Our Team

Team

Executive Team

Russell J. Howard, PhD.
Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Howard is an experienced CEO who has led several successful life-sciences and biotechnology companies, both private and public. Most recently, Russell served as CEO of Maxygen Inc, a publically traded company he founded and led through its IPO (NASDAQ; MAXY), many corporate partnerships, and sale of spin-off companies. While he was CEO at Maxygen, the company raised over $700M in investment and $100M in Federal funds. At Maxygen Dr. Howard created and spun out the biofuels company Codexis and served on its Board of Directors until 2009. Codexis went public in 2010 (NASDAQ: CDXS). Previously Russell served as President and Scientific Director of Affymax Inc.. Dr. Howard has published over 140 peer-reviewed scientific publications, is the recipient of numerous awards and honors and serves on the board of several companies and foundations in the U.S. and overseas.

Brian Sefton, MBA.
President / Chief Technology Officer

Brian is an experienced serial entrepreneur who has established and led several companies in diverse industries, from drug discovery to software development. Brian brings multidisciplinary experience and an intense focus on intellectual property creation and product generation. As our lead inventor and system architect, Mr. Sefton has filed multiple patents in the field and leads research and product development activities.

Pierre Pujol, MSc., MBA.
Chief Business Officer/Chief Financial Officer

Pierre brings to Oakbio more than 20 years experience in business venture development, product commercialization, product portfolio management, sales operations and financial planning. Pierrebegan in sales management for a division of Aventis Group, and became Asia-Pacific co-director and general manager for the company’s China operations. Following an MBA at INSEAD, he took a position of Business Development & Strategic Planning Director at Chiron Corp. in Emeryville, CA before joining GlaxoWellcome PLC, London, where he was a senior director of Business & Commercial Analysis for several Therapy Areas, and later promoted to ‘Head, Portfolio Analysis Group’, where he set-up and managed the process reviewing key go/no-go decisions for the R&D portfolio. His love of California brought him back to the Bay Area in 2000 as VP, corporate business development at Maxygen Inc., before he turned to focus on start-ups and pre-IPO companies through investment, partnership and consulting with several Bay Area companies including Eos Therapeutics, Emiliem Inc. and Partner Vision Ventures.

Advisory Board & Collaborators

Oliver Fiehn PhD.
Professor, Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, College of Biological Sciences, UC Davis, CA; Director, Metabolomics Core Facility, UC Davis Genome Center

Oliver Fiehn, PhD. is a world expert in “metabolomics”, the science of identification and measurement of all the compounds in cell metabolism. From understanding cellular metabolic pathways, and comparing these pathways in different conditions, one can explore the fundamentals of cell function and physiology. His group works with animal, plant and bacterial cells studied in various conditions of health and disease. Dr. Fiehn’s group is expert in chemical analytics, especially application of mass spectrometry methods to metabolite analysis. His group works with several bioinformatics approaches to capture and analyze vast amounts of chemical and metabolic data.

Gordon Ringold, PhD.
Chairman and CEO of Alavita Pharmaceuticals; Senior Director UC Santa Cruz Initiatives in Silicon Valley;

Dr. Ringold has nearly 30 years of experience managing the discovery and development of pharmaceuticals and novel life-science technologies. At Stanford University School of Medicine his research included developing novel methods to produce recombinant protein therapeutics. Later he was head of the Institute of Cancer and Developmental Biology at Syntex Research. Subsequently Dr. Ringold served as CEO and scientific director of the Affymax Research Institute, where he managed the development of novel technologies to accelerate the pace of drug discovery. He has cofounded several biotechnology companies, including SurroMed, Maxygen, Alexza Pharmaceuticals, and Alavita Pharmaceuticals. He served as chairman and CEO of SurroMed from 2000 to 2005, and he currently serves on the boards of directors of Maxygen, Alexza, and 3V Pharmaceuticals.

Alfred Spormann, PhD.
Professor, Departments of Chemical Engineering and of Civil and Environmental Engineering, James H. Clark Center for Biomedical Engineering and Sciences, Stanford University, CA.

Dr. Spormann is a leading authority on microbial metabolism and physiology. Over the last 20 years his group has made seminal contributions on the biochemistry and physiology of anaerobic hydrocarbon degradation (alky-benzenes) and reductive dehalogenation of chlorinated ethenes (vinyl chloride, trichloroethene). He has substantial expertise in isolating and experimenting with oxygen-sensitive enzymes, such as hydrogenases, carbon monoxide dehydrogenase, benzylsuccinate synthase, ethylbenzene dehydrogenase and vinyl chloride reductase. His group has extensive experience in microbial genetics, microbial physiology and heterologous expression of proteins. Over the last 10 yr. his group has been working with dissimilatory Fe(III)-reducing bacteria (Shewanella oneidensis) investigating molecular mechanisms of biofilm formation and electron transport pathways for reduction of insoluble mineral-phase electron acceptors and electrodes.

F. Robert Tabita PhD.
Ohio Eminent Scholar and Professor of Microbiology, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.

Dr. Tabita is a leading international expert on the biochemistry and molecular biology of carbon dioxide assimilation by microorganisms. For over 30 years, and with over 200 publications, his group has made seminal contributions towards understanding the molecular basis by which requisite genes involved with CO2 fixation are controlled. Dr. Tabita and his group have pioneered efforts to understand the structure and function of key catalysts involved in carbon assimilation, particularly the enzyme RubisCO. Dr. Tabita’s group discovered and characterized the various distinct types of RubisCO found in Nature. His laboratory initiated studies to use microbial RubisCO proteins to probe the catalytic mechanism and elucidate many aspects of catalysis, including studies to improve the efficiency of RubisCO. Molecular regulation studies led to the role of various transcription factors important in CO2 fixation gene expression and indicated that unique regulatory protein complexes are important and function to maximize CO2 fixation. More recently, Dr. Tabita and his colleagues have undertaken studies to use their knowledge and expertise on CO2 fixation to enable both aerobic and anaerobic bacteria to convert CO2 to value-added products and biofuels.

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