PLURISTEM INNOVATIONS

Advisory Board

Dr Rampyari Walia - CEO

Rampyari has over 20 years of experience in several areas including extracellular matrix Biology, gene expression, functional protein delivery and development of highly sensitive chemiluminescence assays involving novel luciferase reporter genes. Rampyari has an M.S from Sophia College, Bombay University and a Ph.D from the University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, TX with Dr Paul Weigel as her advisor. Following a brief postdoctoral fellowship in the lab of Dr. Magnus Hook, Dr Walia received her first faculty appointment as assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the university of Alabama at Birmingham, Alabama. She continued as a faculty member in the Department of Cardiology at Vanderbilt University where she developed novel strategies for gene transfer and worked on elucidating the mechanisms underlying the vascular complications of Diabetes.   During her tenure as a faculty member Dr Walia was funded by grants from the American Heart Association, American Diabetes Association and the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. 

In 1996, Dr Walia relocated to San Diego and started her first Biotech venture, Targeting Systems entirely with funds from a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant from the NIH.  The company launched it’s first product line within it’s first year of inception and has subsequently expanded research and product into several areas including protein delivery, gene silencing and novel luciferase technology. The company holds several issued patents and is now planning to conduct research in the therapeutic potential of it’s products. Besides her as role the CEO of Targeting Systems, Rampyari has an adjunct faculty appointment in the Department of Biology at San Diego State University. Pluristem Innovations, the second spin off from Targeting Systems is Rampyari’s third Biotech enterprise. She is also technical Director Shakti Biosystems Hyderabad, India.

 Dr. Walia's Curriculum Vitae in PDF format.

 Dr Philip H. Schwartz

Trained at UCLA's Brain Research Institute, Dr. Schwartz is a full-time stem cell biologist and holds a Senior Scientist position at the Children's Hospital of Orange County (CHOC) Research Institute.  Dr. Schwartz is Director and Founder of CHOC's National Human Neural Stem Cell Resource (NHNSCR), an Associate Research Biologist at the University of California, Irvine (UCI), Developmental Biology Center, and a Visiting Associate Professor in the Stem Cells and Regeneration Program of the Burnham Institute.

Dr. Schwartz' early work included studies of several models of energy failure-induced brain damage as well as preclinical and clinical studies of pharmacologic agents aimed at maintaining cerebral perfusion and/or neuroprotection.  Much of this work involved translational research aimed toward improving the treatment of pediatric intensive care unit patients. For the last eight years, he has been involved in the harvest of human brains from patients that have died with neurogenetic disease and the research in his laboratory is directed towards understanding the factors influencing the behavior of human central nervous system (CNS) stem cells and multipotent CNS progenitor populations in the normal and neurogenetically diseased brain.

In collaborations on large animal models for stem cell transplantation, he has established neural stem cell lines from cats, sheep, and transgenic GFP pigs. Much of this work has been directed towards evaluating the efficacy of neural stem cell transplantation in animal models of degenerative eye diseases and of neurogenetic disease.  This latter work has direct application to the clinical use of stem cells for the treatment of children with neurodevelopmental disorders, the major clinical focus of Dr. Schwartz and his clinical colleagues at CHOC. This effort also involves the use of mesenchymal stem cells harvested from human bone marrow and umbilical cord blood.

With scientists at UCDavis, Dr. Schwartz has been using neural stem cells harvested from patients with the Fragile X Tremor Ataxia Syndrome (FXTAS) to understand the molecular biology of this novel disease that may comprise the underlying diagnosis of a significant proportion of Parkinson's patients.  Dr. Schwartz' interest in the major neurodevelopmental disorders is also reflected in his studies of stem cells taken from patients with Fragile X Syndrome, Rett Syndrome, Down's Syndrome, and various mitochondrial diseases. He is also interested in novel ways to derive human embryonic stem cell lines and has an active collaboration with a local infertility clinic for this work; a strong ethics component attaches to this effort.

A Principal Investigator of one of the NIH's 5 T15 Human Embryonic Stem Cell Culture Training Courses, Dr. Schwartz trains national and international scientists in current human embryonic and neural stem cell techniques.  Dr. Schwartz regularly participates in special study sections on stem cells at the NIH.  As part of the NHNSCR, Dr. Schwartz maintains clinical collaborations with several west Coast university hospitals and has active research collaborations with over 30 national and international stem cell researchers.  Dr. Schwartz also regularly disseminates stem cell research information to the lay public by way of the print, television, and radio media.  Dr. Schwartz' current organizational efforts have been to establish the Center for Stem Cell Transplantation at CHOC and the Stem Cell Research Center at UCI, in addition to fostering formal collaborative efforts between CHOC and UCI in stem cell research. Dr. Schwartz sits on the CHOC Ethics Committee and IACUC and is currently funded by the CHOC Foundation for Children and by the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Schwartz's Curriculum Vitae in pdf format.

Ms Connie Kohne

Ms. Kohne is a regulatory professional for the medical health industry with over twenty years of broad-based experience in regulatory affairs, clinical affairs, quality assurance, quality control, environmental and safety administration for the pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical and medical device industries.

Ms. Kohne received her Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry and biology from the University of Oregon in 1984. Ms. Kohne served in public office as a City Councilwoman and the Mayor of Lowell, Oregon, from 1981 to 1984. After 1984, she worked at Scripps Research Clinic as a peptide chemist and then for Gen-Probe as a quality assurance, quality control, clinical and regulatory affairs professional, where she obtained multiple 510K approvals from the FDA for nucleic acid medical diagnostic devices for infectious disease. Ms. Kohne worked in the area of gene therapy from 1994 to 1996 as the Director of Regulatory Affairs at Canji Inc., a subsidiary of Schering-Plough Corporation, working on cancer applications using an adenoviral P53 gene and other gene constructs. From 1996 thru 1999, Ms. Kohne worked at Agouron Pharmaceuticals Inc, purchased by Pfizer, as the Director of Regulatory Affairs, Head of Virology, Advertising and Promotion Regulatory Affairs.

During her tenure at Agouron, she was responsible for a variety of small molecule antiviral drugs in all phases of clinical development and was a key member of the team that submitted and obtained approval for Viracept (nelfinavir mesylate) an HIV protease inhibitor for both adults and children. Ms. Kohne's work with the FDA in the grassroots initiative was recognized by the Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration by receiving the Commissioner's Special Citation in 1998 and then by the Vice President of the United States for outstanding leadership in furthering the FDA's goals of public health with a Hammer Award in 1997. From 2000 to 2002, Ms. Kohne worked in at Gen-Star Corporation, as the Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Corporate Quality, working with various gene constructs including a minimized adenoviral vector containing the full length Factor VIII gene for application in the treatment of Hemophilia A. From 2003 to 2006 Ms. Kohne has served as the Vice President of Regulatory Affairs and Quality Assurance at Telos Pharmaceuticals LLC, developing large molecule immunomodulatory biopharmaceutical products such as monoclonal antibodies and other proteins for the treatment or prevention of a variety of human diseases.

Ms. Kohne founded Jaden Bioscience Inc. with Dr. David Kohne in 2005 and is serving as the President and CEO.