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Corporate
Sponsorship Co-Chair: Anneke Raney |
| Anneke is the Director of Virology at Ardea Biosciences, a San Diego biotechnology company focused on small-molecule therapeutics for the treatment of viral diseases, cancer and inflammatory diseases. Anneke leads the virology team in its efforts to develop new antiviral drugs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS, and works closely with the regulatory and clinical teams. Prior to the inception of Ardea in January 2007, Anneke was a project leader at Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, in Costa Mesa, CA, for the hepatitis B and hepatitis C virus programs. She developed the hepatitits B program and performed high-throughput screening and lead optimization of potent small molecule viral inhibitors, Anneke's postdoctoral work at The Scripps Research Institute focused on the transcriptional regulation of HBV, an extension of her graduate studies. Anneke earned a BA degree in biological science from Smith College, Northampton, MA and a PhD in virology from the University of Warwick, Coventry. UK. She is a member of the International Society for Antiviral Research. In her free time. Anneke enjoys music, ocean swimming amd SCUBA diving.
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Corporate Sponsorship Co-Chair: Erin Dunn |
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Erin Dunn received her B.S. from University of Washington in Seattle in
2002. Erin is presently pursuing a Ph.D. in Biology at UCSD where her
research focuses on the role of nuclear receptors in the initiation of
atherosclerosis. She is interested in pursuing a career in research
communications and fund-raising and is currently an intern in the
Development Office at Salk Institute. An AWIS-SD member since 2007, she
has served the Public Relations and Newsletter committees and is currently
co-chair of the Corporate Sponsorship committee.
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Events
Co-Chair: Kristine Briedis |
| Kristine Briedis received her Ph.D. in Bioinformatics from the University of California, San Diego in 2008.
Her doctoral research in the laboratory of Dr. Philip Bourne focused on the evolution of protein kinase and phosphatase families throughout the different superkingdoms of life.
In 2001, she graduated from Iowa State University with a BS in Genetics.
Kristine is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at UCSD.
She has been a member of AWIS San Diego since 2006 and is co-chair of the Events Committee.
Contact Kristine by clicking here.
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Events Co-Chair: Monica Brown |
Monica graduated with a B.S. from Duke University and a Ph.D. in
Neurosciences from the University of California, San Diego. She currently
crystallizes and solves the structures of membrane proteins as a
postdoctoral researcher at The Scripps Research Institute, where she is also
involved with the Scripps Society of Fellows postdoctoral association. When
not in lab, she can be found playing in the mountains, practicing yoga, or
exploring new cuisines in her kitchen. She has been active in AWIS and the
Events Committee since 2009. To contact this events committee co-chair
please click here to email.
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2009 WIST Co-Chair: Jenny Chaplin |
| Jenny Chaplin received her education at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. She has held positions in biotech both in South Africa and locally. Currently Jenny is an Associate Director at Vical, where she is active in project management. She has held positions in various AWIS-SD committees since joining in 2003, including Corporate Sponsorship and PR and was co-chair for the WIB 2007 Speakers Committee. For the last 2 years, she has been Secretary of the AWIS-SD Board. Email her by
clicking here. |
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2009 WIST Co-Chair: Rachel Soloff, Ph.D. |
| Rachel Soloff received her B.A. in Biology from Austin College in Sherman, Texas and her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the Louisiana Health Science Center, Shreveport, LA in 1995. Her thesis research focused on the pre-thymic development of T lymphocytes. Rachel moved to San Diego to do a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Diego with Stephen Hedrick, Ph.D., where she worked on signaling during T cell development. She is currently Immunology Group Leader at Kirin Pharma USA, Inc., a subsidiary of Kirin Pharma Co., Ltd. whose main focus is the development of novel antibody therapeutics for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases. Rachel is a member of the American Association of Immunologists. She has been a member of AWIS-SD since 2000 and served on the WIB 2005 and 2007 organizing committees as a member then Chair of the Publications Committee. Email |
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Job
Board Manager and Corporate Sponsorship Co-Chair: Lili Chen, Ph.D. |
| Lili is a DoD Prostate Cancer Research Fellow at Burnham Institute for Medical Research. She is interested in understanding intricate cell death regulation mechanisms and how to apply the acquired knowledge to combat diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. She earned her B.S. in Biochemistry from Jilin University, China, and her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from University of California, Davis. She conducted her first postdoctoral research on studies of genomic regulatory networks underlying sea urchin embryonic development at California Institute of Technology. While working at Caltech, she realized that “having a PhD” is not enough, and started to be actively involved in the career development committee at Caltech Postdoctoral Association. She is the chair of career development committee of Burnham Science Network
