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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Maya Ivanjesku holds master’s degree in chemistry from Polytechnic University, Brooklyn NY (NYU).
One of her passions is creating and developing skincare products. Inspired at the very young age, Maya learned early on that using natural remedies is most effective way to skin longevity.
Her formulation career started at the Estée Lauder companies where she was part of elite team of scientists developing products for Origins, Clinique, Estée Lauder, La Mer, MAC. Over the last 30 years, Maya became a creative visionary, developed formulations for many brands such as TooFaced, Benefit Cosmetics, Laura Mercier, Urban Decay, NARS and Sephora Cosmetics.
Most recently, Maya developed and created one of the first probiotic skincare brands where she was able to incorporate live and active probiotic cultures within the products without the need of refrigeration. Ivanjesku received a patent for this technology.
As a Chief Scientific Officer at M2B Pharma Maya and her team recently launched BLT Numbing cream - a prescription strength numbing cream available without prescription.
Maya is an entrepreneur, consultant and has been speaking at numerous conferences and educational speeches at the prestige spa and esthetician events.
Prof. Arun Bhunia (BVSc, PhD) is a professor of food microbiology in the Department of Food Science at Purdue University and is affiliated with the Department of Comparative Pathobiology, Purdue Institute of Inflammation, Immunology and Infectious Disease (PI4D), and Purdue University Life Science (PULSe). His expertise includes microbial pathogenesis, probiotic bioengineering, and foodborne pathogen detection. He has co-authored 219 peer-reviewed research publications and 2 textbooks (Fundamental Food Microbiology; Foodborne Microbial Pathogens), edited 4 books, and delivered over 160 talks. He served in the USDA National Advisory Committee on Microbiological Criteria for Foods (NACMCF) and has received Purdue Agriculture Research Award, Purdue Faculty Scholar, IFT R&D Award, Outstanding Graduate Educator, Fulbright Specialist, Maurice Weber Laboratorian Award (IAFP) and elected Fellow of IAFP (2023). He serves as the Editor-in-Chief of Foods and an Associate Editor for Frontiers in Microbiology, PLoS One, Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems, and BMC Microbiology.
Ryan Toma is a research scientist at Viome, a data-driven precision nutrition company with the aim of revolutionizing healthcare from symptoms management to true preventative medicine. Ryan works on the product development and clinical research teams at Viome. He is responsible for the development of technologies that facilitate biomarker discovery as well as the implementation and execution of clinical research programs. Before joining Viome, Ryan worked in the Applied Genomics team at Los Alamos National Laboratory, which developed the core technology used by Viome today
Madeline Lauf is the founder and CEO of Begin Health, a toddler and kids’ nutrition health company focused on supporting and nourishing the gut microbiome. Madeline founded Begin Health to empower parents with the knowledge, products and tools to provide the best health beginnings for their kids — starting in the growing, little gut. Madeline is a graduate from the University of Chicago and hopes to help the next generation achieve independent health, through early interventions in gut microbiota composition.
Larry Weiss is the CEO and Founder of Weiss Bioscience, Inc., a San Franciscobased microbiome research and development company and the manufacturer of Symbiome Skincare products.
Sandrine Miller-Montgomery, Pharm.D, Ph.D. is the Co-Founder, President and CEO of Micronoma, the first cancer-detection company using liquid biopsy technology to detect and predict cancer at an early stage of the disease by analyzing the microbial signal with clinical-grade accuracy. Prior to this, she was executive director of UC San Diego’s Center for Microbiome Innovation that she co-led with Dr. Rob Knight. Before her time in academia, she had worked in large biotech and multinational companies as well as start-ups where she excelled at preparing companies for successful exits as shown by her work at Helixis, acquired by Illumina, and MO BIO Labs acquired by QIAGEN.
Dana has been using flow cytometry as a tool in cancer research and autoimmune disease for over 30 years. She develops and runs cell-based assays as a CRO to give companies access to high complexity flow cytometry. Dana also teaches flow cytometry to scientists around the world. For the past 8 years, she has been developing flow cytometry-based microbial assays as an improved alternative to CFUs. These assays include enumeration and health evaluation of probiotics at many different stages of development.
