Platelet BioGenesis Appoints Leading Hematology Experts and Physicians to Its Scientific Advisory Board

“The addition of these extraordinarily accomplished leaders to our team will help accelerate our progress toward commercializing the world’s first functional human platelets derived from induced pluripotent stem cells, and the creation of a new class of platelet-based medicines to treat cancer,” said Jonathan Thon, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Platelet BioGenesis.

The scientific advisory board includes:

• Ed Engleman, M.D., medical director of the Stanford Blood Center and co-director of tumor immunology and immunotherapy at the Stanford Cancer Institute. Dr. Engleman’s research has focused on understanding the role of the cellular immune system in cancer and other diseases.
• Bruce Zetter, Ph.D., professor of cancer biology and surgery at Harvard Medical School, researcher at Boston Children’s Hospital and discoverer of the world’s first angiogenesis inhibitor.
• Lewis “Rusty” Williams, M.D., Ph.D., founder of Five Prime Therapeutics, co-founder of COR Therapeutics, and former chief scientific officer at Chiron Corp., now Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics.
• Barry Coller, M.D., professor, physician-in-chief and vice president for medical affairs at Rockefeller University. Coller helped develop abciximab, marketed as ReoPro, a platelet aggregation inhibitor widely used in patients implanted with stents.
• Cedric Ghevaert, Ph.D., senior lecturer in transfusion medicine at the University of Cambridge and a consulting hematologist for the National Health Service Blood and Transplant division in the UK. Dr. Gehevaert has conducted groundbreaking first-in-man studies of blood cell survival and recovery.
• Rob Flaumenthaft, M.D., Ph.D., chief of the Division of Hemostasis and Thrombosis at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and a leading global expert in platelet secretory granule uptake and release. His lab studies fundamental problems in platelet biology and function.
• Les Silberstein, M.D., director of the Joint Program in Transfusion Medicine at Boston Children’s Hospital. Dr. Silberstein’s lab looks at signals that control hematopoietic stem and progenitor cells in bone marrow and their role in leukemia and other conditions.

The chair of the scientific advisory board is Joseph Italiano, Ph.D., associate professor at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Boston Children’s Hospital. His research has helped identify biochemical and molecular mechanisms that underlie the production of platelets. He has also focused on illuminating the roles of platelets in regulating the development of new blood vessels, immunity and malignancy.

“This distinguished group of scientists and physicians brings unparalleled expertise to our goal of producing donor-independent platelets for clinical and therapeutic applications," said Dr. Italiano, co-founder of Platelet BioGenesis.

About Platelet BioGenesis
Platelet BioGenesis is a venture-backed, development stage biotech company creating designer platelets (PLTs+^TM) as a new class of therapeutics. Platelet BioGenesis has developed and patented a scalable cGMP-compliant process to generate PLTs+^TM from clinical grade induced pluripotent stem cells. The company was spun out of Harvard University and has received funding from the Massachusetts Life Sciences Center and the National Institutes of Health. Learn more at www.plateletbiogenesis.com and follow us on Twitter @plateletbiogen.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20180531005278/en/