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.
Dr. Kyle, a 35-year veteran of biotechnology has co-founded biotech companies in the field of infant nutrition including Martek Biosciences. At Martek, he led R&D and Commercial Development for over 15 years and today Martek’s DHA and ARA are now found in virtually every infant formula around the world. In 2000 he co-founded the US Chapter of the Mother and Child Foundation, an organization headquartered in London dedicated to better health of pregnant women and their children through better nutrition. In 2013, David joined Evolve BioSystems as CEO and led the Company through several private equity financings and became Chairman of the Board in 2017. David combines a distinguished scientific background with commercial acumen, has published over 70 scientific articles, edited two books, is the named inventor on over 200 patents, and was inducted into the US Technology Hall of Fame in 2009, for his contributions to Science and Industry.
Will is currently working as Vice President - Japan, Geo Head - West Region USA, MarketsandMarkets™. He has an extensive experience of over 30 years.
Will is an expert at driving the team and processes to create superior revenue and profits. Accomplished executive that is both passionate and visionary about putting customers first while delivering excellent operational and financial results.
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.
Michael Bush is the president and CEO of prebiotic manufacturer, Prenexus health. Previously Michael was the president and CEO of the leading probiotic manufacturer, Ganeden, which was sold to Kerry in 2017. Michael is also a board member for several for and not-for-profit organizations, including Executive Board Member of the International Probiotics Association (IPA).
Ellie’s patent-pending Skin Probiotics was born from her young children’s eczema and milk allergies. As a trained scientist and attorney, she wanted to identify the root cause to these problems and find natural solutions without subjecting her children to strict diets and uncomfortable treatments.
After 9 years of research and running a raw dairy farm in Texas, Ellie’s husband and herslef unraveled the root causes of most modern ailments and discovered how to restore the body’s ability to function properly without the need for conventional or alternative treatments. A healthy body requires a balance of hydration, mineral salt, traditional nutrition, emotional wellness and… BENEFICIAL BACTERIA.
Seth Crosby is the Director of Science Collaboration in the Department of Genetics at Washington University. Crosby works with groups within and outside the University to leverage technology to achieve research and clinical goals. He has been at Washington University for 16 years. During that time, he directed the Department of Genetics Microarray Core, which is now part of GTAC and then GTAC, itself, during its first two years. Prior to that he was the Director of Translational Research at the Genome Center (now the McDonnell Genome Institute). Prior to his tenure at Washington University, Dr. Crosby worked in the field of genomics and drug discovery at Abbott Laboratories, Pfizer and Pharmacia.
Dr. Kyle, a 35-year veteran of biotechnology has co-founded biotech companies in the field of infant nutrition including Martek Biosciences. At Martek, he led R&D and Commercial Development for over 15 years and today Martek’s DHA and ARA are now found in virtually every infant formula around the world. In 2000 he co-founded the US Chapter of the Mother and Child Foundation, an organization headquartered in London dedicated to better health of pregnant women and their children through better nutrition. In 2013, David joined Evolve BioSystems as CEO and led the Company through several private equity financings and became Chairman of the Board in 2017. David combines a distinguished scientific background with commercial acumen, has published over 70 scientific articles, edited two books, is the named inventor on over 200 patents, and was inducted into the US Technology Hall of Fame in 2009, for his contributions to Science and Industry.
Dr. Chris Callewaert holds two masters and a PhD from Ghent University, Belgium. Now he is a postdoctoral research fellow of the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO) at Ghent University, Belgium and postdoctoral research associate in the Rob Knight lab at University of California, San Diego, USA. He studies the skin microbiome and metabolome in health and disease and is specialized in body odor in relation to the microbiome. He is the first one to try to solve body odor by replacing bacteria of smelly people with those of non-smelly people. He has conducted several clinical trials in this area. His research led to multiple peer-reviewed publications and was presented at several national and international conferences. He presented a TED talk and results of his research can be found on www.DrArmpit.com.
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.
