SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD
Charles S. Craik, Ph.D., Chairman
Dr. Charles Craik is a Professor in the Departments of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, Cellular & Molecular Pharmacology and Biochemistry & Biophysics at the University of California at San Francisco. He is also the director of the Chemistry and Chemical Biology Graduate Program. He received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Columbia University in New York and carried out his postdoctoral research at UCSF with Dr. William Rutter. He joined the UCSF faculty in 1985 and has published over 200 research articles on various biochemical topics. He has co-authored two books, and served on advisory panels for the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the National Academy of Sciences and the Department of Energy. He has organized several international meetings on topics including Protein Engineering, Drug Discovery, and The Biology of Proteolysis. The current research in the Craik lab focuses on the chemical biology of proteolytic enzymes and their natural inhibitors. A particular emphasis of his work is on identifying the roles and regulating the activity of proteases associated with infectious diseases, cancer and development. These studies are providing a better understanding of both the chemical make-up and the biological importance of these critical proteins.
Shaun Coughlin, M.D., Ph.D.
Dr. Shaun Coughlin is the Professor of Medicine, Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, and Director of the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California at San Francisco. He received his undergraduate and graduate training at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. After internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, he moved to the University of California at San Francisco for Cardiology and postdoctural fellowships and joined the faculty there in 1986.
Dr. Coughlin's laboratory has made important contributions to our understanding of how thrombin and related proteases regulate the behavior of platelets and other cells. Thrombin, a protease that is generated when blood vessels are damaged, instructs blood cells called platelets to stick together. Platelet aggregates help stop blood loss after wounding, but they also block diseased blood vessels to cause heart attacks and strokes. In 1991, the Coughlin laboratory's landmark discovery of a thrombin receptor, now known as protease-activated receptor-1, provided the first real understanding of the molecular process by which thrombin, a protease, can regulate the behavior of platelets and other cells like hormones do. The laboratory's characterization of PAR1 and its subsequent discoveries of other members of the PAR family have led to a greater understanding of how cells sense and respond to tissue injury as well as insights into the development of blood vessels and the control of inflammatory signals. These findings have provided new strategies for the development of therapies against thrombotic diseases, including heart attack and stroke.
Robert J. Fletterick, Ph.D.
Professor J. Fletterick, Ph.D. is in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) where he has served as Chair and Vice Chair. He also holds a joint appointment with the Departments of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at UCSF. Professor Fletterick is a world-renowned researcher in the area of structural biology. His laboratory focuses on the determination of high-resolution X-ray crystal structures of proteases, nuclear receptors, molecular motors, clathrin and a variety of enzymes. He has determined structures for numerous human and parasitic proteases and protease inhibitors. Out of about three hundred papers, he has published 50 on protease structure and function. His work on glycogen phosphorylase revealed the first mechanism of phosphorylation control of protein function. Professor Fletterick’s laboratory solved the first structure of a nuclear receptor bound to its hormone ligand and the first structure of the molecular motor kinesin. He has advised the Taiwan Academica Sinica for five years. He served for six years on the science advisory board of Pacific Northwest Laboratories to establish The Environmental Molecular Sciences Laboratory, a U.S. Department of Energy national scientific user facility. In addition to his academic research, he helped launch Biosym Technologies (now part of Accelrys, a subsidiary of Pharmacopeia) and served on their scientific advisory board from 1990 to 1995. He was a member of the scientific advisory board of Corvas. He has also collaborated with and consulted for a variety of biotech and pharmaceutical companies including GlaxoSmithKline, Karo Bio, Monsanto, Searle, Pfizer, Pharmacia, SPRL and Takeda Pharmaceuticals. Professor Fletterick received his Ph.D. from Cornell University and did his postdoctoral research in molecular biophysics in the laboratory of Professor Thomas Steitz at Yale University.
David Ginsburg, M.D.
Dr. David Ginsburg is James V. Neel Distinguished University Professor of Internal Medicine and Human Genetics Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor of Medicine, and a member of the Life Sciences Institute at the University of Michigan Medical School. He received his B.A. degree in molecular biophysics and biochemistry from Yale University and his M.D. degree from Duke University School of Medicine. His postdoctoral clinical and research training was done at the Brigham and Women's Hospital and Children's Hospital, Harvard Medical School. Dr. Ginsburg is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and recipient of the E. Donnall Thomas Lecture and Prize from the American Society of Hematology, the Basic Research Prize from the American Heart Association, and the 2004 ASCI Award from the American Society of Clinical Investigation.
