Clinical Advisors
William Claypool, MD
Dr. Claypool has been a Senior Partner at Pennmark Associates, LLC, a pharmaceutical development consulting firm, since October 2008. Prior to that, Dr. Claypool served as President, CEO and Chairman of Phoenix Data Systems Inc. from January 2001 until it was acquired by Bio-Imaging Technologies Inc. in March 2008. From January 2001 until June 2001, he served as President and CEO of The GI Company. From 1991 to 2001 Dr. Claypool held a number of senior management positions with SmithKline Beecham Pharmaceuticals, including Senior Vice President and Director of Worldwide Clinical Development and Medical Affairs. Dr. Claypool has served as a director of ViroPharma since 2003 and he serves on their compensation committee. He has been a director of Cipher Pharmaceuticals since 2010 and he serves on their audit, compensation, and governance committees. He was a director at Morphotek prior to its sale to Eisai Pharmaceuticals. He was also a board member of 3 Dimensional Pharmaceuticals prior to its sale to Johnson & Johnson. Dr. Claypool received his undergraduate degree from the University of Notre Dame, his medical degree from the University of Connecticut School of Medicine, and his residency training at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
Andrew Godwin, PhD
Dr. Godwin is the Associate Director of Translational Research at The University of Kansas Cancer Center as well as a professor of pathology and laboratory medicine and director of molecular oncology at the University of Kansas Medical Center. He is a KBA Eminent Scholar and holds the Chancellors Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Sciences endowed professorship. A leading scientist in the field of personalized medicine and drug development, Dr. Godwin had previously spent over 20 years at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, Pa., where he was the director of the Clinical Molecular Genetics Laboratory, the co-leader of the Women's Cancer Program, and the initiator and director of one of the country's top biospecimen repositories. His specialty is developing tests to determine whether a drug will work on a particular patient or tumor. For example, Dr. Godwin's lab helped to establish the K-RAS test for colon cancer. Dr. Godwin earned his bachelor of science degree in cellular biology from the University of Kansas and a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Pennsylvania.
Myla Lai-Goldman, MD
Dr. Lai-Goldman is founder and Managing Partner of Personalized Science LLC, a consulting company whose mission is to assist its customers to achieve successful adoption of innovative diagnostics with actionable results for patients' unmet medical needs. From 2009-2010, Dr. Lai-Goldman was Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer of CancerGuide Diagnostics, Inc., a life science company focused on the development and commercialization of genomic-based clinical and pharmaceutical cancer tests and services. Prior to that,Dr. Lai-Goldman was Executive Vice President, Chief Medical Officer of Laboratory Corporation of America® Holdings (LabCorp®), where she managed LabCorp's National Office of Quality and Science. Dr. Lai-Goldman served as a member of LabCorp's Executive Committee from April 1998 until her retirement from the company in 2008. From 1998 until April 2008, Dr. Lai-Goldman also served as Chief Scientific Officer of the company, where she was responsible for R&D. Until 2006, she managed the operations of the Company's Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology in Research Triangle Park, NC; National Genetics Institute, Inc. in Los Angeles, CA; and ViroMed Laboratories, Inc. in Minneapolis, MN. Additionally, she held the position of Medical Director for the Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology from 1991 to 2005. Dr. Lai-Goldman earned an MD from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in New York, and completed postgraduate training in Internal Medicine at St Luke's Hospital in New York, anatomic and clinical pathology at the UCLA Center for Health Sciences, and hematopathology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is board-certified in anatomic and clinical pathology.
Peter O'Dwyer, MD
Dr. O'Dwyer is Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, and Director of the Developmental Therapeutics Program at the Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania. He is also Vice Chairman of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group and Co-Chair of the Gastrointestinal Committee. Prior to his appointment at Penn, Dr. O'Dwyer directed similar programs at Thomas Jefferson University Hospital and Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. Dr. O'Dwyer has more than 150 scientific papers in the medical literature, and has participated in numerous national and international committees. He received his medical degree at the University of Dublin in Ireland where he was awarded a foundation scholarship in medical sciences. He has completed residencies in both pediatrics and internal medicine, in addition to a fellowship in medical oncology at the University of Maryland, and was a Senior Investigator at the Investigational Drug Branch, Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program, at the National Cancer Institute. He is board-certified in the subspecialties of internal medicine, pediatrics and medical oncology, and has extensive clinical experience with the development of novel cancer therapies and prevention strategies. He is currently principal investigator of several NIH grants designed to study the effectiveness of various chemopreventive agents against cancer and to determine why some tumors fail to respond to chemotherapy.
