Precision Health and Universal Vaccine Development
Professor Wong received his B.S. (1970) and M.S. (1977) degrees in biochemical sciences (with KT Wang) from National Taiwan University, and Ph.D. (1982) in Chemistry (with George M. Whitesides) from MIT. After one year of postdoctoral research at Harvard University (with Whitesides), he became a faculty member of the chemistry department at Texas A&M University (1983) and was promoted to full professor in 1987. He then moved to The Scripps Research Institute in 1989 as Professor and Ernest W. Hahn Chair in Chemistry, and from 2006 to 2016, he served as President of Academia Sinica in Taiwan. He is currently the Scripps Family Chair Professor of Chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute and holds a joint appointment as Distinguished Professor at Genomics Research Center, Academia Sinica.
Professor Wong received many honors for recognition of his accomplishments. Some representative honors include: Presidential Young Investigator Award in Chemistry, USA (1986), Roy Whistler Award of the International Carbohydrate Organization (1994), ACS Harrison Howe Award in Chemistry (1998), ACS Claude S. Hudson Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry (1999), International Enzyme Engineering Award (1999), Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award, USA (2000), ACS Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry (2005), ACS Arthur C. Cope Medal (2012), The Wolf Prize in Chemistry, Israel (2014), The Royal Society of Chemistry Robert Robinson Award, UK (2015), and The Robert A. Welch Award in Chemistry, USA (2021). He is an elected member of Academia Sinica (1994), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1996), the US National Academy of Sciences (2002), the European Molecular Organization (EMBO) (2010) and the US National Academy of Inventors, USA (2014).
In addition, he served as editorial advisor for several journals in chemistry and chemical biology, as scientific advisor for many organizations including the Max-Planck Institute (2000-2008), RIKEN (2010-16), as Chairman of the Executive Board of Editors of the Tetrahedron Publications (2006-2008), Head of the Frontier Research Program on Glycotechnology at RIKEN in Japan (1991-1999), Board Member of the US National Research Council on Chemical Sciences and Technology (2000-2003), as advisor of DCB (2004-), BTC (2005-), and OBI Pharma (2017), and as the Chief Science Advisor for Taiwan Government (2006-2015), and President of Institute for Biotechnology and Medicine Industry, Taiwan (IBMI) (2019-).
His research interests are in the field of chemical biology and synthetic chemistry, with current focus on the development of new methods and tools for the synthesis and study of complex carbohydrates and glycoproteins, elucidation of carbohydrate-mediated recognition in disease progression and immune response, and development of universal vaccines and homogeneous antibodies against cancer and viral pathogens such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2. He trained over 500 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, published over 750 papers and 120 patents, and is a highly cited scientist with an h-index of 153.
Professor Wong received many honors for recognition of his accomplishments. Some representative honors include: Presidential Young Investigator Award in Chemistry, USA (1986), Roy Whistler Award of the International Carbohydrate Organization (1994), ACS Harrison Howe Award in Chemistry (1998), ACS Claude S. Hudson Award in Carbohydrate Chemistry (1999), International Enzyme Engineering Award (1999), Presidential Green Chemistry Challenge Award, USA (2000), ACS Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry (2005), ACS Arthur C. Cope Medal (2012), The Wolf Prize in Chemistry, Israel (2014), The Royal Society of Chemistry Robert Robinson Award, UK (2015), and The Robert A. Welch Award in Chemistry, USA (2021). He is an elected member of Academia Sinica (1994), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1996), the US National Academy of Sciences (2002), the European Molecular Organization (EMBO) (2010) and the US National Academy of Inventors, USA (2014).
