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Our Team
Members of our management team have significant experience in the field of brain cancers, neuro degenerative diseases and in the management of early stage biopharmaceutical companies.
Prior to joining ImmunoCellular Therapeutics, Dr. Singh was a Director of California Technology Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm in Pasadena, California, from June 2003 to December 2007. During his tenure at California Technology Ventures, Dr. Singh co-lead investments by that firm in several life sciences companies, including Aliva Biopharmaceuticals, SurgRx, Vivant Medical, Angioscore and Ceregene. He also acted as the interim CEO of Aliva Biopharmaceuticals, a human monoclonal antibody production company focused on creating a greater diversity of antibodies, and was a board member or observer for several companies, including Aliva, Angioscore and Ceregene.
Before joining California Technology Ventures, Dr. Singh spent 14 years in various scientific and managerial positions in research, product development, manufacturing, and business development at Genetic Therapy, Inc. (acquired by Novartis Pharmaceuticals), Chiron Corporation, and Cell Genesys, where he was responsible for the process development, scale-up, technology transfer, and manufacturing of several gene therapy products. During this time he worked on a number of preclinical and clinical programs in oncology and hemophilia.
Dr. Singh holds ten issued patents and patent applications, and has been an invited speaker at several national and international conferences on gene therapy, cell therapy and drug delivery. Dr. Singh received his BS in Chemical Engineering from IIT (Roorkee, India), MS in Chemical Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and his Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering at the University of Maryland Baltimore County and did his post-doctoral work at the American Red Cross in Biomedical Sciences. He also received his MBA at the Anderson School at UCLA, where he was a Deutschman Venture Fellow and a Patrick J. Welsh Entrepreneurship Fellow. - top
Dr. Yu is a member of the full-time faculty in the Department of Neurosurgery at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. An internationally renowned neurosurgeon, Dr. Yu's clinical focus is on the treatment of malignant and benign brain and spinal tumors. He is also conducting extensive research in immune and gene therapy for brain tumors. He has also done extensive research in the use of neural stem cells as delivery vehicles for brain cancers and neurodegenerative diseases.
He was inducted into Castle and Connelly's America's Top Doctors in 2005. Dr. Yu has published articles in a number of prestigious journals, including The Lancet, Cancer Research, Cancer Gene Therapy, Human Gene Therapy, Journal of Neuroimmunology, Journal of Neurological Science and Journal of Neurosurgery.
Dr. Yu earned his bachelor's degree in French literature and biological sciences from Stanford University and spent a year at the Sorbonne in Paris studying French literature. He also pursued a fellowship in immunology at the Institut Pasteur in Paris. He earned his medical degree from Harvard Medical School and master's degree from the Harvard University's Department of Genetics. He completed his neurosurgical residency at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. In addition, he was a Neuroscience Fellow at the National Institutes of Mental Health in the Neuroimmunology Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital from 1988 to 1989 and was a Culpepper Scholar at the Molecular Neurogenetics Unit at that hospital from 1993 to 1995.
Dr. Yu's other honors include the Preuss Award, Joint Section on Tumors, American Association of Neurological Surgeons and Congress of Neurologic Surgeons in 1995. He received the Academy Award from the American Academy of Neurological Surgery at its 1996 annual meeting. Other honors include the Young Investigator Award from the Congress of Neurological Surgeons in 2000, the National Brain Tumor Foundation Grant in 2001, and the Mahaley Clinical Research award from the American Association of Neurological Surgeons in 2005. - top
Mr. Peacock is a Certified Public Accountant and previously was Chief Financial Officer with CytRx Corporation, a ribonucleic acid interference and biopharmaceutical company focused on the development and commercialization of high-value human therapeutics from August 2003 through July 2004. Mr. Peacock has experience as Chief Financial Officer with several start-up companies including DigitalMed, Inc., a venture-backed subsidiary of Tenet Healthcare, and Ants.Com, Inc., a venture-backed company of Bertelsmann Ventures. Mr. Peacock was also a manager with a large, international accounting firm for a number of years. Mr. Peacock serves as a director on the Board of Directors and a member of the Audit Committee of Laird Norton Company LLC. Mr. Peacock is a graduate of Claremont McKenna College. - top
Board of Directors
Since 1981, Ms. Brandwynne served as President and CEO of Brandwynne Corporation, which has co-founded and assisted in the development of several healthcare and biotech companies. Ms. Brandwynne is a business strategist with more than 25 years of experience working with companies such as American Cyanimid, Bristol Myers/Clairol, National Liberty Life, Seagram & Sons and Neutrogena. From 1974 to 1981 she was in charge of developing Citicorp's global business strategy. From 2000 to 2006, Ms. Brandwynne was a director of Microvision, Inc., a public company that develops sophisticated miniature displays. She has served in multiple advisory roles in several administrations, including as an Advisor to the Council of Economic Advisors, a member of the US Trade Representatives Services Policy Advisory Committee, a negotiator of the North American Trade Agreement, a participant in GATT negotiations and a member of The Committee on Critical Choices for America, and Chair of an Economic Summit at the White House. She currently serves on the boards of Pacific Union Bank, the Proteus Venture Biotech Fund and on several non-profit boards, including the Cedars-Sinai Health Systems Board of Governors and the California Institute of the Arts. - top
Colonel Richard A. Cowell, USA, (Ret.)