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.
Leveraging 20+ years of experience, Jennie leads sales, marketing and business development at BioForm Solutions. Jennie is a lawyer and practiced law with two mid-sized firms before leading sales and product marketing teams in technology, healthcare and biotech companies. Jennie has a BA from Northwestern University, MA from the University of Illinois, and a JD from Washington University in St. Louis.
Chris Ellis is a senior staff scientist Oak Ridge National Laboratory and executive director of the Microbiome of Idiopathic Neurodegenerative Diseases (MIND) consortium. Chris has pioneered a number of new methodologies in microbiome research including developing the first tools to explore the eukariome with next generation sequencing. As a computational microbiologist he is focused on devolving computational tools coupled new wet lab methodologies to explore the functional role of the microbiome in neurodegenerative disease and cancer. Currently, he is leading a multi-institutional effort called the MIND consortium to explore the role of the microbiome in the onset and progression Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, and ALS. His lab is applying machine learning and explainable AI in these diseases to better understand the causative agents of neurodegenerative disease.
Peter Leighton is the CEO of ProSperity Bioscience, engaged in the development and marketing of functionally targeted probiotic consumer products. Leighton is also the founder of Abunda, an integrated consulting practice. His 30+ years of executive experience at the intersection of consumer products and life science technology has leveraged emerging scientific research & discovery into engaging consumer brands. He has identified and executed novel marketing & commercialization strategies leading to the successful development and launch of hundreds of new products. Leighton has been a guiding light to entrepreneurial enterprises and companies facing a challenge. In the early 2000’s he orchestrated a 300% increase in stock valuation and sales growth at Natrol (NTOL). Leighton has held senior executive positions including VP Product Strategy at Complete Nutrition, CEO at Advana Science, VP Marketing & Product Development at Natrol (NTOL), Vice President at Galileo Laboratories, VP Marketing at Metabolife, SVP Marketing at Weider Nutrition (WNI) and Director of Marketing at InterHealth Nutraceuticals.
Rosemarie Truman is an entrepreneur, growth strategist, distinguished corporate executive, angel investor and prolific startup catalyst. Rosemarie’s specialty is growth and investment strategy, having led growth strategies for 50 of the global Fortune 100 companies in over 15 countries. The strategies that Rosemarie led have resulted in $300+ billion in “net new” top line yearly revenue and 190+ new products on the market.
Currently, Rosemarie is the Founder and CEO of the Center for Advancing Innovation (CAI), a 501c3 non-profit which has been coined “Tinder for Startups” and “Shark Tank on Steroids.” CAI’s mission to identify breakthrough inventions and maximize their commercial potential. Under Rosemarie’s leadership, CAI has earned numerous awards and recognition from Health and Human Services, the White House, the Federal Laboratory Consortium and more.
He has almost 15 years of experience in genomic profiling methods including microarrays/RNA-seq; assay development; and molecular/ cell biology techniques. Currently he leads technical support for NGS projects in areas of Biomarker Discovery, Microbial/ Metagenomics and HT Single Cell Sequencing for QIAGEN’s bio-pharma and academic customers on the West Coast. Formerly, as a Asst. Director for Science and Engineering Research Center at University of Houston, he built and led a NGS Core team that contributed to projects including The Cancer Genome Atlas (NIH-TCGA), NASA’s first single cell studies and deep soil microbiome mapping. Additionally, he has been part of drug discovery and biotech business development teams.
Momo Vuyisich is a co-founder and Chief Science Officer at Viome, a data-driven personalized nutrition company. Momo provides scientific leadership at Viome and his vision is to revolutionize healthcare from "symptoms management" to a true preventative medicine. He leads product development, clinical test implementation, and comprehensive clinical research portfolio. Momo is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of New Mexico and New Mexico Tech. Before co-founding Viome in 2016, Momo spent 12 years at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he led the Applied Genomics team, which developed the core technology used by Viome today.
