Symposium Speakers
Hossein Ghanbari, Ph.D.
Keynote Speaker.
Hossein A. Ghanbari, Ph.D. is a co-founder of Panacea Pharmaceuticals and now serves as its Chief Executive Officer & Chief Scientific Officer, and as Chairman of the Board. Dr. Ghanbari began his career in the private sector at Abbott Laboratories in Chicago, Ill., where he developed several pharmaceuticals and the first ever commercialized diagnostic test for Alzheimer's Disease (AD). He was part of the New Drug Application (NDA) team for Leupron, the very successful prostate cancer drug, as well as for Survanta, the current drug of choice for preventing and treating respiratory distress syndrome in premature infants. He directed the Analytical sections of the Investigational New Drug (IND) application for an antibody-based antiviral drug, and was a member of Abbott's Technical Advisory Board. Dr. Ghanbari was inducted into the prestigious honorary organization, the Volwiler Society, established by Abbott to recognize the company’s most distinguished and accomplished scientists. After nearly a decade with Abbott, Dr. Ghanbari left to form Molecular Geriatrics Corporation, (a biopharma company focused on developing drugs for neurodegenerative diseases) and served as its Senior Vice-President for R&D. Subsequently, Dr. Ghanbari was instrumental in establishing Nymox Pharmaceutical Corporation (NASDAQ: NYMX), and served as Senior Vice-President for R&D and Strategic Planning as well as a Director on its board. While with Nymox, he developed the first commercially available cerebral spinal fluid- and urine-based diagnostics tests for Alzheimer’s Disease (AD), and identified opportunities for complementary technologies which Nymox in-licensed, which together established the company’s international presence as a leader in AD diagnostics and therapeutics.
Prior to entering private industry, Dr. Ghanbari held professorships at Pennsylvania State University, University of Florida, and Arya-Mehr University of Technology (now Sharif University). He was also on the academic staff of The George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences as an Adjunct Professor. He currently serves as a Board member of the Gastric Cancer Foundation. Dr. Ghanbari received his bachelor of sciences degree, with distinction, from the American University in Beirut, and his master’s and doctorate degrees in Biochemistry from Pennsylvania State University. He has authored over 70 peer reviewed publications, and is an inventor on nearly 100 patents and patent applications worldwide.
Mehdi Hatamian, Ph.D.
Keynote Speaker
Mehdi Hatamian received his B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Sharif University of Technology in 1977, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, in 1978 and 1982 respectively. From 1978 to 1982, he worked for NASA’s Space Shuttle program, developing hardware and software designs to support in-flight biomedical experiments. From 1982 to 1991, he was a member of the Visual Communications Research and the VLSI Systems Research departments of Bell Laboratories, where he was named Distinguished Member of the Technical Staff in 1988. From 1991 to 1996, he was Vice President of Technology at Silicon Design Experts (SDE), Inc., a company he co-founded. SDE was acquired by Level One Corp. which was later acquired by Intel Corp. From Aug. 1996 to Feb. 2016 he was with Broadcom Corporation where his most recent position was Senior VP of Engineering. Following the acquisition of Broadcom Corp. by AVAGO Technologies, the combined company was named Broadcom Limited where Dr. Hatamian served as a Fellow and Chief Scientist - Central Engineering from Feb. 2016 to Aug. 2016. Dr. Hatamian’s areas of expertise and interest are high-speed VLSI signal processing, full-custom and low power circuit and architecture design, image processing and compression, adaptive filtering, Ethernet transceiver design, high-density and high-speed CMOS design, high temperature superconductors, and biomedical electronics. He has published 50 papers in his areas of expertise and holds 97 issued patents with several patents pending. He is a Fellow member of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). He received his Fellow award for his contribution to the design of high-performance digital signal processors. Dr. Hatamian received the “#1 Patent Holder” award from Broadcom Corp. for 2005-06 and 2006-07, and the Broadcom Fellow award in 2011. He received the University of Michigan’s ECE Division Alumni Merit Award for 2008. He served on the Engineering Advisory Council of the University of Michigan from 2006 to 2012. Dr. Hatamian has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, class of 2016, for contributions to the development of integrated circuits for video, communications, and digital signal processing. He has participated in numerous national and international conferences and other professional activities in his field as keynote speaker, organizer, session chair, panelist, invited lecturer, and moderator. He is on the board of directors of Panacea Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and PharmacoKinesis, Inc.
