Meet Our Team

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) then recruited him to serve as director of vaccines and biologics in the Office of the Secretary. In this capacity, he helped establish and lead the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) responsible for the development and acquisition of vaccines and immunotherapeutic products for biodefense and other emerging public health threats such as pandemic flu and COVID-19. He also served as program director of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiative for the Department of Defense (DoD) to develop the concept of a dedicated capability for the advanced development and manufacturing (ADM) of biological countermeasures to address national security interests. Following HHS, Dr. Fuerst transitioned to serve as professor and director of the Institute for Bioscience and Biotechnology Research (IBBR) for the University of Maryland and the National Institute of Standards and Technology. IBBR is largely focused on advanced structural biology, protein design and modeling, and in-depth bioanalytical characterization of complex biological products, including vaccines and biotherapeutics. His lab at IBBR is focused on structure-based vaccine design, next generation protein-based therapeutics, and polyphosphazene-based immunoadjuvant and delivery systems. He served as a senior fellow at the National Institutes of Health, NIAID, in Bethesda, MD, holds a B.A. in biochemistry from the University of California at Berkeley, a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from Cornell University, and a MBA in science, technology, and innovation from the George Washington University. He has authored over 80 publications and recipient of 15 issued patents and applications, has received several Distinguished Service Awards for leadership from HHS, served on the Advisory Council for the College of Life Sciences, Cornell University, and participates on advisory boards in the biotechnology industry.

With experience in genomics and systems biology, he helped lead the public efforts to sequence the genomes of the Chinese hamster and diverse CHO cell lines. He subsequently served as the Scientific Coordinator for the CHO cell engineering program at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Biosustainability at the Technical University of Denmark. In this capacity, his team led the development of complex systems biology models and A.I. to study and engineer metabolism, protein secretion, and glycosylation in CHO cells. These and other tools developed in the center facilitated his work wherein he co-developed engineered mammalian cell lines addressing a wide range of complex traits including viral resistance, an elimination of lactic acid secretion, and complex glycoengineered cell lines. This work led to the establishment of the NNF-funded National Biologics Facility at the Technical University of Denmark, which he co-manages. Dr. Lewis also currently serves as an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Bioengineering at the University of California, San Diego where he leads the lab of Systems Biology and Cell Engineering and a dynamic team focused on the development of big data analytic tools, omics technologies and computational models for pediatric diagnostics and the study of processes involved in the synthesis and secretion of complex proteins and carbohydrates. Dr. Lewis has authored >125 peer-reviewed studies and nearly a dozen patents and applications. He previously served on advisory boards in the biotechnology space, and as an Assistant Professor of Biology at Brigham Young University, conducted postdoctoral research with Prof. George Church at Harvard Medical School and Wyss Institute, completed a Ph.D. in Bioengineering with Prof. Bernhard Palsson at UC San Diego, and a B.S. in Biochemistry at Brigham Young University.

Prior to joining University of Maryland, he served in various executive and managerial positions in biotechnology industry and as a consultant for a number of industrial, academic, and global health organizations. In this role, he has been involved in all aspects of technology development and commercialization, including product advancement from research laboratory to manufacturing and clinical trials. His academic experience includes research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Moscow State University. Dr. Andrianov has long standing research interests in applications of polymers as biomaterials, drug delivery systems, and immunoadjuvants with a focus on polyphosphazene technology. He has published extensively in these fields.

Since 2010 he has been involved in starting several biotechnology companies as a co-founder, advisor, CEO, and/or member of the Board of Directors. Among other roles, Dr. Carter is currently chairman of Seneca, Inc (NASDAQ: SNCA) in Germantown, MD, and a senior advisor to Innoforce, Inc., in Hangzhou, China. Earlier in his career, he was a co-founder and CEO of Avalon Pharmaceuticals. Under his leadership, Avalon developed a pipeline of cancer drug candidates based on a novel high-throughput genomic screening technology and completed an IPO and listing on the NASDAQ Stock Market. Prior to Avalon, Dr. Carter was head of gene mapping at Human Genome Sciences, Inc. (now GlaxoSmithKline) where he was involved in the discovery of dozens of novel human proteins with therapeutic or diagnostic potential, particularly for the treatment of cancer. He is also engaged in a range of educational and teaching activities and holds an adjunct faculty position at Johns Hopkins University, where he teaches a course entitled “Creating a Biotechnology Enterprise.” 

Over her career, Carolyn has held positions of increasing responsibility and served as Vice President of Finance for both Ivenix and Fresenius Kabi. She has managed both large and small internal financial operations and has participated directly in corporate financing transactions, including private financings, and mergers and acquisitions. Ms. Malleck holds a MBA and BA from the University of Colorado in Boulder.

Earlier in his career, Mr. Hankins served as vice president of business development for CIMA Labs and Cardinal Health, and before that he held senior business development and licensing positions with Sanofi Pasteur in both the US and Canada. He also served as a technology licensing specialist at the National Institutes of Health. More recently, he was director of licensing at Medical University of South Carolina, and CEO of Codevax, a vaccine start-up in Rochester, NY. Most recently, Mr. Hankins serves as a licensing executive at Northern Illinois University. Mr. Hankins is a patent attorney, member of the Georgia State Bar, and a Certified Licensing Professional. He holds a Juris Doctor from University of Georgia School of Law, a Master of Science in Biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University, and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Economics from Emory University. He also holds a Financial Decision-Making certificate from the University of Chicago.

Prior to joining Noble, Dr. Horrigan was the vice president of research at Avalon Pharmaceuticals, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Clinical Data, Inc., and played a key role in development of the company's unique genomic biomarker-driven R&D platform. He has strong expertise in the cellular control mechanisms of cancer, and use of biomarkers for the discovery and development of therapeutics in which he holds multiple publications and patents in this area. Prior to joining Avalon, Dr. Horrigan was associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics and Lombardi Cancer Center at Georgetown University Medical Center. As Georgetown, he led a research group focused on cancer genomics and the application of biomarkers in cancer diagnostics. He also held positions at the University of Chicago Medical School and the University of Illinois.