Pharmacist and Ph.D. in pharmaceutical technology, Gregory LAMBERT carrier is split between Biotech and Pharma where he occupied the positions of Chief Scientific Officer and Chief Executive Officer. Gregory drove the development of several products from the concept to market authorizations. Gregory has joined the scientific founders of TargEDys as CEO in 2014.
Eric is currently working as the Professor at the University of California, San Diego. He is the Chair Professor National Central University. He was the Chairman of the Department of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering at National Central University. He has acted as a visiting faculty in different universities like National Central University, Mongolian National University of Medical Sciences, Chengdu Second People’s Hospital & Fudan University.
In the year 2004-5 he acted as the Co-director, Skin Proteomics Core of UAB Skin Disease Research Center. In the year 2015, he was honored as the Chair Professor in the Foundation for The Advancement of Outstanding Scholarship and was also honored with Research Grant Award by Dermatology Foundation/USA and Galderma International Award in the year 2009.
After completing graduate degrees in Animal Nutrition at the University of Illinois and Oklahoma State University, Dr. Johnson joined the research faculty at Texas A&M University as Assistant Professor. He left academia to become Group Leader, Field Research and Technical Services for Roche Animal Health and Nutrition. He moved on from there to become Director, Global Research and Nutritional Services for Zinpro Corporation for 13 years growing the group in both number and global prominence. He returned to DSM to become Director, External Business Development, North and South America for over 7 years. For the past 8 years, he has been Corporate Vice President, Global Business Development for Phibro Animal Health Corporation. He holds responsibility for sourcing, expanding and developing Phibro’s various commercial platforms by acquiring intellectual properties, patents, technologies, development of new products, and acquisition of scientifically focused companies. He was responsible for the recent acquisition of Osprey Biotechnics, a leading specialty microbial fermentation company based in Sarasota, Florida.
Andrea is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Adjunct Associate Professor of Nutrition at UNC Chapel Hill. She is also the founding and current director of the UNC Microbiome Core, which has provided support to investigators interested in addressing the role of the hostassociated microbiota in health and disease for over 14 years, contributing to over 150 publications and as many grant proposals. Her research projects have focused on functional genomics of probiotics and gut microbiome modulation by prebiotics for over 20 years, resulting in over 100 peer-reviewed publications. She specifically aims to develop prebiotic and probiotic interventions as alternatives to traditional treatments for microbiotahealth related conditions, and to advance microbiotabased health surveillance methods.
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.
Dr. Snigdha is the Director of Innovation at MeriCal and brings to the group an expertise in dietary interventions and how they impact the human body. She has a PhD in Pharmaceutical Innovation, and a Master’s Degree in Biomedical Sciences. She has over 10 years of experience working on diet and nutrition and has led both preclinical and clinical research on development of dietary supplements including probiotics. Her work includes product development for several pharmaceutical companies including Schering Plough, Organon and GSK.
Her specific expertise is nutritional research and life-style interventions to promote healthy aging. She has published over 20 papers, 2 book chapters and a patent during the course of this work and has provided scientific opinion for various stages of product development including conceptualization, formulation, and innovation in the probiotic space. Dr. Snigdha is driving the search for new ingredients and application for probiotic strains in her current role at MeriCal.
Dr. Sabine Hazan, acclaimed physician and founder of ProgenaBiome, LLC, Ventura
Clinical Trials, LLC, and Malibu Specialty Center, is at the forefront of medicine. Dr. Hazan was
the first woman accepted into the University of Florida as a Clinical Gastroenterology Fellow,
and has continued to be a pioneer in medicine. She has recently turned her focus to Fecal
Microbiota Transplant, also known as FMT. A process by which the gut is recolonized with the
necessary beneficial flora, which have dramatic impact on overall health. Due to the results she
observed with FMT, she opened ProgenaBiome to better understand the gut flora and disease.
