Eshelman Institute for Innovation announces new Steering Board members

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Brittany Jennings
August 7, 2020

The Eshelman Institute for Innovation (EII) is pleased to announce the addition of four new Steering Board members. These individuals represent a broad array of experience in biopharmaceutical/therapeutic innovation, which will build on the talent of the existing Board Members. New members include:

H Stewart Parker is Principal of Parker BioConsulting. She has extensive experience in the BioPharma industry including the founding of Targeted Genetics Corporation (Nasdaq: TGEN). While in Washington state she also served as CEO of the Washington Biotechnology and Biomedical Association (WBBA). Much of her early career was spent at Immunex Corporation. Stewart now lives in Chapel Hill, NC for part of each year.

Matt Tremblay is the COO of Scripps Research and its drug discovery division, CALIBR. Matt played a critical role in establishing CALIBR in 2012. As CALIBR grew, Matt facilitated a number of strategic partnerships with major foundations and pharma companies. When CALIBR became an affiliate of Scripps Research, Matt became VP of Business Development and ultimately the COO.

Rusty Gage was named President of the Salk Institute in 2019, having been on faculty since 1995. He is a professor in the Laboratory of Genetics and is the Vi and John Alder Chair for Research on age-related neurodegenerative disease. Gage’s lab currently models diseases in the laboratory using human stem cells. By reprogramming human skin cells and other cells from patients with neurologic and psychiatric diseases into induced pluripotent stem cells and induced neurons, his work is deciphering the progression and mechanisms that lead to disorders including Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, bipolar disease, schizophrenia, depression and autism.

Tom Skalak joined the Clara Wu and Joe Tsai Foundation in 2018 as Senior Advisor to Clara Wu Tsai. The Foundation makes philanthropic investments in science, economic mobility, and cultural production (art, music, film), with a vision to produce transformative impact on societal well-being and sustainability. Biomedical sciences and translational research are major directions. Tom is Vice President for Research Emeritus at the University of Virginia and was previously the founding Executive Director of The Paul G. Allen Frontiers Group in Seattle, the Microsoft co-founder’s global science investing group. Tom is a former President of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE), representing 60,000 professionals, and of the Biomedical Engineering Society (BMES).