Ali Nayeri, Ph.D.
Keynote Speaker
Dr. Ali Nayeri After receiving his PhD in Theoretical Physics from IUCAA in 1999, was appointed as a Postdoctoral Associate at the Department of Physics at MIT for 2 years and as a Postdoctoral Fellow at MIT Center for Theoretical Physics for an additional year. Since then, he has been a Research Affiliate at MIT. He was also a Research Scientist and Visiting Professor at the Institute for Fundamental Theory at University of Florida. He is currently with the Harvard Physics Department in Cambridge, MA. His fields of research include Early Universe and Inflation, brane and string cosmology, Semi-Classical Theory of Gravity, and Alternative Cosmologies.
Dr. Nayeri has published numerous papers in various scientific journals in the US, UK, Netherlands and Russia. He is co-founder and current member of the Board of Directors of the Iranian Studies Group at MIT, co-founder of Iranian Research Group at University of Florida and the Principle Investigator of the "Physics of Chaos and Society" project. He, along with Abbas Milani, has chaired the "Iran: Future Prospects" at Stanford since October 2004. He has appeared on a number of TV and radio programs including KRSI, VOA, BBC World Service.
Michael S. Lebowitz, PhD
Keynote Speaker
Michael S. Lebowitz, Ph.D. is the Senior Director of Research for the Company. He has been working on Panacea’s projects in cancer and neurodegenerative disease since the Company commenced laboratory operations in 2000. Dr. Lebowitz has more than 18 years of experience in biomedical research within the biotech industry having previously served as the Director of Research at 20/20 GeneSystems, Inc. and Vice President of Research at Ariadne Diagnostics, LLC. He has been directly involved in the commercial launch of six cancer diagnostic tests and the research leading up to Panacea’s recent IND approval. Dr. Lebowitz holds a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Biochemistry, Cellular, and Molecular Biology where he subsequently completed a three-year fellowship in immunology in the Department of Pathology, Division of Immunopathology. He remains associated with JHU as an adjunct Lecturer in the Advanced Academic Program in Biotechnology within the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences.
Steven A. Fuller, PhD
Keynote Speaker
Steven A. Fuller, Ph.D. joined Panacea in 2007 and serves as Chief Operating Officer. Dr. Fuller has over 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries working on a range of therapeutic and diagnostic products. Prior to joining Panacea, Dr. Fuller served as Vice President, Product and Process Development at Nabi Biopharmaceuticals, Inc., Rockville, MD. While at Nabi, he held positions of increasing responsibility in the development, GMP manufacture, quality control, quality assurance and clinical testing of vaccine and immune globulin products for infectious disease and drugs of addiction. At Nabi, Dr. Fuller was an integral part of a team that filed two biologics license applications for immunotherapeutic products and also filed numerous Investigation New Drug (IND) applications for vaccine products. At ADI Diagnostics, Inc., Toronto, Ontario, Dr. Fuller was Director of Operations for ADI’s diagnostics development and manufacturing of tests for cancer and infectious disease. He is author of numerous peer-reviewed publications and multiple patents. Dr. Fuller received his B.S. degree in Biology from Wheaton College and his Ph.D. in genetics from Michigan State University.
Hessam Nowzari, DDS, PhD
Symposium Host
Dr. Nowzari has been Director of Advanced Periodontics at USC from 1995 to 2012 and a Diplomate of the American Board of Periodontology. He is the founder of the Taipei Academy of Reconstructive Dentistry in Taiwan. Since 2012, he is an active member of a review committee for The National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR) in Italy.
He is the guest Editor-in Chief of the Journal de Parodontologie & d'Implantologie Orale in France. His current movie is entitled: “What Killed The Smile of Hatshepsut”, A Woman Who Was A Pharaoh? Won Award of Merit 2012, Short Documentary, from The Accolade Competition that honors outstanding craft and creativity in film, television, and videography