In addition, he served as editorial advisor for several journals in chemistry and chemical biology, as scientific advisor for many organizations including the Max-Planck Institute (2000-2008), RIKEN (2010-16), as Chairman of the Executive Board of Editors of the Tetrahedron Publications (2006-2008), Head of the Frontier Research Program on Glycotechnology at RIKEN in Japan (1991-1999), Board Member of the US National Research Council on Chemical Sciences and Technology (2000-2003), as advisor of DCB (2004-), BTC (2005-), and OBI Pharma (2017), and as the Chief Science Advisor for Taiwan Government (2006-2015), and President of Institute for Biotechnology and Medicine Industry, Taiwan (IBMI) (2019-).
His research interests are in the field of chemical biology and synthetic chemistry, with current focus on the development of new methods and tools for the synthesis and study of complex carbohydrates and glycoproteins, elucidation of carbohydrate-mediated recognition in disease progression and immune response, and development of universal vaccines and homogeneous antibodies against cancer and viral pathogens such as influenza and SARS-CoV-2. He trained over 500 graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, published over 750 papers and 120 patents, and is a highly cited scientist with an h-index of 153.
Bioinformatics, AI and Healthcare
Dr. Han-Yu Chuang is currently Vice President of Technology at Guardant Health, Inc. Her technology development team is committed to deliver differentiated high-impact diagnostics technology in full product life cycle from conception to care, continually improving cancer patients’ outcomes. The team consists of talented scientists and engineers for assay development, process automation, bioinformatics and software development, working together to create novel liquid biopsy tests for minimal residual disease monitoring and therapy selection. She has over 12 years of industrial experience in NGS product development and has led various teams in developing IVD molecular diagnostics and CLIA services for over 9 years.
Han-Yu got her PhD degree in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology from University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Computer Science and Information Technology from National Taiwan University. She has published more than 20 peer-reviewed journal papers in the field of cancer biomarker selection, functional genomics, and NGS algorithms, with in total more than 4,000 citations by research journal papers. Her thesis work has pioneered the use of network based approaches for cancer patient classification and risk stratification towards precision medicine. She always likes to tell people she performed the wet lab work for her PhD thesis as the highlight of her academic achievement. After graduating from UCSD, Han-Yu joined Illumina as Bioinformatics scientist, working on competitive analysis of NGS technology and various algorithm development for whole genome sequencing. In her last four years with Illumina, she served as the bioinformatics core team lead for developing Illumina’s clinical-grade comprehensive gene panel products in cancer diagnostics and therapy selection for both tissue and liquid biopsy. In 2018, Han-Yu joined Roche Sequencing Solution as the head of Bioinformatics Market and Applications Development group. She led a multi-continent team to provides bioinformatics support in product development projects, medical/scientific affair studies, and product care across oncology, noninvasive prenatal testing, nanopore sequencing, and sample prep reagent development. Afterwards, Han-Yu picked up her first startup career at Cradle Genomics, Inc, building up the entire informatics department from ground zero as the head of Bioinformatics, Data Science, and Software. During her short time there, Han-Yu evaluated and architected end-to-end data infrastructure to support high-volume clinical tests with cloud computing.
In her spare time, Han-Yu enjoys cuddling with her wife and their two pit bulls. Han-Yu’s newest hobbies include gardening and playing VR games. Her ultimate life goal is to build an animal sanctuary. She is also a scientific/technical advisor for Vidium Animal Health, Inc to consult on their genomics test development to help conquering cancers in dogs.
Han-Yu got her PhD degree in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology from University of California, San Diego (UCSD) and her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Computer Science and Information Technology from National Taiwan University. She has published more than 20 peer-reviewed journal papers in the field of cancer biomarker selection, functional genomics, and NGS algorithms, with in total more than 4,000 citations by research journal papers. Her thesis work has pioneered the use of network based approaches for cancer patient classification and risk stratification towards precision medicine. She always likes to tell people she performed the wet lab work for her PhD thesis as the highlight of her academic achievement. After graduating from UCSD, Han-Yu joined Illumina as Bioinformatics scientist, working on competitive analysis of NGS technology and various algorithm development for whole genome sequencing. In her last four years with Illumina, she served as the bioinformatics core team lead for developing Illumina’s clinical-grade comprehensive gene panel products in cancer diagnostics and therapy selection for both tissue and liquid biopsy. In 2018, Han-Yu joined Roche Sequencing Solution as the head of Bioinformatics Market and Applications Development group. She led a multi-continent team to provides bioinformatics support in product development projects, medical/scientific affair studies, and product care across oncology, noninvasive prenatal testing, nanopore sequencing, and sample prep reagent development. Afterwards, Han-Yu picked up her first startup career at Cradle Genomics, Inc, building up the entire informatics department from ground zero as the head of Bioinformatics, Data Science, and Software. During her short time there, Han-Yu evaluated and architected end-to-end data infrastructure to support high-volume clinical tests with cloud computing.
