Scientific Advisory Board

Kai Johnsson is Full Professor at the Institute of Chemical Sciences and Engineering of the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) in Switzerland. His research interests are in the field of chemical biology. His past achievements include the development of approaches to specifically label proteins in living cells; among these SNAP-tag and CLIP-tag have become popular in the biological community. He also has developed methods for the identification of the protein targets of bioactive molecules, which resulted in the identification of tetrahydrobiopterin biosynthesis as the target of the popular anti-inflammatory drug sulfasalazine. Kai Johnsson is Associate Editor of ACS Chemical Biology, member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Science and member of the Research Council of the Swiss National Science Foundation. He is co-founder of several companies based on technologies developed in his laboratory. He received the Prix APLE for the invention of the year 2003 of EPFL, the Novartis Lectureship Award 2012/13 and is elected member of EMBO.

Clifford J. Woolf works on pain and the regeneration and degeneration of the nervous system. He was born in South Africa, where he earned his MD and PhD degrees. He moved to London in 1979 and became Professor of Neurobiology at University College London. In 1997 he was recruited by the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Harvard Medical School (HMS) to serve as the first Richard J. Kitz Professor of Anesthesiology Research at HMS. In 2007 he was appointed Principal Faculty Member of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and in 2010 was named director of the F. M. Kirby Neurobiology Center at Children’s Hospital Boston, and became Professor of Neurology and Neurobiology at HMS. Dr Woolf is deputy director of the Intellectual Developmental Disability Disorders Center at Boston Children’s Hospital and co-director of the neuroscience program of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute. Over his career Dr. Woolf has received many honors and prizes. Most recently he was awarded the Magnes medal in Israel (2013) and selected to deliver the FE Bennett Memorial Lecture by the American Neurological Association (2012). He was awarded a Javits Award from the NINDS at the NIH (2011), delivered the Schmidt lecture at MIT (2011), the Bonica Lecture for the International Society of the Study of Pain (2010), was Visiting Professor at Columbia University (2009) and received the Wall Medal from the Royal College of Anesthetists in the U.K (2009).

Samantha Budd Haeberlein is Vice President of Pain and Alzheimer’s disease Clinical Development at Biogen, Inc.  Previously, Samantha held senior roles across R&D at AstraZeneca in both Sweden and the US for 14 years. Most recently, Samantha was Vice President of Translational Science & Global Program Lead in Alzheimer’s disease where she helped build AstraZeneca’s Virtual R&D group and successfully led an Alzheimer’s project through to pivotal studies in the virtual setting.  Prior to that, Samantha was Head of the Neurology Disease Area Strategy at AstraZeneca, helping build capabilities, collaborations and develop multiple programs in MS, AD and PD, and was for 9 years a member of the Neuroscience Leadership team.

Samantha has led discovery, diagnostic and clinical development project teams out to Phase 3, seeing more than 20 candidate drugs through preclinical testing, and many into clinical testing. Passionate about using biomarkers to make decisions in early clinical development, in 2010 Samantha built and headed the first Translational Science function at AstraZeneca with the mandate to identify, develop and deliver suitable and timely segmentation, pharmacodynamic and efficacy biomarkers for CNS & pain projects to better inform and clarify decision making during early development and with the aim to improve probability of success in Phase 2 clinical studies. Samantha has a BSc and PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Dundee in Scotland, and conducted research at the Neurosurgery Department, Brigham & Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School in Boston, and The Center for Neuroscience Research at The Burnham Institute in San Diego.

Keith Channon is the Field Marshal Earl Alexander Professor of Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Oxford, and Honorary Consultant Cardiologist at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK.  He is Director of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust and the University of Oxford, and is Director of R&D for Oxford University Hospitals. He is an NIHR Senior Investigator, and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences.

Keith  is a clinician scientist, leading research that investigates the biology of cardiovascular disease and inflammation, particularly using genetic models, linking these with clinical and translational research in patients. A particular focus is the importance of redox signaling and therapeutic targets in the nitric oxide pathway.

Roy Freeman is Professor of Neurology at the Harvard Medical School and director of the Center for Autonomic and Peripheral Nerve Disorders in the Department of Neurology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. His research and clinical interests are the physiology and pathophysiology of the small nerve fibers and the autonomic nervous system. His research encompasses the neurological complications of diabetes; neuropathic pain; the autonomic complications of Parkinson’s disease and multiple system atrophy; and the diagnosis and treatment of autonomic and peripheral nervous system disorders. He has a special interest in clinical trial design in neuropathic pain in diabetic peripheral neuropathy and other peripheral nerve disorders. He has been principal investigator on many neuropathic pain clinical trials. He is the principal investigator on National Institutes of Health-funded studies on the neurological complications of diabetes and the treatment of immune-mediated autonomic neuropathy. Dr. Freeman is also chairman of the World Federation of Neurology research group on the autonomic nervous system. He is Editor of Autonomic Neuroscience: Basic and Clinical and on the editorial boards of The Clinical Journal of Pain and Clinical Autonomic Research.

Richard Hargreaves is Vice President of Discovery Sciences and Head of Biomarker Research at Biogen, Inc.  Richard has broad drug discovery, development and registration experience as a senior executive in pharmaceutical R&D. He was Vice President of World-wide Imaging and Worldwide Discovery Head for Neuroscience at Merck Research Laboratories where he had overall responsibility for strategic and scientific direction including external scientific affairs, licensing and academic collaborations for the neuroscience drug discovery pipeline. Richard led programs that advanced novel PET and drug candidates to the clinic for Alzheimer’s disease, cognition, schizophrenia, migraine headache, pain and circadian disorders. In addition, he was a core member of the global scientific strategy team that prioritized programs and investments across all therapeutic areas in the MRL discovery and development portfolio. While at Merck, Richard led the discovery teams that contributed to the development and registration of MAXALT® (rizatriptan) for migraine, EMEND® (aprepitant) and IVEMEND® (fosaprepitant) for chemotherapy-induced nausea and vomiting, and Belcomra ® (suvorexant) for insomnia.

Richard has published extensively in peer-reviewed scientific journals on neuroscience drug discovery, translational biomarkers and the use of biomedical imaging in drug discovery and development. He received the Gary Neil Award for “Innovation in Drug Development” by the American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics for his work on imaging in drug discovery and development and the first Sir James Black Award for Drug Discovery by the British Pharmacological Society.

David Reynolds is Vice President and Site Head of Neusentis, the pain, sensory disorders and regenerative medicine research unit of Pfizer, based in Cambridge, UK. He is also a member of the Pfizer UK Board. Externally, David represents Pfizer at the Research Directors Group at EFPIA (European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations), with a key role in oversight of the Innovative Medicines Initiative – the large private public partnership between the pharmaceutical industry and the European Commission. David is a member of the UK’s Medical Research Council Neuroscience and Mental Health Board and also a scientific advisor for Quartet Medicine, a pain-focused biotech company in Cambridge, USA. Previously, he co-chaired both the EFPIA committee and the UK Bioscience Coalition focused on policy work to appropriately update European legislation covering animal experimentation.

David has previously led partner line support functions and licensing activities within Neusentis. Before that he led the Internal Medicine Research Unit and the Biomarkers Department for Pfizer at their R&D site in Sandwich, UK.  He is an in vivo expert who has run teams in Sexual Health & Urology at Pfizer and Neuroscience at Lundbeck (Copenhagen, Denmark) and Merck Sharp & Dohme (Harlow, UK). David holds a BA in Natural Sciences and a PhD in Neuropharmacology, both from the University of Cambridge.