Andrew Pecora, MD
Dr. Pecora currently serves as Vice President of Cancer Services and Chief Innovations Officer of the John Theurer Cancer Center at Hackensack University Medical Center and co-Managing Partner of the Northern New Jersey Cancer Center (NNJCC), which is a private physicians practice group affiliated with HUMC. Leading up to its merger with NeoStem, Dr. Pecora was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer for Progenitor Cell Therapy, a client-based cell therapy services company supporting the development and commercialization of cellular therapies. He is also the co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Amorcyte, Inc., a privately funded biotechnology company developing cell therapy products to treat cardiovascular disease. Dr. Pecora is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He has authored or co-authored numerous articles, abstracts, books, chapters and monographs and is a frequent lecturer in the field of cancer. He received his Bachelor of Science degree in Biology from Seton Hall University and his Medical Degree from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. He completed both his postdoctoral internship in internal medicine as well as his residency in the Department of Internal Medicine at The New York Hospital, and completed a fellowship in hematology-oncology at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.
Eric Rowinsky, MD
Dr. Rowinsky is currently an independent consultant focusing on cancer drug development and registration strategies and an Adjunct Professor of Medicine at New York University. Most recently, Dr. Rowinsky co-founded Primrose Therapeutics. Prior to that, Dr. Rowinsky was Executive Vice President, Clinical Development and Regulatory, and Chief Medical Officer of ImClone Systems, where he was responsible for clinical development, regulatory affairs, and medical affairs. Dr. Rowinsky was also a consultant to the ImClone-Lilly Oncology Business Unit following acquisition of ImClone by Eli Lilly until December 2010. Prior to joining ImClone in 2005, Dr. Rowinsky focused his academic efforts in cancer drug development as the Director of Clinical Research and later Director of the Institute for Drug Development of the Cancer Therapy and Research Center in San Antonio and the SBC Endowed Chair for Early Drug Development from 1996 to 2005. He was also Clinical Professor of Medicine in the Division of Medical Oncology at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio from 1996 to 2006. From 1987 to 1996, Dr. Rowinsky served as an Associate Professor of Oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He was a longstanding NCI principal investigator on U01 anticancer drug development grants and integrally involved in pivotal clinical and preclinical investigations which led to the development of paclitaxel, docetaxel, topotecan, irinotecan, erlotinib, gefitinib, sorafenib, panitumumab, and temsirolimus, among others. Dr. Rowinsky's honors include receipt of the career development award of the American Cancer Society and the 6th Annual Emil J. Freireich Award for outstanding achievement of a young researcher in clinical cancer therapeutics. He is Editor-in-Chief of Investigational New Drugs, Deputy Editor of Cancer Research and is on the editorial board of Clinical Cancer Research. Dr. Rowinsky received his B.A. degree from New York University and his M.D. from the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Following his residency in internal medicine at the University of California, he completed fellowship training in medical oncology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Rowinsky serves on the Board of Directors of Biogen-Idec, Neoprobe, DLVR, and Coronodo Pharmaceuticals, and served as a Director of Adventrix Pharmaceuticals.
Martin Tallman, MD
Martin S. Tallman is Chief of the Leukemia Service at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, New York. Dr. Tallman received his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan and his MD degree at The Chicago Medical School. He completed his internship, residency and chief residency at the Evanston Hospital of Northwestern University, and his fellowship in Hematology/Oncology at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle, Washington. He is Chair of the Leukemia Committee of the Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group. During his career he has contributed a large body of work to the literature addressing the biology and treatment of acute leukemias and other hematologic malignancies. Dr. Tallman is a member of numerous committees of national, regional, and international societies involved in the study and treatment of cancer. He serves on the AML and MDS Panels of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN). Dr. Tallman serves as an Associate Editor of the journal Blood and is also on the editorial boards of a variety of different scientific journals.