Jason Howitt
Scientific AdvisorPhD
Associate Professor Jason Howitt is a neuroscientist who has been working in the exosome field for over 15 years. He has invented methods for loading exosomes with specific proteins for delivery in vivo. Using these methods he has found that exosomes can functionally traffic across the blood-brain barrier and into neurons in the brain. His work has also discovered the loading of the major tumour suppressor protein, PTEN, into exosomes, as well as how ubiquitin is involved in trafficking proteins into exosomes.
Currently, Jason’s primary research investigates the initiation of Parkinson’s disease in the brain. His team has discovered a new pathway in which exosomes can traffic the protein alpha-synuclein in the brain. He currently is the Research Director at Swinburne University in the School of Health Sciences, and has held positions at Brookhaven National Laboratory (New York), Imperial College (London), and the Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health (Melbourne).
Jennifer King
Scientific AdvisorPhD, MBA
Jennifer King, a Principal at King BioConsulting, has over 20 years of operating experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. King BioConsulting provides business development and strategic support for biotechnology companies and other key stakeholders, with a focus on cutting edge technologies and orphan indications. From 2015 to 2019 Jenn served at Intellia Therapeutics, a CRISPR Cas9 genome editing start-up, completing her tenure as Senior Vice President for Business Development. Jenn founded and grew the Business Development and New Product Commercialization groups at Intellia and was responsible for accessing external sources of innovation, establishing the company’s key industry partnerships, overseeing the alliance management activities for these partnerships and developing commercial strategies and frameworks for Intellia’s genome editing platform.
Prior to her joining Intellia in 2015, Jenn held the position of Senior Director of Business Development at Shire Plc, (now Takeda) where she was responsible for the sourcing, initial evaluation and negotiation of licensing and acquisition opportunities within the company’s corporate development group. She previously worked in Shire’s rare disease commercial organization as a Global Brand Director for two clinical-stage programs and served as its Director of New Products, where she was responsible for providing commercial guidance to development and research stage projects, as well as evaluating the commercial attractiveness of business development opportunities. Before joining Shire in 2006, Jennifer held a variety of commercial roles in at Millennium Pharmaceuticals; most notably as the Product Manager for the US launch of VELCADE®.
Jennifer received her B.S. in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earned a Ph.D. in Developmental Biology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and was awarded her MBA by Northeastern University. In addition to a passion for biology and the biopharmaceutical industry, Jenn is an avid sailor and world traveller, and just completed her 100th scuba dive.
Laura Vella
Scientific AdvisorPhD
Dr Laura Vella has longstanding experience in the study of extracellular vesicles (EVs) and their role in disease progression. She completed her PhD on prion disease at The University of Melbourne with Professor Andrew Hill, establishing an on-going research program on the role of extracellular vesicles in neurodegeneration.
Her discoveries include the identification of EVs in cerebrospinal fluid and the finding that misfolded proteins can spread to distant cell types via EVs. She has demonstrated the role of EVs in the transfer of drug resistance and developed methodology for EV isolation and characterisation.
Dr Vella has held Post-Doctoral positions in The Department of Pathology at The University of Melbourne as a Viertel Foundation Research Fellow and The Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research at The Austin Hospital. She moved to The Neurotherapeutics Laboratory within The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health in 2015 and in 2019 was awarded an American Alzheimer’s Association Fellowship. She now leads The Extracellular Vesicle Laboratory at The Florey Institute where her team studies the function and biomarker potential of EVs in a range of neurological disorders.