Robert Figari
Robert Figari holds a MA in psychology. He has been a consultant in leadership development, communications and teambuilding for over 20 years. He has worked throughout the world with entrepreneurs and senior executives, managers and individuals, privately and on behalf of other consulting organizations. He has created a unique approach that integrates inner personal growth learning with outer behavioral skill development in an outdoor educational setting. Bob has been involved in helping people with their professional and personal lives for two decades.
Jagath Reddy Junutula (Board Chairman)
Jagath Reddy Junutula, PhD has over 20 years of Oncology drug discovery and development experience and 30 years of experience in life science research. He is currently a President & CEO at Aarvik Therapeutics. Jagath obtained his PhD from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India, and did postdoctoral research at Stanford University. Jagath was at ModMab Therapeutics, Cellerant Therapeutics and Genentech spanning 20 years and responsible for contributing to several INDs and IND-ready programs. His work focuses on drug discovery & development of biologics, including discovery and validation of antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs); engineering next-generation ADCs; and development of bi-specific T-cell engaging antibodies. He served as a R&D team member of an approved Kadcyla and one of the inventors of an approved Polivy ADCs. He developed a novel THIOMAB technology platform to generate site-specific ADCs to improve the therapeutic utility of antibodies. Jagath was a featured inventor in "Greatest Hits in 20 years of Nature Biotechnology Biomedical Research", Nat. Biotechnol. 2016. Jagath has authored >60 peer-reviewed publications and inventor on >300 patents filed/issued. He received a “Long-standing Contributions to ADC Therapeutic Field” recognition award at the 2017 World ADC Summit, San Diego, CA. Jagath serves as an editorial board member of leading journals, mAbs & ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters.
Ramesh Kamath
Ramesh Kamath is a graduate electrical engineer and holds a masters in engineering management degree from the University of Louisville. He is a registered professional engineer in Kentucky and California. Ramesh spent 15 yrs at Genentech (1994-2009) and served in various senior management positions in engineering organization. Ramesh was responsible for Strategic Planning, Project Engineering, Process Engineering Group, Automation Engineering Group and the Plant Support Technology Group. Ramesh is also involved in various community and non-profit activities.
Suryanarayana Sankuratri
Suryanarayana Sankuratri holds Ph.D. in Biochemistry over 25 yrs experience in the life science research in particular with virology and infectious diseases. He is currently an Executive Director at Merck. Prior to this role, he worked at Roche pharmaceuticals for over 18 years. Surya involved with many non-profit activities related professional career development of life science scientists through IISc-AANA and other NGOs in India helping the local communities to understand preventive approaches to overcome infectious diseases and improvement for better human health.
Raji Pingali
Raji Pingali, Ph.D. in Chemistry, has been a Science educator for the past 25 years. With several years of teaching and tutoring experience, she has spearheaded many community initiative programs for youth in STEM fields. Most notable are her contributions in initiating Math Science Club, and Elementary Science Olympiad in the Bay Area, which have grown to encompass several school districts. Under her able coaching, teams have won National Championship at the Middle School Science Bowl, and represented the State in Odyssey of the Mind. Raji continues to champion many community causes in the STEM areas, while working as a Technical Engineer in the Software Industry.
Nirmala Bandrapalli
Nirmala Bandrapalli holds a Masters degree in Biochemistry. Nirmala is a past President of Science Gurus and planning commissioner, Burlingame City. She has been involved with SANG for about 10 years in various positions (including a Co-Chair). Nirmala is actively working with Burlingame Community for Eductation (BCE), a non-profit organization that raises funds to support schools in Burlingame school district. Nirmala worked as Auction Communication Manger of BCE for 2010-2011 term.
Ram Mandalam
Ram Mandalam, Ph.D., President & CEO of Cellerant Therapeutics, joined the company in 2005. Ram was previously Executive Director of Product Development at Geron Corporation, where he managed the development and manufacturing of cell based therapies for treatment of degenerative diseases and cancer. Prior to Geron, he was Director of Developmental Research at Aastrom Biosciences, where he was responsible for the research and development programs involving ex vivo expansion of human bone marrow stem cells and dendritic cells. Dr. Mandalam received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Michigan. Dr. Mandalam is the author or co-author of several publications,patent applications, and abstracts.
Pradeep Fernandes
Pradeep Fernandes is Co-founder and non-executive director of Cellworks Group. He has over twenty years of experience in semiconductor engineering and life sciences. He has applied the engineering approaches and technologies to develop the mathematical solver engines and automation infrastructure for the Cellworks proprietary technology for emulating disease physiology computationally. He holds a M.S. in Electrical Engineering and B.S. in Computer Science. He is a prolific entrepreneur and also an angel investor in the technology space and sits on the boards of a few private companies and non-profit organizations.
Sita Bharathala
Sita Bharathala holds a B. Tech degree in Electrical Engineering and an M. Tech degree in Computer Science from Osmania University. She has over 30 years of experience in software engineering and quality assurance and is the Sr. Vice President of Quality and Release Engineering at Veeva Systems, a cloud based solutions provider for the life sciences industry. Sita is also actively involved in various community and non-profit activities in the Bay Area.
Viswanatham Katta
Viswanatham Katta holds PhD in chemistry from the University of Houston. He has a broad experience in therapeutic protein characterization in general with an emphasis on mass spectrometry-based techniques of native/reduced/glycosylated/digested mAbs for information on integrity, identity, modifications, variants and host-cell related impurities. He has worked in major biopharma companies both in the discovery research (Amgen) and process development areas (Genentech and Medivation). He led a group of scientists in Protein Analytical Chemistry Department that contributed to CMC sections for several INDs of biologics. Dr Katta has also led the analytical sub-team for Ocrelizumab from pre-clinical through phase 1 stage. He has also successfully led the CMC team enabling first-in-human clinical trials of a thiomab-drug conjugate project. He currently provides consulting to CMOs and early-stage biologics companies.
Kalpi (Megha) Shah