Spearheading advancement in medicine, this treatment is being explored by Dr. Hazan
following the leadership of Dr. Thomas Borody and the late Dr. Sydney Finegold to treat Crohn’s
disease, Autism, Celiac, Alzheimer’s, Alopecia Areata, Obesity, Psoriasis, Metastatic Cancer, and
recurrent infection with Clostridium difficile.
Dr. Wan received her B.S. from the School of Pharmacy at Taipei Medical University in Taipei, Taiwan in 1979. She received her M.S. in 1981 and her Ph.D. in 1983 in Experimental Pathology from Drexel University. She obtained a fellowship from NIH to study molecular biology of the liver before she became a faculty member in the Pathology Department at Harbor UCLA in 1989, and became a Full Professor in 2001.
As Vice Chair of Research for the Department of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, Davis, Dr. Wan oversees research activities of our faculty members and advances the department’s strategic research plan. Dr. Wan is actively involved in service at the national and international levels. She has been serving NIH study sections continuously for the past 17 years. She is currently serving as Editor-in-Chief for Open Pharmaceutical Science Journal as well as an editorial board member for many other journals.
Dr. Julia M. Gauglitz is currently a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, San Diego. She is the project manager and co-founder of the Global FoodOmics project and a member of the Center for Microbiome Innovation. Prior to joining UC San Diego, she was an NSF awarded postdoctoral research fellow at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and an NSF awarded graduate research fellow at the University of California, Santa Barbara. Her research interests include topics such as microbial and metabolic changes during food fermentation, nutrient uptake in marine bacteria, and the impact of diet on species ranging from cheetahs to humans. She specializes in using multidisciplinary multi-omic technologies to understand the chemistry and microbiology of our foods and how they interact with our bodies. In essence, discovering what is truly in our food to gain increased understanding of the role that metabolites and associated beneficial microbes play in health and disease.
Dr. Ben-Yehezkel founded Loop Genomics in 2016 as part of the Y-Combinator accelerator in order to disrupt the long-read sequencing space. Prior to Loop Genomics Dr. Ben-Yehezkel was the CEO and co-founder of Synvaccine, a viral synthetic genome engineering company and a Senior Scientist at the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he developed methods for engineering synthetic organisms. At Loop Genomics, he is directing the development and commercialization of the first hardware-free synthetic long read sequencing technology that can be used for any sequencing application. Loop’s technology transforms short-read sequencers into single-molecule long-read sequencers, offering the accuracy and resolution required for precision Microbiome, Transcriptome and DNA sequencing
Dr. Gang Wang is the Co-founder and CEO of Nimble Science. He holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Calgary. Dr. Wang has 8+ years of expertise in medical device research, development and commercialization. He was an award-winning biomedical engineering researcher with deep expertise in wearable and ingestible medical device development.
Alexey Melnik received his Masters degree in Analytical Chemistry from Far Eastern Federal University. In 2013 he joined Prof. Pieter C. Dorrestein at UCSD as a research scientist, where he developed mass spectrometry tools for better analysis and visualization of mass spectrometry data on human 3D models. He currently is a metabolomics lead at Clarity-Genomics where he Identifies potential therapeutics within complex microbial communities using modern mass spectrometry methods and advanced computational approaches.
Martha Carlin is an award-winning systems thinker whose microbiome-research company, The BioCollective, is changing how we understand the link between the environment, our food and water systems, and illness. A sought-after speaker, she is the 2018 NetExplo Major Digital Talent in biotech; the APC Microbiome Hero for World Microbiome Day; 2016 White House Microbiome Initiative Speaker, and an advisor for the Microbiota Vault, among others. She believes that a siloed approach to health research misses important microbial connections, and built her company to connect the dots between human and ecological systems.