In her spare time, Han-Yu enjoys cuddling with her wife and their two pit bulls. Han-Yu’s newest hobbies include gardening and playing VR games. Her ultimate life goal is to build an animal sanctuary. She is also a scientific/technical advisor for Vidium Animal Health, Inc to consult on their genomics test development to help conquering cancers in dogs.
With a PhD in Bioinformatics and Systems Biology from UCSD, Allison has transitioned her speciality in bioinformatics to production level machine learning and bioinformatics applications in digital healthcare. After graduation, she has worked as a data scientist in biotechnology companies from Thermo Fisher Scientific, ResMed to now leading her own Data Science & Bioinformatics team in Juno Diagnostics. Over the years she has been in many different areas of data science from analytics and machine learning applications in marketing, pricing and commercial strategies to building machine learning cloud infrastructure and algorithm development in bioinformatics and digital healthcare. In Thermo Fisher Scientific, she mostly focused on using data science for pricing and eCommerce strategies that drive millions-of-dollars business impact while in her recent career at Juno Diagnostics, she built the MLOps infrastructures in order to bring ML algorithms and innovation to production level. Her vision at Juno Diagnostics is to make prenatal screening more accessible and affordable through AI/ML-based applications.
Dr. Zing Tsai is a senior bioinformatics scientist at Illumina, leading a development team responsible for data infrastructure and automation framework. The current focus of his team is to design a universal bioinfo/biostat analysis and visualization platform to accelerate clinical product developments and regulatory submissions. Zing is also involved in the development of Illumina TruSight Oncology 500 pan-cancer profiling products, including tumor, liquid biopsy, RNA, and CDx claims.
Before joining Illumina, Zing was a bioinformatics research fellow at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he contributed to the NIEHS TaRGET program by building bioinformatics pipelines for large-scale multi-omics data integration and interpretation. Zing completed his postdoctoral training at Michigan State University and Ph.D. in Bioinformatics at Academia Sinica TIGP. His research has been focused on machine learning-based predictive models to solve cutting-edge problems in the fields of gene regulation and molecular evolution. He obtained BS and MS in biomedical engineering from National Taiwan University.
Outside of work, Zing enjoys painting, playing piano, and wrestling with his two little boys.
Before joining Illumina, Zing was a bioinformatics research fellow at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he contributed to the NIEHS TaRGET program by building bioinformatics pipelines for large-scale multi-omics data integration and interpretation. Zing completed his postdoctoral training at Michigan State University and Ph.D. in Bioinformatics at Academia Sinica TIGP. His research has been focused on machine learning-based predictive models to solve cutting-edge problems in the fields of gene regulation and molecular evolution. He obtained BS and MS in biomedical engineering from National Taiwan University.
Outside of work, Zing enjoys painting, playing piano, and wrestling with his two little boys.
