Previous Speakers

Ken Blount

Ken Blount, PhD, is a seasoned director of collaborative research programs in biotech, pharma, clinical, and academic research settings, and his scientific expertise includes antibiotics discovery and development, fecal microbiome analysis, translational medical oncology, and RNA-targeting therapeutics. Prior to joining Rebiotix, Dr. Blount coordinated translational urologic oncology research for the Yale Cancer Center. Previously, he was a cofounder and the Director of Biology at BioRelix, a venture-backed Connecticut biotech that developed new antibiotics to target structured bacterial messenger RNAs. At BioRelix, Dr. Blount led a combined force of internal scientists and external resources that delivered development candidates for treating Clostridium difficile infections. Dr. Blount received his undergraduate degree in biochemistry from the University of Arkansas and earned a PhD in biochemistry from the University of Colorado Boulder, after which he completed an NIH post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California San Diego.

Trent Munro

Hervé Affagard

Nikole Kimes

Caroline Mitchell

Bharat Dixit

Ellen Turner

Hannah Wastyk

Sam Possemiers

Peter Nara

Dr. Nara is currently on of the co-founders, the Chief Scientific Officer and President Business Development for Keystone Bio Inc. in St. Louis, Mo., a Systemic-Oral Health Biomedical company that is targeting precision microbiome bio-therapeutics for the elimination of a specific oral bacterial associated with systemic inflammation. He is also the former co-founder, President, Chairman and CEO (1997-2017)and now Chairman Emeritus at Biological Mimetics, Inc. and cofounder of Lantern Pharma Inc. He holds a M.Sc. in Immuno-pharmacology, a combined Doctor of Veterinary Medicine and Ph.D. (retro-virology/oncogenesis) from The Ohio State University, 4 year combined residency in Comparative Pathology and NIH post-doctoral Fellowship at the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology and a NIH respectively. Dr. Nara currently holds the Endowed Eugene Lloyd Chair, Professor in Vaccinology, founding Center Director for the Center for Advanced Host Defense, Immunobiotics, and Translational Comparative Medicine in the Department of Biomedical Sciences, in the College of Veterinary Medicine at Iowa State University and also the Chief Executive Officer, President, Chairman & co-founder of Biological Mimetics, Inc.,. He is also an distinguished Alumni of The Ohio State University College of Veterinary Medicine 2014, and an elected Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2011. His comparative medical research interests are to more fully understand how early and pre-determined events in the host innate and acquired immune systems are sculpted and bias the development of protective long lasting responses against infectious pathogens and cancer. More importantly  he and his team are interested developing new technologies and strategies to circumvent the non-protective immune responses for the development of novel classes of immunobiotics and vaccines focused on the prevention of disease and are translating these into viably products via a new academic- private-commercial model. He has been and continues as National and International member of numerous programs at the National Academy of Science, Institutes of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, Department of Defense, and Centers for Disease Control AIDS, World Health Organization, United Nations Global AIDS Characterization program–related and infectious diseases national planning, human and animal agricultural biodefense, vaccine development & policy reporting meetings involving pathogenesis, vaccine discovery, standardization, correlates of protection committees and consults and serves on numerous scientific advisory boards of corporate, private foundations and academic initiatives in the area of national biodefense, comparative medicine and immunology, vaccine discovery and immuno-therapeutics and a recent member of the U.S. State Department Bio-Industry Initiative Program, The Civilian Research and Development Foundation (CDRF) and The International Science and Technology Center (ISTC) for non-proliferation of biological agents.

Gabriel Levanthal

Cassandra Isley

Becca Senter

Kyongsub Song

Russel Wyborski

Bob Hettich

Tagbo Niepa

Caleb Bell

Nik Sharma

Carole Schwintner

James Morton

Cheri Ackerman

Neil Stollman

Bernat Olle

Dr. Olle is a co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Vedanta Biosciences. He has been a member of the founding teams of several companies of the PureTech portfolio and served as a member of the Board of Directors of Vedanta Biosciences and Follica Biosciences.

In 2013 Dr. Olle was named "Innovator of the Year" in MIT Technology Review Spain's "Innovators under 35" awards. He completed his doctoral work at the Chemical Engineering Department at MIT, where he developed a novel method for large-scale bacterial culture. During his graduate work, Dr. Olle was awarded the "la Caixa" fellowship. Dr. Olle received his B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Universitat Rovira i Virgili, in the Republic of Catalonia, his M.S. and PhD. in Chemical Engineering Practice from MIT, and his M.B.A. from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He has published his work in journals including Nature and Nature Biotechnology.

Felix Faupel

Jason Ryan

Yvonne Nyavor

Melanie Eldridge