Dr Timothy Evans is Alliance Manager at Luina bio and part of the executive team. Tim brings over 15 years of project management, technical expertise, and research and development experience. He has expertise in the disciplines of molecular biology, genetics, biochemistry and cell biology, to project management portfolio. Tim has six years of innovation commercialization experience, from roles at university technology transfer companies, including; UniQuest (The University of Queensland), and QUT bluebox (Queensland University of Technology). Within these roles, Tim facilitated the commercialisation of university research from a broad range of disciplines. Tim was a post-doctoral research scholar at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), and impressively, was the recipient of the Arthritis Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. Tim holds a Bachelor of Science (B.Sc.) with First Class Honours (UQ), and a PhD in Biochemistry and Cell Biology, at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience (University of Queensland).
Dr Kylie Ellis is the Manager of Research Partnerships at Microba, a world-leader in the accurate measurement of the gut microbiome. Here, Kylie works with research groups and companies to achieve their gut microbiome research needs by accessing Microba’s proprietary Bioinformatic ‘Tool Kit’. In combination with Microba’s world-class shotgun metagenomic sequencing laboratory, the Tool Kit can accurately identify communities present in gut microbiome samples, profile their functional capability, and identify novel bacteria present in the sample which cannot be identified by any other profiler. Microba’s artificial intelligence expertise can assist its clients in bioprospecting for novel probiotic or small molecule leads. Prior to joining Microba, Kylie worked in the academic research and technology commercialisation sector and has experience with intellectual property and contract management, market analysis and commercialization strategy development. Kylie’s PhD research was in the field of neuroscience and regenerative medicine.
William H. Gerwick received his B.S. in Biochemistry (UC Davis, 1976), his Ph.D. in Oceanography (Scripps Institution of Oceanography, 1981), and did postdoctoral studies at the U. Connecticut (1981-82). He was Professor of Chemistry at the U. Puerto Rico (1982-84) and then moved to the College of Pharmacy, Oregon State U. as Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences (1984-2005). In 2005 he became Professor of Oceanography and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Scripps Oceanography and the Skaggs School of Pharmacy, UC San Diego, and in 2011 was promoted to Distinguished Professor. He has received several awards and prizes, and is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the American Society of Pharmacognosy. His research focuses on the discovery of novel natural products from marine cyanobacteria and algae, development of new methodologies in structure analysis, biomedical applications of marine natural products, and investigations of natural product biosynthesis.
Mohamedi "Mo" Kagalwala, PhD MBA, is the Head of Business Development at Amylgen for the US. Dr. Kagalwala finished his PhD in Microbiology, Biochemistry, and Molecular Biology and completed post-doctoral fellowship in neurobiology at the Salk Institute. He expanded his knowledge and expertise of neural stem cells by leading a pre-clinical/clinical cell therapy program for treatment of Parkinson’s disease at Neurogeneration, Inc. In 2016, he founded and launched Siragen Pharmaceuticals out of JLABS, San Diego; a drug discovery company developing therapies for aging neurological and metabolic disorders, including Alzheimer’s disease. There, he led the pre-clinical program from target identification through lead optimization of small molecules. Dr. Kagalwala has an extensive track record of conducting and publishing novel and innovative research, including the development of several new biological reagents and innovative assays. He also held several Pharmaceutical / Biotechnology consulting positions assisting in both drug discovery projects and business
Ross O. Youngs, Founder and CEO - Mr. Youngs has over 30 years of inventing products, technologies and processes for a variety of industries. Mr. Youngs holds over 75 patents worldwide and is driven to innovate by a focus on better, faster and less expensive. Recent major innovations have included an R&D 100 Award for collaboration on biopolymer technologies. In 2009, the Company was awarded a $6 million ARPA-E (U.S. Dept. of Energy R&D) grant for its algal harvesting technology which helped lead to the development of Biosortia’s drug discovery platform. In 1998, Mr. Youngs was awarded the Ernst & Young Ohio Entrepreneur of the Year award and the U.S. Small Business Administration honored Mr. Youngs as their national “Business Person of the Year” in a presentation made by Vice President Al Gore.
Scientist at Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (NIBR). 10 years of experience in Biotech Research with 5 years Microbiome research in large and small pharmaceutical companies. Area of interest: host microbiome interactions and mucosal immunology.
