Maya Ivanjesku M.S. is a creative visionary, CSO and a formulation scientist at Dakota Biotech -The Live Probiotic Skincare company. With over 25 years of experience in developing products for the beauty industry, Maya is a formulation expert. Her career path started at Estee Lauder Companies where she was formulating products for Estee Lauder, Clinique, Origins, Bobby Brown, Aveda, LaMer etc. With her passion for science and nature, Maya also ventured into Biotech, OTC and topical Rx and Medical Device formulation and developed topical prescription formulas for numerous pharmaceutical companies. The diversity of her career path in formulating products, overseeing manufacturing, R&D and holding executive positions in numerous industries from cosmetic to pharmaceutical and biotech product launches, has lead Maya into an entrepreneurial opportunity at Dakota Biotech where LaFloreÒ Probiotic Skincare product line was born. Maya’s passion for wellness, education and helping people heal – naturally, is the main driver in developing performance focused products.
Bruce Topping is the Director of Product Development for Biome Research Probiotics. His experience as a National Educator for one of the largest supplement companies in the industry prepared him for stepping into the product development arena, where he is currently working on several clinical trials for Biome Research. Harnessing Bruce's vast knowledge from his 25 years in the Natural Products Industry, he will be presenting groundbreaking research on the probiotic delivery system called the MAKTrek 3D, which utilizes unique polysaccharide encapsulation and electrolyte hydration technologies. He will also discuss Flow Cytometry testing – the new benchmark for bacterial cell count.
Ph.D. founded Primal Health, LLC in 2017 to focus on improving the dental health of both humans and animals by producing oral microbiome modulation products. She has spent 12 years developing SMMRT technology at Primal Therapies, Inc., which is focused on using metabolic influencers to re-engineer disease-causing bacterial biofilms into those that are health-promoting, to decrease inflammation and to improve outcomes. Prior to that, she spent 7 years as a research fellow at Stanford University in Rheumatology and Immunology focused on the neuro-endocrine-immune axis in autoimmune and chronic inflammatory diseases. She holds a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of California at Berkeley where she studied inter- and intra-cellular signaling pathways involved in stress response and community development in bacteria and received her B.S. in Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Iowa where she studied the interaction between M. tuberculosis and innate immune cells.
Todd Krueger is the Chief Executive Officer, President and a Director of our Company. He is primarily responsible for the overall management, corporate development and strategic planning of our Company and has been with the company since 2015. Mr. Krueger graduated from Northwestern University, United States, with a Bachelor of Economics degree with Highest Distinction, and earned his Master of Business Administration degree from the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University, United States. In 1999, Mr. Krueger co-founded Fluidigm Corporation, which is principally engaged in the design, manufacture and sale of biological research equipment and is currently listed on NASDAQ (stock symbol FLDM), where he served as its chief financial officer and the vice-president of business development from 1999 to 2002, responsible for strategy development, finance, business development, and operations. From 2006 to 2013 he held various senior business development and strategy roles at Applied Biosystems Inc. and later Life Technologies Corporation (which was formed as a result of the merger between Applied Biosystems Inc. and Invitrogen Corporation in 2008)), where his last role was head of business development for molecular medicine. From 2013 to 2014, he was Chief Financial Officer of Claritas Genomics, Inc., a genetic diagnostics laboratory based in the United States, and from 2014 to 2015, he was the director of strategy and operations for the Broad Institute, a biomedical and genomic research center based in the United States. He was responsible for overseeing the commercialization of the genetics platform. Mr. Krueger also currently serves as a director of General Automation Laboratory Technologies, Inc. (GALT), a microbiome tools company based in the United States.
Allison followed her father in his original profession as a scientific innovator. Allison has been intrinsically involved in the family’s pharmaceutical business from a very young age and now, runs the company. As a trailblazer, Allison is always pushing to formulate products around new scientific discoveries. It was in developing a probiotic supplement line, that Allison devised the idea to develop a skincare system incorporating these powerful microorganisms. A Vanderbilt University graduate, Allison is an Atlanta native who is a thriving Southern businesswoman.
PhD is Associate Director of the Microbial Development Team at Takeda Pharmaceuticals. She leads a cross-functional Pharmaceutical Sciences team for Live Bacterial Products (LBPs) focused on treating dysbiosis of the gut microbiome. She also heads a functional line group that works on process development for microbial expression systems as well as LPBs. Prior to that she was Associate Director of Analytical Development and QC at Vedanta Biosciences, also working with LBPs, where she developed analytics in an uncertain regulatory landscape for a product now in Ph2 clinical trials. She was the Director of Microbiology R&D at Rapid Micro Biosystems, Inc., a company whose mission is to develop rapid microbiological techniques for pharma and food microbiology. And she also worked at Genomic Profiling Systems, a company whose mission was to develop rapid diagnostics for infectious disease. She received her Ph.D. from Stanford University, and her B.S. from MIT.
