SAN FRANCISCO & SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--California Life Sciences Association (CLSA) today announced an expansion of its board of directors, adding two new members. Larry W. Kwak, M.D., Ph.D., Vice President and Associate Cancer Center Director of Translational Research at City of Hope and Daria Mochly-Rosen, Ph.D., Founder and Co-Director, SPARK Translational Research Program and Professor, Chemical and Systems Biology at Stanford University School of Medicine, have joined the CLSA board. CLSA is California’s largest and most influential life sciences public policy advocacy and business leadership organization representing California’s leading life sciences innovators.
“I’m pleased to welcome Dr. Larry Kwak from City of Hope and Dr. Daria Mochly-Rosen from Stanford University School of Medicine to the CLSA Board. The expertise they bring to the table and the world-class organizations they represent will inform and strengthen our work in shaping public policy and driving solutions to help grow and foster California’s life sciences sector,” said Sara Radcliffe, President & CEO, California Life Sciences Association (CLSA).
About Larry W. Kwak, M.D., Ph.D.
Larry W. Kwak, M.D., Ph.D. is a world-renowned physician and scientist who has pioneered breakthrough innovations in immunology and cancer vaccines. He joined City of Hope in April 2015 following a decade of leadership in lymphoma and myeloma research and treatment at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. Named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2010, Dr. Kwak is Vice President and Associate Cancer Center Director for Translational Research and Developmental Therapeutics, Director of the Toni Stephenson Lymphoma Center with in the Hematologic Malignancies and Stem Cell Transplantation Institute and is endowed with the title of the Dr. Michael Friedman Professor in Translational Medicine. In 2016, he was named the recipient of the Ho-Am Prize in Medicine by the Samsung Foundation, Korea’s equivalent of the Nobel Prize.
Passionate about harnessing the body’s immune system to battle cancer, Dr. Kwak’s interest in the field was sparked by a high school mentor and has continued for nearly three decades. He takes special pride in his ability to rapidly translate basic research into human clinical trials, making him an ideal fit for the City of Hope environment.
About Daria Mochly-Rosen, Ph.D.
Dr. Daria Mochly-Rosen is a Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology and the George D. Smith Professor for Translational Medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine. She leads a multi-disciplinary research lab that includes chemists, biochemists, biologists and physician scientists and has used her basic research discoveries to develop several drugs leads for human diseases with interest in mitochondrial biology and pathology. She has published over 250 papers and over 30 patents and patent applications and have founded three companies: KAI Pharmaceuticals (2003-2011 when acquired by AMGEN), ALDEA (developed by Aviv Therapeutics, now FORESEE; 2013-) and Mitoconix (2016-).
Dr. Mochly-Rosen is the founder and co-director of SPARK, a university-wide program focusing on translational research to benefit patients and society. Now in its 11th year, SPARK helped about 100 inventors (60% of the participants of the program) of biopharmaceuticals and diagnostics bring their invention to clinical studies and/or to licensing. Dr. Mochly-Rosen served on many university leadership committees, was the chief of the division (2000-2001), chair of her department (2001-2004) and the Senior Associate Dean for Research, Stanford University School of Medicine (between 2006 and 2013).
Dr. Mochly-Rosen received her B.S. in life sciences from Tel Aviv University, her Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science, and was a postdoctoral fellow with Dan E. Koshland, Jr. in the department of Biochemistry at UC Berkeley. She was Assistant and Associate professor at UCSF (1985-1992), until she joined Stanford University, in January 1993.
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About California Life Sciences Association (CLSA)
California Life Sciences Association (CLSA) is the leading voice for California’s life sciences sector. We work closely with industry, government, academia and other stakeholders to shape public policy, drive business solutions and grow California’s life sciences innovation ecosystem. CLSA serves biotechnology, pharmaceutical, medical device, and diagnostics companies, research universities and institutes, investors and service providers. CLSA was founded in 2015 when the Bay Area Bioscience Association (BayBio) and the California Healthcare Institute (CHI) merged to create the state’s most influential life sciences advocacy and business leadership organization. Visit CLSA at www.califesciences.org, and follow us on Twitter @CALifeSciences, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and YouTube.