Challenges, Opportunities and Leadership in Drug Development
Dr. Yu-Waye (Wayne) Chu is the Chief Medical Officer at Fate Therapeutics, where he leads the clinical development of iPSC derived immune cell therapies for the treatment of hematologic and solid tumor indications. Prior to joining Fate, Wayne assumed roles of increasing responsibility in Product Development Oncology at Genentech since 2009, where he worked on the development of the HER2-directed antibody drug conjugate trastuzumab emtansine (Kadcyla). He joined the Early Clinical Development group in Genentech Research and Early Development in 2011 where he led the early clinical development of molecules spanning multiple therapeutic platforms including antibody drug conjugates, checkpoint inhibitors, and immune cell bispecific antibodies, notably the development of polatuzumab vedotin (anti-CD79b antibody drug conjugate), tiragolumab (anti-TIGIT monoclonal antibody) and mosunetuzumab (CD20/CD3 bispecific antibody), and subsequently led the global development of mosunetuzumab in Product Development Oncology at Roche/Genentech. Dr. Chu conducted his clinical training in pediatric hematology-oncology at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and the National Cancer Institute. His clinical and research interests included hematopoietic stem cell transplantation and T-cell biology with a focus on T-cell development, T-cell homeostasis and immune reconstitution following stem cell transplant. Dr. Chu graduated cum laude with a B.A. in Molecular Biology from Princeton University and earned his M.D. with Distinction in Research from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.
Dr. Shang-Chiung (Charles) Chen, PhD, is currently the Senior Director and Head of Clinical Pharmacology and Translational Sciences at Zymeworks, responsible for overall strategy and execution of clinical pharmacology and translational development of the company’s pipeline. Prior to his appointment at Zymeworks, he was Head of Clinical Pharmacology at Travere Therapeutics and Clinical Pharmacology Lead at Genentech and Pfizer with increasing responsibility. He worked on numerous investigational drugs across small molecules, large molecules, antibody drug conjugates and bispecific antibodies. He supported the development of marketed medicine KADCYLA®, and NDA/MAA submission of sparsentan. He has several publications (both original research and review articles) in the field of clinical pharmacology and pharmacometrics.
Jeff Hsu is a regulatory affairs professional with 10 years of experience in pharmaceutical and medical device industries. Jeff is currently a Director of Regulatory Affairs at Acepodia Biotechnology Inc. which is focusing on allogeneic cell therapies for solid and liquid cancers. Prior to Acepodia, he was a Sr. Manager of Regulatory Affairs at Abbvie in neuroscience department with regulatory responsibilities ranging from IND, NDA, and postmarket activities. Jeff also had medical device experience at MicroVention, Inc, Terumo. In his role, he was responsible for class III neuroendovascular medical device registration in US and China markets. Before MicroVention, Jeff was at Sorrento Therapeutics where he helped to build in-house regulatory operations, filed multiple INDs (oncology and pain management) and NDA. He also participated in due diligence and regulatory tech transfer for acquired or out-licensing products in various positions of his career.
Jeff graduated from Tunghai University in Taiwan and earned his M.S. degree in Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Regulatory and Clinical Affairs in University of Southern California.
Jeff graduated from Tunghai University in Taiwan and earned his M.S. degree in Department of Microbiology and Immunology and Regulatory and Clinical Affairs in University of Southern California.
At the Crossroads between Academic and Industrial Research
I am a professional immuno-oncologist and a Director, Cancer Immunology Discovery, Pfizer, Inc., and an adjunct associate professor of pharmacology, Feinberg School of Medicine (FSM), Northwestern University, Chicago. I am experienced in multiple disciplines including cancer immunotherapy, immuno-oncology, cancer cell signaling, antibody fusion proteins, and anti-cancer therapeutics. I am an inventor of tumor-targeting antibodies and IFN (Interferon-alpha) fusion technology that has been licensed to pharmaceutical companies (Spectrum Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Lymphoma & Leukemia Society, LLS) for clinical development. IGN002, a fusion molecule of anti-CD20 antibody and interferon alpha, is currently in Phase 1 and Phase 2 clinical studies in patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. At Pfizer, I direct a group of 15 PhD and MS scientists (Senior Principal Scientists and Principal Scientists with each managing 3-5 direct reports) engaged in immuno-oncology discovery research with a focus on cytokine biology and tumor immunogenicity. I am experienced in managing extensive collaborations among industry collaborators and industry-academia collaborations. At Northwestern, I participate in teaching and mentoring graduate students and postdocs in cancer research. I provide insights into rigorous early-stage oncology target identification and preclinical validation processes. For the past 3.5 years, I have played a vital role in the initiation and development of the immuno-oncology research projects in the lab of Dr. Dai Horiuchi, an expert in studying a difficult-to-treat type of breast cancer known as triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC). I am very excited to continue our unique and robust collaboration to discover and preclinically establish innovative immuno-oncology therapeutic strategies for patients with TNBC.
