TRIM-edicine

Advisory Board

TRIM-edicine has top-notch scientific leadership. To complement its strong scientific leadership, the company is searching for another individual with experience in regulatory affairs, either to join the company’s management team, or as a member of its board of directors or scientific advisory board. This will become increasingly important as TRIM-edicine prepares investigational new drug applications and begins clinical evaluations of its products.

John B. Kostis, M.D. is the John G. Detwiler Professor of Cardiology and Chairman of the Department of Medicine at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He also serves as Chief of Medical Service at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital. Dr. Kostis developed state of the art tertiary cardiology in New Brunswick, established clinical research in cardiology at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, participated in the study and development of over 100 pharmacologic agents and devices and held leadership positions in large clinical trials sponsored by the NIH and the industry. He has published six books, over 300 papers and chapters, and serves as Associate Editor of Cardiology and other scientific journals. Dr. Kostis’ research interests include clinical trials, cardiovascular pharmacology and biomedical engineering.

Virginia Monsul Barnes, D.D.S, is the Manager of Clinical Research at the Colgate Palmolive Company Technology Center in New Jersey. She received a Master of Science degree in Physiology from UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and her Doctor of Dental Surgery from Georgetown University School of Dentistry. At Colgate, Dr. Barnes manages the proof of concept clinical program investigating new technologies for oral therapeutic products. This program conducts traditional human clinical research and develops new clinical methodologies. Additionally the program explores the use of basic research in combination with clinical research in an effort to enhance the technology development, to improve the predictability of clinical studies, and to deliver more targeted and sophisticated documentation for product claims.

Dr. Zelin Sheng received his Ph.D. in pharmacology from the University of Miami, FL, in 1992. After a postdoctoral training at Dr. Kenneth Chien’s lab in UCSD, he had been a senior research investigator in the Metabolic and Cardiovascular Drug Discovery, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Princeton, NJ. USA, for years. In 2003, he was a co-founder and the CSO for Shanghai Celgen Biopharmaceuticals, Ltd. . In 2005, he later joined Egret Pharma (Shanghai) Ltd. as the COO. Since 2009, Dr. Sheng has been the CEO and Chairman of Zelgen Biopharmaceuticals, Ltd, Suzhou, China. In past 20 years, Dr. Sheng has dedicated his efforts in drug discovery in cardiovascular and metabolic diseases as well as oncology. Dr. Sheng has extensive experience in drug discovery, biologics development as well as company management. He successfully led several drug discovery programs into clinical development.

Rui-Ping Xiao, M.D., Ph. D., is currently the Director of The Institute of Molecular Medicine at Peking University, China. She was trained as a physician-scientist, received her medical degree (M.D.) at Tong-Ji Medical University, Wuhan, China in 1984, and Ph.D. from the University of Maryland, School of Medicine in 1995. Dr. Xiao joined the Laboratory of Cardiovascular Science (LCS) at the National Institute of Aging (USA) as a postdoctoral fellow in 1990, and eventually became a Senior Investigator and the Chief of the Receptor Signaling Section in the LCS in 2003. Since 2010, she has served as the Director of the Institute of Molecular Medicine at Peking University, which is dedicated to discovering new therapeutic solutions to human diseases. Dr. Xiao’s research interests focus on signaling pathways in metabolism and cardiovascular system in order to understand the mechanisms underlying metabolic disorders and cardiovascular diseases and developing novel therapies for the treatment of these diseases.

As an associate with McCarter & English, LLP, Dr. Zerhusen’s practice includes all aspects of patent and trademark prosecution, licensing, due diligence, clearance and patentability opinions, and patent infringement litigation support concentrating on scientific/medical devices, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and chemicals. Dr. Zerhusen’s clients include individual researchers, biotech companies, universities, as well as large chemical and pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Zerhusen’s prior scientific training includes a postdoctoral fellowship at Case Western Reserve University, which was focused on molecular and physiological origins of cystic fibrosis, as well as a number of years as a Research Scientist for a mid-sized biopharmaceutical company where he utilized genomic and proteomic techniques to identify and characterize therapeutic candidates/targets over all major disease areas.