Monday April 17, 2006
 Vivian Berlin & Grace Wong |
Panelists: Grace Wong, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer, ActoKine Therapeutics Vivian Berlin, Ph.D., Principal at BIOLyNX LLC The Women in Biotechnology series will be an excellent opportunity to meet with successful women who have taken different approaches to science and have all excelled. This panel will examine the possibilities of research in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry as a career for scientists. The three major themes for the panel discussion will be: How these successful women go to where they are now, how they overcame any extra challenges they faced in their career, and how did they deal with the issues surrounding the creation of a healthy balance between professional success and family development. Please join us for an interactive and educational discussion. |
Grace Wong PhD, Founder & CSO of ActoKine Therapeutics, Founder and President of Student Vision
Dr. Grace Wong has worked for Genentech, Millennium, AstraZeneca and Serono on new drug discovery in a variety of therapeutic areas. Dr. Wong did a PhD at The Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research in Australia. In the US, Dr. Wong did a postdoc with Dr. David Goeddel at Genentech and she advanced basic research discoveries to product development in 1993. In 1996, Dr. Wong became the Head of Apoptosis Research at Millennium Pharmaceuticals.
In 1998, she joined AstraZeneca as Section Head of Molecular Genetics and identified potential genes for Alzheimer's disease. Since AstraZeneca was moving to Delaware, Dr. Wong joined Serono in 1999 as Head of Functional Genomics and Director of Cytokine Genomics. She has been awarded 13 scholarships and received 5 Recognition Awards from Genentech. She was invited to present at 139 international conferences including the Nobel Symposium (Sweden, 1994). She has published 89 papers and filed 27 patents (11 issued). Seven of her publications (3 Nature, 1 Science, and 3 Cell) received 500-900 citations.
In 2003, Dr. Wong has founded Actokine Therapeutics (www.actokine.com) for drug indication switch and drug advancements for biodefense projects (radioprotection against dirty bomb and protection against a broad spectrum of virus). She has also founded Student Vision for helping the growth of students of all ages in biotech science (www.studentvision.org).
Vivian Berlin, PhD, Principle BIOLyNX LLC
Vivian Berlin has 15 years of experience in the biotechnology industry holding positions in research management and business development at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Mitotix and GPC Biotech. She led multiple research efforts moving programs from concept to late preclinical development. Dr. Berlin established proprietary positions in a number of therapeutic areas and has 13 issued patents. She is currently a Principal at BIOLyNX LLC providing research and corporate development strategy services to companies in the life sciences. She is also engaged in founding a company focused on the development of a diagnostic for ovarian cancer. Dr. Berlin received her M.S. at the Harvard School of Public Health, Ph.D. in Biology at Stanford University and postdoctoral training at the Whitehead Institute at MIT.