Alacris Pharmaceuticals is led by a senior management team with extensive research and leadership experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry as well as academia. Their combined backgrounds in systems biology, bioinformatics, genomics, molecular biology, and drug discovery and development makes them ideally suited to provide collaborators and clients with the next generation of tools and solutions in the area of personalized medicine and drug discovery.
Prof. Hans Lehrach: Founder
Dr. Hans Lehrach is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin and Professor in Biochemistry at the Free University of Berlin, Germany. After his post-doctoral work as a Research Fellow at the Laboratory of Prof. Paul Doty, Harvard University, USA, he led a research group at the EMBL in Heidelberg, Germany. Prior to his appointment as Director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Dr. Lehrach was Head of the Genome Analysis Deparment at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London, UK. His research interests encompass the fields of neurobiology, genome analysis and systems biology with focus on cellular and molecular mechanisms of neurodegenerative disorders; the complex networks of processes which transform the genomic information into the phenotype and prediction of this phenotype from molecular data. For this, he and his group have been involved in developing many of the techniques needed to achieve this goal, but have also contributed to many large genomic data sets being developed world-wide. Dr. Lehrach serves as a member of the HUGO Council, Speaker of the German Human Genome Project and Chairman and/or member of the Scientific Advisory Boards of several national genome centers in Europe and China. He is also a reviewer for the "Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft" in the field of Molecular Biology. He is a recipient of several scientific awards including the Jan Jessenius SAS Medal of Honour for outstanding achievements in medical sciences from the Slovak Academy of Sciences and a Karl Heinz Beckurts Award for achievements in genome research. Dr. Lehrach obtained his PhD from the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine in Güttingen (Prof. Fritz Cramer) and Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Güttingen (Prof. Karl-Heinz Scheit).
Prof. Bernhard Herrmann: Founder
Dr. Bernhard Herrmann is Director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics and Professor and Head of the Institute for Medical Genetics, Charite, CBF in Berlin, Germany. After completing an EMBO post-doctoral fellowship at the National Institute for Medical Research in London, UK, he led a Junior Research Group at the Max Planck Institute of Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany. Prior to his appointment as Director at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics, Dr. Hermann was Senior Staff Scientist and Head of Research group at the Max Planck Institute of Immunobiology in Freiburg, Germany. He was a Principal Investigator in several projects within the National Genome Research Network of Germany and is a Coordinator of the Integrated Genome Research Network within NGFNplus: "Modifiers of Intestinal Tumor Formation and Progression". He is an EMBO member, a Co-Editor of the journal "Development Genes and Evolution" and serves as a referee for many research organizations and institutions in Europe and Japan. His research interests include systems biology of embryonic development and regulatory networks controlling mesoderm formation and trunk development in the mouse embryo; molecular mechanisms and computer modeling of a molecular oscillator - the segmentation clock; as well as the regulatory networks of tumor progression with a special focus on intestinal tumors. Dr. Hermann did his Ph.D. work at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg and obtained his doctoral degree form the University of Karlsruhe.
Prof. George Church: Founder
Dr. George Church is Director of the Center for Computational Genetics and Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School. With degrees from Duke University in Chemistry and Zoology, he co-authored research on 3D-software & RNA structure with Sung-Hou Kim. His PhD from Harvard in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology with Wally Gilbert included the first direct genomic sequencing method in 1984; initiating the Human Genome Project then as a Research Scientist at newly-formed Biogen Inc. and a Monsanto Life Sciences Research Fellow at UCSF with Gail Martin. He invented the broadly-applied concepts of molecular multiplexing and tags, homologous recombination methods, and array DNA synthesizers. Technology transfer of automated sequencing & software to Genome Therapeutics Corp. resulted in the first commercial genome sequence (the human pathogen, H. pylori, 1994). This multiplex solid-phase sequencing evolved into polonies (1999), ABI-SOLiD (2005) & open-source Polonator.org (2007) and Personal Genomes.org. He has served in advisory roles for 12 journals (including Nature Molecular Systems Biology), 5 granting agencies and 24 biotech companies (including 23andme & recently founding Codon Devices, Knome and LS9). Current research focuses on integrating biosystems-modeling with Personal Genomics & synthetic biology.
Shahid Imran: Founder and Head of Operations
Mr. Shahid Imran is an experienced informatics specialist and a versatile executive with significant international expertise in bioinformatics, cheminformatics, drug discovery, and corporate management. After his work at the Molecular Biology Computing Laboratory at the Waksman Institute/CABM, Rutgers University he joined Merck Research Laboratories (Rahway, NJ) as a Group Leader of Systems, Department of Bioinformatics, where he managed computational infrastructure for the department world-wide. After working at Pharmaceutical Division of Bayer Corporation (West Haven, CT) Shahid continued as Director, Bioinformatics Architecture and later as Acting Head of Bioinformatics at Gene Logic (Gaithersburg, MD), with responsibilities ranging from developing the company’s bioinformatics and computational infrastructure to developing the Gene Logic Workbench suite to scaling up the architecture for data production. Prior to founding Alacris Pharmaceuticals, he was a Senior Director, Research Informatics at GPC Biotech (Princeton, NJ), where he was responsible for all aspects of scientific information management for the company and represented informatics at the senior level as a member of the company’s research strategy council. Mr. Imran holds a B.A. in Computer Science/Math from Rutgers University, USA.
Gabriele Zybarth, Ph.D.: Consultant
Dr. Gabriele Zybarth is an experienced molecular biologist and research director with over 10 years biotech and pharmaceutical industry experience. After her post-doc in HIV pathogenesis at the Picower Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, NY, she joined Pfizer Central Research in Connecticut, where she carried out research on vaccines and biological therapeutics for a range of different applications. Prior to joining Alacris Pharmaceuticals, Gabriele was Director of Target Identification at GPC Biotech (Boston, MA), where her team conducted drug target validation and mode-of action studies for internal and external research programs. Most recently, her group characterized and analyzed pharmacodynamic biomarkers in tumor xenograft mouse models for candidate inhibitors of tumor cell proliferation. Gabriele has co-authored scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals and is co-inventor on several patents. She obtained her Ph.D. in molecular microbiology from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