Dr. Ginsburg’s laboratory studies the components of the blood-clotting system and how disturbances in their function lead to human bleeding and blood-clotting disorders. The lab has studied the molecular basis of von Willebrand disease (VWD), the most common inherited bleeding disorder, and identified modifier genes that control the severity of VWD. The lab has also defined mutations in ADAMTS13, an enzyme that processes von Willebrand factor, as the cause of Thrombotic Thrombocytopenia Purpura. The lab is also searching for genetic modifiers of thrombotic diseases, including the common human mutation Factor V Leiden. Studies of the bleeding disease combined deficiency of factors V and VIII by the Ginsburg lab identified mutations in two genes that define a novel pathway for the transport of a select subset of proteins from the ER to the Golgi. Finally, the lab studies the plasminogen activation (PA) system, the central mechanism by which blood clots are broken down (fibrinolysis). Genetically engineered mice are being used to explore the role of the PA system in a variety of disease processes including pulmonary fibrosis, atherosclerosis and bacterial infection.
Guy Salvesen, Ph.D.
Dr. Guy S. Salvesen is a Professor in the NCI Cancer Center at the Burnham Institute for Medical Research. He is also Director of the Apoptosis and Cell Death Research Program.
Dr. Salvesen earned his Ph.D. in biochemistry from Cambridge University in 1980. He conducted postdoctoral research at Strangeways Laboratory and MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, followed by a stint as Assistant Biochemist at University of Georgia, 1985-1987. In 1987 he was appointed Assistant Medical Research Professor at Duke University, where he maintains an adjunct appointment as Assistant Professor of Pathology. Dr. Salvesen was recruited to the Burnham Institute for Medical Research in 1996 and holds an adjunct position as Professor of Pathology at the University of California, San Diego.
Dr. Salvesen's research focuses on the central role enzyme pathways play in the life and death of cells. When death pathways slow down in cells that are normally programmed to die, cancer results. Conversely, when death pathways become overactive in cells that are programmed to survive, degenerative disease occurs. Dr. Salvesen's laboratory focuses on understanding the fundamental molecular interactions that occur within these enzyme pathways. This knowledge is used to engineer synthetic compounds to stimulate cell destruction in cancer cells, or delay cell destruction in neurodegenerative diseases and stroke.
Gregory Stahl, Ph.D. F. A. H. A.
Dr. Gregory Stahl is the Paul Allen Professor of Anesthesia in the Center of Experimental Therapeutics and Reperfusion Injury (CETRI), Department of Anesthesiology, Perioperative and Pain Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital at the Harvard Medical School. He received his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Sciences at Juniata College and received his Ph.D. in Cardiovascular Physiology at Thomas Jefferson Medical School in 1988. He moved to the University of California at Davis for postdoctoral training in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine under Dr. John Longhurst. In 1994, he was recruited to Brigham and Women’s Hospital as co-founder of the CETRI. Dr. Stahl is an Established Investigator of the American Heart Association; has served on several study sections at the National Institutes of Health; published more than 100 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts and several patents.
Dr. Stahl’s laboratory investigates the role of the innate immune system in mediating inflammation, tissue injury and organ failure following ischemia and reperfusion. His laboratory’s current research focuses on the role of specific complement components and pathways involved in diabetes, myocardial ischemia, trauma, stroke and gastrointestinal diseases. His research has lead to several clinical trials and a recently approved complement inhibitor for clinical use. His research findings have changed the way scientists think about the innate immune system in disease.
Jim Wells, Ph.D.
Dr. Jim Wells is the Harry W. and Diana Hind Professor in the Departments of Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California at San Francisco. From 1998 to 2005 Dr. Wells was a co-founder, Director, President and CSO of Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, a drug discovery and development company using a novel site-directed drug discovery technology. Prior to Sunesis, he held the position of Staff Scientist at Genentech for 16 years where he helped build the Protein Engineering Department and developed technology for designing second-generation protein therapeutics. Dr. Wells' current research focuses on protease signaling pathways and site-directed chemical biology, a new field that systematically interrogates the roles of specific sites on proteins in cells using small molecules.
Dr. Wells received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Washington State University in 1979 and was a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Post-doctoral Fellow in the Biochemistry Department at Stanford University prior to joining Genentech in 1982. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and been named inventor on more than 60 patents issued or filed. He has won a number of research awards including, most recently, the Hans Neurath Award presented by the Protein Society in 2003, the Cutting Award Lecture at Stanford University in 2005 and the Perlman Lecture Award of the ACS Biotechnology Division in 2006. In 1999 he was elected Member to the National Academy of Sciences, USA.
