associated viral infections, including HIV-1/2, HTLV-I/II, HBV, and HCV, as well as blood safety implications of new and emerging transfusion-transmissible infectious diseases (e.g., Zika virus, West Nile virus, Dengue virus, Chikungunya virus, T. cruzi, Babesia, etc.);  2)  Development and implementation of new or improved laboratory assays and blood donor screening protocols, clinical evaluation and management, and possible prevention by pathogen inactivation of blood-borne infections, with particular focus on new techniques for mass screening of blood donations using nucleic acid amplification technology (NAT) to reduce the infectious window period and detect new and emerging infectious diseases; 3) Mechanisms and prevention of immunological consequences of transfusions, including transfusion-induced immune modulation, viral reactivation, microchimerism, graft-vs-host disease, transfusion-related acute lung injury and alloimmunization; and 4) Mechanisms of HIV persistence and development, validation and application of novel assays to quantify HIV reservoirs in HIV-suppressed subjects in the context of cure research interventions. Dr. Busch has published ~500 peer-reviewed original scientific articles and over 150 review articles, editorials, and book chapters.

Laurence M. Corash, MD
Co-Founder & CSO, Cerus

Laurence Corash, MD is Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Cerus Corporation, which he founded in 1992. He is Professor of Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, where he served for 15 years as Chief of the Clinical Laboratory Hematology Service. He has published 192 original research papers in peer reviewed journals in the field of hematology and transfusion medicine. Dr. Corash graduated from New York University School of Medicine and completed Internal Medicine training at Bellevue Hospital, New York, NY. He was a Research Associate at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), Bethesda, MD (1971-73) and completed training in Hematology and Hematology-Pathology at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Clinical Center. From 1977 to 1981 he served as Assistant Chief, Hematology Service at the NIH Clinical Center. He is Board Certified in Medicine, Hematology, and Hematology-Pathology. Dr. Corash has collaborated with scientists in academic institutions and government agencies throughout the US and abroad, as well as colleagues at Cerus on research in blood cell aging and technology for inactivation of infectious pathogens in blood components, and has directed the development of technology for the inactivation of pathogens in labile blood components. Currently, he is the Principal Investigator of a contract from the US Department of Health and Human Services to complete development of the INTERCEPT Blood System for Red Blood Cells. He also leads the Convalescent Plasma for Emerging Pathogens Consortium to develop convalescent plasma for the COVID-19 pandemic. The INTERCEPT pathogen inactivation system for preparation of platelets and plasma he developed is in use by more than 200 blood centers around the world.

Philip Felgner, PhD
Director, Protein Microarray Laboratory, Infectious Diseases, School of Medicine, University of California, Irvine

Dr. Felgner is Director of the UCI Vaccine Research and Development Center and the Protein Microarray Laboratory and Training Facility. The goal of his current research is to identify the right antigens to use for vaccines. The Laboratory developed a high throughput approach to clone and express all proteins encoded in a microorganism’s genomic DNA and print them onto protein microarrays. The Lab has cloned 70,000 genes derived from 35 infectious microorganisms, expressed and printed the encoded proteins on microarrays and probed with an inventory of more than 25,000 sera from infected, vaccinated, and healthy people worldwide to identify serodiagnostic and vaccine antigens. Dr. Felgner joined the faculty at UC Irvine in 2002 after two decades of experience in the biotechnology industry, including founding Vical, Inc. in San Diego based on his discovery of DNA vaccines and serving as Chief Scientific Officer to help build the company into a publicly traded entity. He discovered and developed ‘Lipofection’ DNA transfection technology in 1985, the most widely used approach for introducing nucleic acid into cultured cells. His work has led to 200 published papers and 45 patents that have been cited by other scientists more than 33,000 times, and founding of a UCI startup company Antigen Discovery, Inc.