Colonel Cowell is a Principal at Booz Allen Hamilton, Inc., where he is involved in advanced concepts, technology experimentation and integration, and establishing new business operations. Prior to joining Booz Allen Hamilton in March 1996, Colonel Cowell served in the United States Army for 25 years. Mr. Cowell serves as a director and Chair of the Audit Committee for Microvision, Inc. He holds a Top Secret security clearance with special accesses based on a special background investigation. Mr. Cowell holds a B.S. degree in accounting from Ohio State University. - top
Navdeep Jaikaria, Ph.D.
Dr. Jaikaria is a former managing director of equity research and senior biotechnology analyst at Rodman & Renshaw and brings an emphasis on the Wall Street perspective to the IMUC board of directors. Dr. Jaikaria has consistently been ranked as a top analyst and as high as number three by Starmine on the basis of portfolio returns for 2006 and was named one of the five best stock-pickers in biotechnology in the Wall Street Journal's "Best on the Street" analysts survey in 2007. Dr. Jaikaria was with Rodman & Renshaw from 2003 to 2008 and held positions in equity research with Leerink Swann and Mehta Partners prior to that. Before joining Wall Street, he also served as a consultant to pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. He has provided input to the U.S. Senate Health Committee on Biodefense issues and has been widely cited in national and international print and broadcast media including the Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, CNN and CNBC. Dr. Jaikaria holds a Ph.D. in Cell Biology and Anatomy from New York Medical College, conducted a research fellowship at The Rockefeller University and holds a B.S. in Human Biology from All India Institute of Medical Sciences. - top
Robert L. Martuza, M.D.
Dr. Martuza has been Chief of Neurosurgery Service at Massachusetts General Hospital and Higgins Professor of Neurosurgery at Harvard Medical School since 2000. Dr. Martuza has held appointments at Massachusetts General Hospital and Georgetown University Hospital since 1980 and academic appointments at Harvard Medical School and Georgetown University also since 1980. Dr. Martuza is presently Director of the Pappas Center for Neuro-Oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital and on the Board of Trustees for the Massachusetts General Physicians Organization, Inc. Dr. Martuza currently serves on the Managed Care Committee, Executive Committee on Research, and General Executive Committee at the Massachusetts General Hospital. In addition, he serves as a Director of the American Board of Neurological Surgery; serves on the Board of Scientific Counselors at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; and is coordinating reviewer and serves on the Program Committee for the American Society of Gene Therapy. Dr. Martuza is a recognized authority on neurosurgery, has published numerous articles and books in the field of neurology and has 11 patents issued or pending involving cell therapy. Dr. Martuza has received many grants for research with major research interests in central nervous system tumors, neurofibromatosis, cancer therapy with viral vectors and molecular neurosurgery. Dr. Martuza holds a B.A. degree from Bucknell University and a M. D. from Harvard Medical School. Dr. Martuza was a post-doctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital. - top
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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." - top
Silvia Chiara Formenti, M.D.
Dr. Formenti was appointed in 2000 as the first Sandra and Edward H. Meyer Chairman of the new Department of Radiation Oncology at New York University. Widely respected for her work in breast and cervical cancer, Dr. Formenti joined NYU from the University of Southern California, Keck School of Medicine in Los Angeles, where she was a tenured Associate Professor of both Radiation Oncology and Medicine. In addition to her role as Chairman of the NYU Department of Radiation Oncology, Dr. Formenti is currently the Associate Director for Clinical Research as well as the Leader of the Breast Cancer Research Program of the NYU Cancer Institute, where she oversees the clinical and research efforts of over 30 investigators.
A prolific researcher, Dr. Formenti is currently principal or co-principal investigator on five multi-year peer-reviewed grants. She has devoted her research career to the study of women's malignancies, with a particular focus on underserved patients and Latina women. She has pioneered the use of concurrent chemo-radiation in the neo-adjuvant (before surgery) setting, an ideal setting to explore associations of pre-treatment tumor molecular markers with the extent of pathological response (response in the removed surgical specimen) after chemo-radiation. This research has been consistently funded by the NIH and ACS. The translational component of this research consists of several collaborations with basic scientists to identify in the laboratory which molecular tumor marker might determine response to a specific treatment. In addition, she is studying how chemo-radiation induced cell-death affects patient's immunity. - top
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