Julius Goepp is the founder and CEO of Scaled Microbiomics, LLC, a pre-clinical stage biotech company focused on passive immunotherapy in the microbiome. Dr. Goepp trained in Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at Children’s Hospital, Boston, and in Pediatric Infectious Disease at Johns Hopkins, where he was active in the promotion of Oral Rehydration Therapy for childhood diarrheal disease. In 2017, he founded Scaled Microbiomics after recognizing the potential for microbiome modulation through the use of little-known avian antibodies, or IgY. Since that time, his energies have been devoted to exploring the characteristics of those antibodies and developing a drug discovery platform based on their use as selective immunomodulators of complex microbiome signaling pathways and event cascades. In addition to his work, Goepp is passionate about cooking, flying, and exploring the outdoors.
After a fulfilling career as a partner, practice manager, and then President of East Coast operations for one of the largest real estate law firms in the country, Linda welcomed the new challenges that a start-up skincare company would provide. Many of the same administrative functions from the legal realm translated well over to BeBe & Bella, from the promotion of sales and organization of process to oversight of IT, contracts, NDA’s, marketing, and accounting departments. The new areas of e-commerce, graphics, packaging, forging partnerships with retailers, assisting in developing new products, expanding to out of country markets each bring new and exciting experiences which contribute to this being the perfect new career for Linda
Skyler Stein leads Gladskin, a biotechnology-driven skincare brand. Gladskin is a leader in global endolysin technology and uses its science to improve inflammatory skin conditions by rebalancing the skin microbiome. Throughout his career, Skyler has advised, invested in and developed businesses across technology-driven sectors. Most recently, at Obvious Ventures, a venture capital firm dedicated to startups that combine profit and purpose, Skyler focused on companies commercializing microbiome science to improve human health. While seeking investment opportunities in microbiome focused companies, Skyler met the European-based Gladskin team. Gladskin's endolysin technology developed by Micreos B.V. was the most impressive applied science in the space. This inspired Skyler to join the team to further build on Gladskin’s success in Europe and to make the products available to the millions of Americans with inflammatory skin conditions. Previously, Skyler was a Principal at Bregal Investments, a global private equity firm where he was on the board of various high growth portfolio
companies. Skyler has served as an Advisor to Clarity Genomics, which develops computational platforms to elucidate mechanisms of action for human - microbiome interactions. Skyler holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School and a B.A. from Duke University
Pharmacist by training, Petronille is Sequential Skin’s lead skincare director, focused on translating the latest in skin science to personalised skincare recommendations. She has over a decade in the industry, working with international brands to lead and consult on R&D, creative projects and brand innovation. Petronille also led her own award-winning dermocosmetic brand, Petronille Dermo Cosmetic, that produced customisable products for men and women. Petronille holds an MSc in Cosmetology Sciences and a professional doctorate in pharmacy (specialising in dermo-pharmacy) from Paris Descartes University. She has been working and living since 2009.
Nicole is a domain expert in the microbiome and data science who has spent the last 6 years in startups doing everything from marketing, business strategy, IP, data analysis, and fundraising. She studied at the University of Michigan and University of Chicago with Dr. Jack Gilbert, and was the first employee at Dr. Rob Knight’s microbiome startup Biota. She is cited more than 2000 times, published in prestigious journals such as Science and Nature, and is the author of several book chapters and patents. She also serves as an advisor to several other life science and biotech startups.
Yug Varma, PhD, is the cofounder and CEO of Phi Therapeutics, a venture-backed microbiome company focused on skin disorders based in San Francisco. He has an extensive background in bio-organic chemistry, microbiology, synthetic biology, and microbiome research. Yug received
his scientific training at several distinguished academic institutions, including Johns Hopkins University (PhD) and University of California, San Francisco
Serial Entrepreneur with international experiences in strategy and business development for added value products, having leadership credentials in new product development, global operations deployment and marketing & sales for sustainable growth. Most recently, co-founder of GNUbiotics Sciences, Swiss biotech start-up specialized in producing glycans to modulate the microbiome of humans and animals, naturally, with mission to improve health by unlocking the benefit of the microbiome.
