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Geoffrey Lynn, SVP, Synthetic Immunotherapies, Vaccitech, visits Rich Bendis to discuss his career from NIH, to CEO of Avidea, to their merger with Vaccitech.

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Dr. Geoffrey Lynn is leveraging his background in synthetic chemistry and cellular immunology to lead Avidea’s efforts to develop precision immunotherapies for treating cancer and autoimmune diseases. Dr. Lynn has expertise in designing, GMP manufacturing and assessing safety, efficacy & MOA of polymer-drug conjugate / nanoparticle technologies for immunotherapeutic applications. Previously, Dr. Lynn was a visiting scientist in the laboratory of Professor Christopher Jewell at the Fischell Department of Engineering at UMD and trained as a post-doctoral fellow with Dr. Robert Seder at the Vaccine Research Center of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Dr. Lynn attended medical school at Johns Hopkins University; obtained a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Oxford as an NIH-Oxford and National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow; and received his B.S. in chemistry from Elon University, where he was a Goldwater Scholar.

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Alex Philippidis, Senior Business Editor of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News, returned to the Forum to give his annual update on the GEN rankings of the Top 10 Bio Clusters in the United States. The BioHealth Capital Region is currently ranked #4 with a goal to be Top 3 by 2023 , and Alex briefly discusses each of the 10 top clusters and discuss how they have performed during the Pandemic. He also mentions the Up and Coming Regions of the Country.

Pete Briskman, Executive Managing Director and Co-Lead for the Mid-Atlantic Life Sciences Practice, follows Alex and does a deep dive into specifically the BioHealth Capital Region’s outstanding performance over the last year.

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The session from the BioHealth Capital Region Forum focuses on a vision for a new science entity, the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H). This new NIH Institute would accelerate biomedical innovation and adoption of technologies and approaches to revolutionize healthcare and medicine. Tara A. Schwetz, Ph.D. is the Assistant Director for Biomedical Science Initiatives in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). She is currently on detail to OSTP from her role as Associate Deputy Director (ADEPD), National Institutes of Health (NIH). During her tenure as ADEPD, Dr. Schwetz also served as the acting Director of the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR). Prior to assuming these roles, she was the Chief of the Strategic Planning and Evaluation Branch in the Office of the Director at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). Dr. Schwetz led several efforts while at NIAID, including conducting an evaluation of the Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Surveillance to facilitate evidence-based decision-making and developing the NIAID Strategic Plan for Tuberculosis Research. Previously, Dr. Schwetz served as the Senior Advisor to the Principal Deputy Director of NIH (DEPD), where she coordinated efforts such as Reimagine HHS, the NIH rigor and reproducibility activities, and the first NIH-Wide Strategic Plan. Dr. Schwetz also served in the dual role of the NIH Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) Interim Associate Program Director and the Special Assistant to the DEPD. Prior to these roles, she was a Health Science Policy Analyst at the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, where she helped develop the National Pain Strategy. Dr. Schwetz started her career at NIH as an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow at NINR. She received a BS in biochemistry with honors from Florida State University and a PhD in biophysics from the University of South Florida, followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at Vanderbilt University.