(Burnham’s postdoctoral association). She is also an active member of Sino-American Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Professional Association. Lili joined AWIS in 2005 and served on the sponsorship committee for Women in Biosciences conference 2007. As the job board manager, Lili coordinates communication with local companies that would like to post career opportunities through the AWIS Job Board. If you would
like to post a job on the AWIS Job Board you may visit http://awis.npaci.edu/jobs/jobs_employer2.html or email her |
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Newsletter
Co-Chair: Mindy Davis |
| Mindy I. Davis received her B.S. in Chemistry from MIT and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford, where her projects involved studying the structure/function relationships of metalloproteins. Her undergraduate summers were spent working at Unilever and Kodak. As a DOD Prostate Cancer Postdoctoral Fellow at Caltech, Mindy switched gears to learn structural biology and solved the first crystal structure of the drug target prostate specific membrane antigen (PSMA). She moved to San Diego to work for Ambit Biosciences in 2005 and has seen the company triple in size since then. She wears many hats at Ambit as a Senior Research Scientist and works on assay development to grow their kinase screening platform in addition to being a project team leader for one of their new therapeutic areas. Mindy was actively involved in AWIS as a graduate student and joined the local AWIS section shortly after moving to San Diego. After the AWIS Open House in 2008, she rekindled her joy of writing and joined the Newsletter Committee where she currently is Co-chair. Email. |
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Newsletter
Co-Chair: Alka Malhotra |
| Alka received her BA in Biology from Knox College and her PhD in Human Genetics from the University of Utah. Her graduate work focused on application of genetic epidemiology methods to analyze quantitative traits. Upon graduation, she joined the Translational Genomics Research Institute in Phoenix studying diabetes and lipid traits. She is currently a Staff Scientist at the National Institute of Diabetes & Digestive & Kidney Diseases. Alka has been active with AWIS-SD since 2009. To email Alka click here. |
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Outreach
Co-Chair: Diane Retallack |
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Diane has been a member of AWIS San Diego chapter and involved in outreach since 2002. She is also active in outreach events through Biocom. Diane graduated from Widener University in 1990 with a B.S. in biology, then went on to the University of Michigan where she earned a Ph.D. from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology studying gene regulation in E. coli. During her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Diane investigated genes involved in the pathogenesis of the fungus Histoplasma capsulatum. Diane is currently Director of Molecular Biology at Pfenex Inc.,a leading biotechnology company focused on recombinant protein expression for a broad range of applications including therapeutic proteins, vaccines, research, reagents and biosimilars. Click here to email Diane.
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Outreach
Co-Chair: Jeannine Stuzka |
| Jeannine was
always curious as a young girl, and discovered how to channel that curiosity
as an undergraduate at the University of Albany, SUNY in the laboratory
of Jacquelyn Fetrow. Her undergraduate research project was to model and
analyze the structure of SSAP, a DNA binding protein. After earning her
B.S. in Biology in 1996, she attended Albany Medical College, to pursue
an M.S. degree in the laboratory of Michelle Lennartz. For her thesis, she
came out from behind the computer and went to the bench to study signal
transduction during IgG-Mediated Phagocytosis. After earning her M.S. in
1998, Jeannine packed up herself, and her cat, and moved cross-country to
be the first employee at a San Diego Biotech start-up. Since then, she has
adopted a second cat, worked as a teacher, and an Application Scientist
at a second San Diego Biotech Start-up. It was in 2004 that she became an
active member of the AWIS Outreach Committee, using her passion for science
to show other curious girls how to channel their talents.
Click here to email her. |
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Outreach
Co-Chair: Carmen L. Vélez |
| Carmen L. Vélez received her undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the University of Puerto Rico, Río Piedras Campus and her master’s degree from UC San Diego in 2006. Currently she is a Ph.D candidate at UCSD studying the fundamentals of carbon-sulfur activation in sulfoxides and reactivity of late metal metallacyclobutenes. In 2008, she became a member of AWIS and shortly she joined the AWIS Outreach Committee. On her free time, she enjoys hiking, cooking, and gardening.
Click here to email her. |
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Public
Relations Co-Chair: Erica Stone |
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Erica Stone is currently a PhD Candidate in the Division of Biological Sciences at UC San Diego.
She studies glycobiology using the mouse as a model system.
Erica graduated summa cum laude with a B.S. in Biology and a concentration in Molecular, Cellular and Development Biology from the University of New Hampshire in 2003.
Before co-chairing the Public Relations Committee, Erica served on the Facilities Committee for the Women in Biosciences Conference in 2007.
She has also serves on the AWIS Scholarship Committee.