Dr. Hung currently serves as the Head of the Protein Biochemistry department of Mesa Biotech, a part of Thermo Fisher Scientific. He leads R&D projects and oversees the manufacturing process of protein enzymes for the development of rapid molecular tests.
Mesa Biotech received EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) from FDA for their Accula SARS-CoV-2 Test for COVID-19 diagnosis in March 2020. Mesa's Accula SARS-CoV-2 Test is one of the very few CLIA-waived Point-of-Care (POC) rapid molecular tests on FDA's COVID-19 in vitro diagnostics EUA list. Mesa Biotech was also awarded over 18 million dollars in the budget of NIH’s RADx program and 13 million dollars in the budget of BARDA for scale-up and manufacturing to enable large-scale distribution of the Accula SARS-CoV-2 Test.
On 2/25/2021, Mesa Biotech officially became a part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, one of the largest biotech companies in the world.
Prior to joining Mesa, Dr .Hung got his Ph.D. degree in Biology from UC San Diego (UCSD) and then did his postdoctoral trainings in Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) and San Diego State University (SDSU) studying non-coding RNA functions and stem cell biology. Dr. Hung received his B.S. degree from National Cheng-Kung University (NCKU) in Taiwan.
Mesa Biotech received EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) from FDA for their Accula SARS-CoV-2 Test for COVID-19 diagnosis in March 2020. Mesa's Accula SARS-CoV-2 Test is one of the very few CLIA-waived Point-of-Care (POC) rapid molecular tests on FDA's COVID-19 in vitro diagnostics EUA list. Mesa Biotech was also awarded over 18 million dollars in the budget of NIH’s RADx program and 13 million dollars in the budget of BARDA for scale-up and manufacturing to enable large-scale distribution of the Accula SARS-CoV-2 Test.
On 2/25/2021, Mesa Biotech officially became a part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, one of the largest biotech companies in the world.
Prior to joining Mesa, Dr .Hung got his Ph.D. degree in Biology from UC San Diego (UCSD) and then did his postdoctoral trainings in Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) and San Diego State University (SDSU) studying non-coding RNA functions and stem cell biology. Dr. Hung received his B.S. degree from National Cheng-Kung University (NCKU) in Taiwan.
Dr. Tseng is currently a Professor in the Department of Molecular & Medical Pharmacology in David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He co-directs the UCLA Liquid Biopsy Laboratory, in which his research team has been working to develop in vitro diagnostics (IVD) technologies for applications in the field of oncology. With continuous support from NCI over the past decades, the team built a series of nanotechnology-enabled IVD platforms that are capable of processing and analyzing liquid biopsy samples, i.e., extracellular vesicles (EVs) and circulating tumor cells (CTCs) with a goal of exploring their potential as cancer biomarkers for clinical applications, including prognostic prediction, disease detection/staging, and treatment monitoring. To translate these liquid biopsy-based IVD platforms into the clinical setting, Dr. Tseng established an extensive collaboration network with oncology programs at UCLA and Cedars Sinai Medical Center, and other medical institutions in the US. To facilitate the commercial transition of these IVD platforms, Dr. Tseng founded CytoLumina Technologies Corp., a biotechnology company that is recently recognized as one of the Success Stories by NCI Innovative Molecular Analysis Technologies (IMAT) program.