We have a core management team of executives and scientists, with a total of seventy years of pharmaceutical, biotechnology, scientific and financial management experience.
Malcolm Skolnick, PhD, JD – Chairman/President and CEO
Malcolm Skolnick received his Ph.D. in Physics from Cornell University and JD from the University of Houston Law Center. Prior to joining the CytoGenix, Dr. Skolnick held academic positions in the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and the School of Public Health of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. He is currently an Adjunct Professor in the School of Public Health where he formerly served as Professor of Technology and Health Law. Prior to joining the School of Public Health, Dr. Skolnick managed the Health Science Center's Office of Technology Management and oversaw the University's activities in protecting and licensing its patent portfolio of technology. While at UTHSC-H, Dr. Skolnick several clinical trials in pain management, smoking cessation and reduction of withdrawal symptoms in drug addiction. Dr. Skolnick is a registered patent attorney, patented inventor and licensed to practice law in the state of Texas. Dr. Skolnick has been active in patent prosecution and licensing for selected clients and has served as an expert witness in intellectual property, product liability, and accident reconstruction matters.
Greg S. Taylor, CPA – Vice President of Finance and Administration and CFO
Mr. Taylor has almost 20 years of investment banking, venture capital, corporate advisory and entrepreneurial experience and has completed over $2BB in transactions. He has also served in management positions as both a CEO and CFO. He was most recently Managing Director of Monterey Capital Partners, a private equity investment firm, for over ten years. Previously, he served as a Vice President with the investment banking division of Sumitomo Trust and Banking and with Bunker Hill Associates, a merchant-banking firm. Mr. Taylor began his career with Ernst and Whinney, a big eight accounting firm in Houston, Texas as a Certified Public Accountant.
Mr. Taylor has served on the board of directors of several private companies and charitable organizations. He has a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting and Finance from Baylor University and also a Masters of Taxation from Baylor University.
Yin Chen, PhD – Chief Scientific Officer & Vice-president of Research & Development
Dr. Chen earned this Ph.D. in Molecular Biology & Biochemistry from the University of Maine. Subsequently, he was a post-doctoral fellow at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. He was briefly employed by InGene, Inc. in Kansas City, MO as senior research scientist. In 2000, Dr. Chen joined CytoGenix as chief research scientist. He was promoted to the position of Vice President of Research & Development in 2001. Dr. Chen oversees the Research & Development team at the company and is the leading inventor of the company's proprietary technologies.
Pam Schertz, CPA – Controller
Pam Schertz has been appointed as interim Chief Financial Officer. Ms. Schertz has served the Company as Controller since 2003. Ms. Schertz received her BBA in Accounting from the University of Houston and is a licensed CPA in the State of Texas. After establishing her own practice offering consultant services as a CPA in October 2003, Cytogenix became her first client. Prior to working for Cytogenix, Ms. Schertz has over 15 years of experience in accounting in various industries, including a casket manufacturer, an independent power company, and an architecture firm. Management positions have included serving as Controller at a high-end clothier and at a civil engineering firm.
Cindee Ewell, PhD, JD – Vice President of Legal Affairs and Secretary
Dr. Ewell has been with CytoGenix since 2004 and is the Company's resident corporate and patent counsel. She received her law degree from South Texas College of Law, her bachelor's degree in Microbiology from Cornell University, and her doctorate in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She is a registered patent attorney and is licensed to practice law in the State of Texas. Her experience includes nearly eight years of research at Baylor College of Medicine, about four years of patent prosecution and freedom to operate experience in a large law firm environment, and several years of contract and corporate law experience. She entered the legal field in 1999 as a biotechnology technical advisor with a focus on intellectual property. She has since attained her law degree and has established herself as a patent and corporate attorney with a specialty in biotechnology.
Xin-Xing Tan, PhD - Senior Research Scientist
Dr. Tan earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Chinese Academy of Science, Shanghai, China. He was an NIH sponsored post-doctoral fellow at Rice University, Houston. He has authored or co-authored twenty scientific published papers. Dr. Tan joined CytoGenix in 2002, is co-inventor of an anti-bacterial technology developed in the Company's laboratory. Dr. Tan leads the Company's research efforts in the development of novel antimicrobial therapeutics.
Frederic Kendirgi, PhD – Senior Scientist
Dr. Kendirgi earned his M.Sc. in Virology and Immunology in 1995 from the University of Quebec/INRS-Institut Armand-Frappier, Canada, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology in 2000 from the University of Calgary, Canada. Following 4 years of postdoctoral studies in Cell biology at Washington University and Vanderbilt University, Dr. Kendirgi joined CytoGenix Research and Development team in October 2004. He is co-inventor of the synDNA™ technology and oversees manufacturing operations as well as the synDNA™ vaccine platform.
Harilyn McMicken, BS, MT(ASCP) – Senior Laboratory Director
Harilyn W. McMicken graduated from Abilene Christian University and University of Texas at Galveston. She has done postgraduate work at the University of Texas School for Biomedical Sciences in Houston, Texas. Prior to her employment, Ms McMicken was Senior Research Assistant for 23 years in the Department of Pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine. Her responsibilities and expertise lie in the areas of molecular biology and laboratory and personnel management.
Our Scientific Advisory Board is comprised of leading scientists and clinician authorities in the fields of dermatology, cancer research and gene therapy.
Yin Chen, PhD, Chairman of SAB
Dr. Chen is the Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President of Research and Development of CytoGenix, Inc. (see above).
Cy A. Stein, MD PhD
Dr. Stein is currently Professor of Medicine, Urology and Molecular Pharmacology in the Oncology Department of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York. In addition to his clinical (Director of Medical Genitourinary Oncology, Montefiore Medical Center) and faculty activities, he is co-editor-in-chief of Oligonucleotides, sits on six editorial advisory boards, including Clinical Cancer Research and Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, serves on eight scientific advisory boards, including Novosom (Halle, DE), ProNai (Kalamazoo, MI), SR Pharma (Berlin, DE) and Gentium (Como, IT) and is an ad hoc reviewer for over 20 peer reviewed journals. He has authored 115 peer reviewed journal articles. He has written 77 book chapters, reviews and editorials, and he holds eleven patents issued and one patent pending. He attended Brown University (BA), Stanford University (PhD in Organic Chemistry), Albert Einstein College of Medicine (MD), and New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center (Internship and Residency in Internal Medicine). Dr. Stein was a Clinical Associate and Senior Staff Fellow at The National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland.
Peter Glazer, MD, PhD
Dr. Glazer holds academic degrees from Harvard (BA), Oxford (MS), and Yale (Ph.D.) and a Medical Degree from Yale University School of Medicine where he is an Associate Professor of Therapeutic Radiology and Genetics.His research interests include gene targeting and gene therapy, genetic instability in cancer, mutagenesis, and DNA repair.
Madeleine Duvic, MD
Dr. Duvic is a Professor of Medicine Chief, Section of Dermatology, and Associate Medical Director of the Melanoma Skin Center at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Dr. Duvic received her B.A. from Rice University, magna cum laude, as a National Merit Scholar and her M.D. from Duke University Medical School.
Samuel Kaplan, Ph. D.
Dr. Kaplan is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Microbiology of the University of Texas, Houston Medical School. He is Chairman of the publications board of the American Society of Microbiology, the recipient of twelve honorary awards, has authored over 200 scientific papers. He earned his bachelor's degree from Cornell University, his masters from Yale and his doctorate from the University of California San Diego. He trained for two years at Cambridge University and joined the faculty of the University of Illinois-Urbana in 1967 where he later became the director of the Biotechnology Center. In 1989, he took the position of Chairman of the Department of Microbiology at the University of Texas Houston Medical School.
Richard Willson, PhD
Dr. Willson is a Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering at the University of Houston. Dr. Willson received his Ph.D in Chemical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1988, He joined the University of Houston as an assistant professor and promoted to full professor in 2003. Dr. Willson has published over 50 scientific papers in the field of biomolecular recognition and its applications in separations and molecular diagnotics. In addition, he also sits on editorial boards of several scientific journals such as Journal of Molecular Recognition, Journal of Biological Physics and Chemistry and Biotechnology and Applied Biochemistry. Dr. Willson is currently President of International Society for Molecular Recognition.
Malcolm Skolnick, PhD, JD – Chairman of the BOD, and is the President and Chief Executive Officer of CytoGenix, Inc. (see above).
Cy A. Stein, MD PhD is currently Professor of Medicine, Urology and Molecular Pharmacology in the Oncology Department of Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York. In addition to his clinical (Director of Medical Genitourinary Oncology, Montefiore Medical Center) and faculty activities, he is co-editor-in-chief of Oligonucleotides, sits on six editorial advisory boards, including Clinical Cancer Research and Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, serves on eight scientific advisory boards, including Novosom (Halle, DE), ProNai (Kalamazoo, MI), SR Pharma (Berlin, DE) and Gentium (Como, IT) and is an ad hoc reviewer for over 20 peer reviewed journals. He has authored 115 peer reviewed journal articles. He has written 77 book chapters, reviews and editorials, and he holds eleven patents issued and one patent pending. He attended Brown University (BA), Stanford University (PhD in Organic Chemistry), Albert Einstein College of Medicine (MD), and New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center (Internship and Residency in Internal Medicine). Dr Stein was a Clinical Associate and Senior Staff Fellow at The National Cancer Institute, Bethesda, Maryland.
Scott E. Parazynski M.D is a graduate of Stanford University and Stanford Medical School. He subsequently pursued clinical training at the Brigham and Women's Hospital (Boston, MA) and emergency medicine residency training in Denver, CO. While an undergraduate at Stanford University, Dr. Parazynski studied antigenic variation in African Sleeping Sickness, using sophisticated molecular biological techniques. He has numerous publications in the field of space physiology and has an expertise in human adaptation to stressful environments. Dr. Parazynski is a Fellow of the Aerospace Medical Association and a member of the American Society for Gravitational and Space Biology. He has received numerous special honors, including the National Institutes of Health Predoctoral Training Award in Cancer Biology, a NASA Graduate Student Researcher's Award and the Research Honors Award from Stanford Medical School. Dr. Parazynski has been an astronaut since 1992, and has logged over 6 weeks in space, including 20 hours of spacewalking. He is a recipient of 4 NASA Spaceflight Medals, 2 NASA Exceptional Service Medals, and the NASA Distinguished Service Medal.
John J. Rossi, PhD is Chairman and a Professor in the Division of Molecular Biology at the Beckman Research Institute of City of Hope. He first joined the City of Hope (COH) faculty in 1980 as an assistant research scientist in the Department of Molecular Genetics. He has been affiliated with multiple divisions and research centers in various leadership capacities within COH and has received multiple acclaimed awards. In 1993, COH bestowed its highest honor upon him by naming him to its Gallery of Medical and Scientific Achievement for his pioneering work at the molecular level in the battle against AIDS and other major diseases. Dr. Rossi is a world-renowned expert in ribozymes (molecular scissors). Dr. Rossi's major contributions to science have been related to understanding the processing and metabolism of RNA inside the cell. One of his most notable projects has involved the use of ribozymes in AIDS research and was involved with the first efforts to use ribozymes in the treatment of HIV. He is an inventor on multiple patents and an author of more than 120 scientific papers. Dr. Rossi received his bachelor's degree from the University of New Hampshire and his doctorate from the University of Connecticut, and worked as a postdoctoral fellow for four years at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.
Raymond L. Ocampo Jr. is a lawyer and businessman who currently serves on the boards of directors of PMI Group, Inc., Intraware, Inc. and Keynote Systems Inc. He previously served on the boards of directors of various public technology companies, including Vantive Corporation and VitalStream Holdings, Inc. Mr. Ocampo retired in November 1996 as Senior Vice President, General Counsel & Secretary at Oracle Corporation after serving as its chief legal counsel for more than a decade. Before joining Oracle Corporation in 1986, Mr. Ocampo was engaged in the private practice of law in San Francisco (1976-86) and was an adjunct professor at Hastings College of the Law (1977-83). He received his undergraduate degree form U.C.L.A. in 1973 and his law degree from Boalt Hall School of Law at U.C. Berkely in 1976. Mr. Ocampo authored Surfing the Law and Technology Tsunami (American Bar Association 2001), a collection of keynote addresses about the intersection of law, science and technology, and co-authored Negotiating and Drafting Software Consulting Agreements (Glasser LegalWorks 1996). Mr. Ocampo was the 2001-02 Chair of the American Bar Association's Section of Science & Technology Law. He co-founded the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology, which for the past decade has been rated the best intellectual property program in the country.