To contact the Public Relations committee
co-chairs, click here. |
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Public
Relations Co-Chair: Irene Ch'en |
| Irene Ch'en received her B.S. in biochemistry and cell biology and Ph.D. in
biology from UC San Diego. Her doctoral thesis focused on the role of
Caspase-8, a mediator of cell death, in the immune response. Irene has
continued in Stephen Hedrick's lab and her current research interests
involve the function of necroptosis and autophagy as mechanisms of cell
death in lymphocytes. She became a member of AWIS-SD in 2007 and enjoyed
working with the Speaker's Committee for WIST 2009. Irene is currently
co-chair of the PR Committee and serving on the 2010 AWIS-SD Gala and
Corporate Sponsorship Committees. To contact the Public
Relations committee co-chairs, click here. |
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Scholarship
Co-Chair and Chair of 2010 Gala Committee: Anita Iyer |
| Anita (Scholarship Committee, Facilities Committee, Co-chair Speakers Committee) received her B.A. in Biology and Music (piano performance) from Scripps College, Claremont, CA in 2001, and her Ph.D. in Human Genetics from UCLA in 2006. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher studying molecular neuroendocrinology in Dr. Pamela Mellon’s lab at UCSD. She is funded by an NIH National Research Service Award from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, was the winner of the 2008 Women in Endocrinology Young Investigator Award, and hopes to pursue a career in biotech after her postdoc. Anita has been an active member of AWIS-SD since 2007. She served on the 2008 AWIS-SD Gala Committee and was also involved in the AWIS “Dressing for Success” workshop as well as planning for the 2008 AWIS Open House. Outside of research and AWIS activities, Anita enjoys cooking, chamber music, and photography. She is currently co-chair of the AWIS scholarship committee. Click here
to email her regarding scholarship questions or here for Gala questions. |
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Scholarship Co-Chair: Cheryl Okumura |
Cheryl received her B.A. from Pomona College in 2000 and her Ph.D. from UCLA
in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics
in 2007. She is currently postdocing in the laboratory of Victor Nizet
at UCSD, studying bacterial pathogenesis. She is supported by funding
through an institutional research and academic career development
award (IRACDA) that combines biomedical research at UCSD with a
mentored teaching experience at San Diego State University. She has
been a member of AWIS since 2008. Click here
to email her. |
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Strategy
Sessions Co-Chair: Grace Nakayama |
| Grace Nakayama, Ph.D. has over 12 years R&D experience in the life sciences industry. Currently, she is managing two oncology programs in clinical development stages as a Program Manager at Biogen Idec. Previously, she led and contributed to early stage drug discovery projects as a Senior Principal Scientist at Pfizer La Jolla. She has also held a variety of positions at: BIOCOM, Kalypsys, Biofocus DPI (formerly IRORI), and Applied Molecular Evolution (formerly Ixsys). Grace received a B.S. in Applied Chemistry at Harvey Mudd College, Ph.D. in Bioorganic Chemistry under Peter G. Schultz at UC Berkeley, and postdoctoral training at SRI International. She has been a member of AWIS for over 10 years. Click here for information about Strategy
Sessions. Or, to email, click here. |
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Strategy
Sessions Co-Chair: Dorothy (Dody) Sears |
| Dorothy earned a B.S. at the University of Southern California in 1988 and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology & Genetics from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in 1994. Dorothy has been conducting research in the fields of insulin resistance and diabetes since 1995 and is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego. Dorothy also collaborates with and consults for several private research companies. She has been a San Diego AWIS member since 2001. Click here for information about Strategy
Sessions. Or, to email, click here. |
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Website
Co-Chair: Corine Lau |
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Corine Lau received her B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Washington, Seattle, and her Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her postdoctoral research with Dr. Douglass Forbes focused on understanding the mechanism of nuclear pore complex assembly in vertebrates. Corine joined AWIS and the Website Committee in November 2006. She served as the Co-Chair on the Website Committee for the WIST conference in 2009. She is looking for the right opportunity to transition into industry. Corine has two young daughters, and enjoys singing with a local womens' chorus and rockclimbing. Email.
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Website
Co-Chair: Lawrence Fourgeaud |
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After completing her PhD in neuroscience and pharmacology at the University
‘Victor Segalen Bordeaux 2’(France), Lawrence moved to San Diego in 2004 to
pursue her postdoctoral training. After finishing her first postdoc at UCSD,
she joined Dr. Greg Lemke’s lab at the Salk institute in 2009 where she is
currently investigating the role of a family of immune molecules in synaptic
plasticity and nervous system disorders. Lawrence has been a member of the
Website Committee since she joined AWIS-SD in 2007. She also served as a
member of the website committee for the AWIS-SD Women in Science and
Technology conference in 2009. Email.
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Updated
6/3/10 ba |