The founder of Viome, Moon Express, InfoSpace, Intelius, Bluedot, TalentWise and other successful companies, Naveen Jain is an entrepreneur driven to solve the big problems facing today’s world. Moon Express is the only company in the world with permission to harvest resources from the moon—developing the infrastructure needed to push humanity forward towards a true multi-planetary society. Viome’s goal is to “make illness optional.” Having developed the worlds’ largest database of microbial gene expression, Viome is able to analyze gut microbiome and identify predictive markers of chronic diseases to inform personalized nutrition to prevent and reverse chronic diseases. As a vice chairman of the board at Singularity University, Naveen is focused on educating and inspiring leaders to address humanity’s greatest challenges by using and developing innovative technologies. A director of the board at the X PRIZE Foundation, Naveen uses incentive prizes to motivate competitors to find solutions to some of societies’ more challenging problems. Recently, he launched a million-dollar Women Safety XPRIZE dedicated to empowering women around the world.
Dr. Kathy Musa-Veloso, a Senior Director at Intertek Health Sciences Inc. plays an active role in the development of clinical trial protocols, as well as the preparation and stewardship of health claim applications in key markets globally, including North America, the European Union, Asia, and Australia/New Zealand. Dr. Musa-Veloso has published systematic, evidence-based reviews and meta-analyses on the efficacy of foods and food ingredients in improving health. She is a recognized expert on global scientific and regulatory requirements for health claim substantiation and has been invited as a guest speaker to several conferences and symposia, both domestically and internationally. Having completed a combined Honours B.Sc. degree in Kinesiology and Health Science at York University, Dr. Musa-Veloso went on to receive her M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the Department of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Toronto, where Dr. Musa-Veloso currently serves as an Adjunct Professor.
Dr. Scott Carter earned his PhD from North Carolina State University in Nutrition and Biotechnology with a focus on the production and application of enzymes to livestock diets to enhance utilization of feed, and his MBA from Washington University in Saint Louis. His career has been focused on the application of biotechnology to livestock production in order to sustainably enhance the health, wellbeing, and performance of animals. Dr. Carter believes the application of microbiome science to food and companion animal health is a vital emerging field that will help to solve many key
problems and he has extensive experience in the products that impact the microbiome of food and companion animals such as enzyme, probiotic, and prebiotic technologies.
Dr. Carter joined Phibro Animal Health as the Vice President of Microbials in February of 2020, with prior work experiences ranging from startups to large animal health and nutrition companies and roles from sales and marketing to R&D.
As a Director in the Market Access Team, Henrike is responsible for developing successful market access and reimbursement strategies, on behalf of her clients. She has particular expertise in early stage access work, having built up skills to help anticipate the constantly changing environment. She also has considerable experience of orphan medicines, multi-indication launches and medical devices.
Henrike brings to the role more than 10 years of expertise across HEOR, market access, pricing and forecasting, gained in different global Life Science consultancies as well as the financial sector. She is passionate about creating integrated access activities that bring together asset value, evidence and strategy.
Clara supports companies in the development and implementation of global regulatory strategies for evaluation and marketing of drugs, medical devices and combination products in particular. Clara’s role includes strategic positioning, roadmaps developments and preparation of technical files to support market authorization approvals in the EU and in the US.
Clara also has responsibility for nutraceutical products such as dietary supplements and foods for special medical purposes. She is in charge of the regulatory positioning of these products and their ingredients, and of their health claims development and substantiation.
Clara is an expert in a wide variety of health products and across different regulatory domains. She is responsible for building the Microbiome products regulatory expertise in both the medical and food
arena. She manages projects on microbiome-related technologies such as prebiotics, probiotics and postbiotics, for which she coordinates the regulatory, nonclinical, clinical and CMC related activities.
Tal Korem’s research program focuses on computational methods that identify and interpret host-microbiome interactions in various clinical settings, and specifically those related to women's health. He has developed several new approaches for microbiome data analysis, inferring microbial growth rates, structural variants, and microbiome-metabolite interactions; and has applied these method in diverse clinical and biological investigations, most notably for personalization of dietary treatment for normalizing glycemic responses. He is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Systems Biology and Obstetrics & Gynecology at Columbia University, and was named a CIFAR-Azrieli global scholar by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.
Jiri Snaidr is the founder and CEO of vermicon AG located in Munich/Germany. He is an experienced microbiologist and entrepreneur who received his PhD in the nineties from the Department of Microbiology at the Technical University of Munich/Germany. He has more than two decades of experience in the industrial microbiological market. His work dealt with the analysis of non-cultivable bacteria in complex biocenoses. He was a member of the original team which developed Fluorescence In Situ Hybridization (FISH) for rapid, specific and direct detection of microorganisms. vermicon AG is a provider of services and test kits for the fast and specific analysis of microorganisms directly in samples. Using alternative methods such as FISH, flow cytometry and microscopy, vermicon is able to identify and quantify viable bacteria in LBP during in-process and final process control, thereby supporting an efficient quality control. By using innovative technologies like FISH in microbiome samples, the company can also identify, quantify and visualize specific bacteria directly at their site of action.
