scientific advisory board
Keith L. Black, M.D.
Dr. Black is Chairman of our Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Black serves as Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery and Director of the Maxine Dunitz Neurosurgical Institute at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. An internationally renowned neurosurgeon and scientist, Dr. Black joined Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in July 1997 and was awarded the Ruth and Lawrence Harvey Chair in Neurosciences in November of that year. Prior to joining Cedars-Sinai, Dr. Black served on the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) faculty for 10 years where he was a Professor of Neurosurgery. In 1992 he was awarded the Ruth and Raymond Stotter Chair in the Department of Surgery and was Head of the UCLA Comprehensive Brain Tumor Program. Dr. Black serves on the editorial boards of Neurological Research, Gene Therapy and Molecular Biology, Neurosurgery Quarterly and Frontiers In Bioscience. He was on the National Institutes of Health's Board of Scientific Counselors for Neurological Disorders and Stroke and was appointed to the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council of the National Institutes of Health from 2000 to 2004. He was also selected as a committee member of the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine Independent Citizens Oversight Committee from 2004-2006.
Dr. Black pioneered research on designing ways to open the blood-brain barrier, enabling chemotherapeutic drugs to be delivered directly into the tumor for which he received the Jacob Javits award from the National Advisory Neurological Disorders and Stroke Council of the National Institutes of Health in June 2000. Other groundbreaking research done by Dr. Black focused on developing a vaccine to enhance the body's immune response to brain tumors, use of gene arrays to develop molecular profiles of tumors, the use of optical technology for brain mapping, and the use of focused microwave energy to noninvasively destroy brain tumors.
Dr. Black has published extensively and has five patents issued or pending. Dr. Black was featured on the cover of Time magazine in the Fall 1997 special edition "Heroes of Medicine" and was profiled in 1996 on the PBS program, The New Explorers, in an episode called "Outsmarting the Brain."
John Boockvar, M.D.
Dr. John Boockvar is an Associate Professor of Neurosurgery at Weill Cornell Medical College. He received a B.A. and graduated Cum Laude from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Boockvar received an M.D. from SUNY Brooklyn-Downstate Medical Center where he graduated Summa Cum Laude with Distinction in Research and was medical school class valedictorian. Dr. Boockvar served as President of the Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society. He did his surgical internship and neurosurgical residency at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He directed the University of Pennsylvania endoscopic pituitary and skull base laboratory and completed fellowship training in neurooncology and complex spine surgery.
Dr. Boockvar’s surgical focus is in benign and malignant brain tumors, skull base and endoscopic pituitary surgery, minimally invasive spine surgery and complex spinal surgery. Dr. Boockvar performs minimally invasive brain and spinal surgery. Dr. Boockvar was recently featured on ABC World News Tonight for his work on minimally invasive approaches to brain and spinal surgery.
Peter Brooks, Ph.D.
Dr. Peter Brooks recently joined the Maine Medical Center Research Institute, where he is focused on studying mechanisms that regulate angiogenesis, tumor growth and metastasis. Prior to joining that Institute, Dr. Brooks served as associate professor and director of Angiogenesis and Radiation Research at New York University (NYU) School of Medicine. Before his association with NYU, Dr. Brooks was an assistant professor at the USC School of Medicine, during which time he also co-founded Cell Matrix Incorporated, a biotechnology company focused on anti-angiogenic drugs targeting cryptic ECM epitopes. Dr. Brooks' studies have led to a recent clinical trial to evaluate the effects of D93, a humanized antibody directed to a cryptic collagen epitope for the treatment of malignant tumors. Dr. Brooks obtained his Ph.D. in Cell and Developmental Biology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
Cohava Gelber, Ph.D.
Dr. Gelber currently serves as the Chief Scientific & Technology Officer of ATCC, a position she has held since 2005. In this capacity she is responsible for a large group of scientists in numerous disciplines. Prior to joining ATCC, she served as Vice President - Research and Development for MannKind Corp., a public company developing therapeutics for diabetes, cancer and autoimmune diseases. She was responsible at that company for non clinical development and clinical immune safety of drugs from pre IND through phase III clinical trials. Dr. Gelber received her Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute, her MBA degree from Cornell University and post doctorate training at Stanford University. Dr. Gelber has published numerous scientific manuscripts and textbook chapters and is the inventor of 7 granted patents and 49 patent applications. Dr. Gelber is one of the inventors of several monoclonal antibodies that we are developing, including ICT-69 and ICT-109, and has served as a consultant to our company in the past two years.
Constantine Ioannides, Ph.D.
Dr. Ioannides is a well-known and highly respected cancer immunologist, with over one hundred peer-reviewed articles in the scientific literature. Dr. Ioannides’s current primary research interests are focused specifically on cancer stem cells. He currently serves as Professor of Immunology at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Ioannides has been involved with some of the most important advancements in the field of cancer immunology over the past 20 years and is the co-discoverer of the NeuVaxT (E75) vaccine. We recently entered into an option agreement with MD. Anderson Cancer Center for some of the cancer stem cell technologies that were developed at Dr. Ioannides’s laboratory.
Sherie Morrison, Ph.D.
Dr. Sherie Morrison is a distinguished professor of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Morrison joined the faculty of UCLA in 1988 and acted as department chair for 10 years. Prior to that, Dr. Morrison served as professor in the Department of Microbiology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, which followed various post-doctoral fellowships at Columbia University, University of California, Berkeley and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Her long-time research interest has been the functional properties of antibodies and novel antibody-related proteins, and she is well published in this area. Dr. Morrison holds Ph.D. and B.A. degrees from Stanford University.
George Peoples, MD
Dr. Peoples is the Director of the Cancer Vaccine Development Program and Deputy Director of the United States Military Cancer Institute. Prior to being appointed to that position, Dr. Peoples held positions as Chief of Surgical Oncology at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and Director of the Cancer Vaccine Developmental Laboratory. He received his medical degree from the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine prior to receiving surgical training at Harvard Medical School’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he was also a research fellow. In addition to his appointments at some of the military’s most prestigious cancer research institutions, Dr. Peoples has significant research experience in the oncology field, with multiple peer-reviewed publications to his credit, including co-discovery credits on HER2/neu vaccines and a number of other anticancer vaccines from his time at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, where he completed training in surgical oncology.
Zvi Ram, M.D.
Dr. Zvi Ram serves as the Chairman of the Department of Neurosurgery at Tel Aviv Medical Center in Israel. His emphasis is on brain tumor therapy, pituitary surgery, and technology development projects with various companies. Dr. Ram is the Chairman of the European Association of Neurosurgical Societies (EANS) Neurooncology Committee, member of the Executive Steering Committees and lead PI for several pharmaceuticals companies conducting multicenter international phase III clinical studies, scientific advisor for a number of biothechnology groups, and a member of editorial boards and reviewer for leading advisor for a number of biothechnology groups, and a member of editorial boards and reviewer for leading scientific journals in his areas of expertise. Dr. Ram previously led a variety of basic and clinical research projects, including leading the first gene therapy trial for patients with brain tumors, at the Surgical Neurology Branch at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD.