December 9, 2022
We are excited to announce that BARDA is partnering with Cytokind’s team to expand its clinical trial to further validate a phototherapy device. Our grant award is the first non-pharmacological therapeutic to be given in an effort to support BARDA’s Division of Research, Innovation, and Ventures (DRIVe). The awards announced are part of BARDA DRIVe’s medical countermeasure portfolio.
Dr. Carmen Castilla is a Board Certified Dermatologist at the New York Dermatology Group and Deputy Principal Investigator for the Adaptive Photo-Protection Trial . Dr. Castilla sees the skin’s critical interplay with the systemic immune system as an important and non-invasive pathway to systemic immunomodulation.
Dr. Castilla earned her undergraduate degree with honors from New York University. She subsequently completed her medical education at Rutgers – New Jersey Medical School where she was elected into the alpha omega alpha honor society. Dr. Castilla completed her internship in internal medicine at Harvard Brigham and Women’s hospital. She then finished her dermatology training at New York University, while specializing in general and cosmetic dermatology. During her residency, Dr. Castilla served in several leadership positions including the NYU Dermatology Education Committee.
Dr. Ben Wang is a chemical engineer by training with two decades of experience working in the commercialization of hard technologies, spanning areas including microfluidics, drug discovery, nanomaterials, cleantech, immuno-oncology, and cell therapy. He is a co-founder of two companies (Svaya and Chimera) and is currently the CEO of Chimera Bioengineering, which is in the development of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell therapy for solid tumors.
Dr. Wang specializes in intersectional scientific and engineering expertise and innovation in optics and immunology. His experience at Chimera relates to understanding and controlling immune toxicity and cytokine release syndromes, endemic in CAR-T therapy. He has served on three private company boards (Chimera, Svaya, and Prospect Bio) and has deep connections to key opinion leaders and investors. He holds dozens of patents and applications across multiple fields, and has over ten years of leadership in the StartX community, including as EIR. Dr. Wang received his B.S. from Stanford University and his Ph.D. from MIT, both in Chemical Engineering.
Dr. Alina G. Bridges is a Medical and Hospital Dermatologist, an Immunodermatologist, and a Derma-pathologist in Rochester, Minnesota and is affiliated with Mayo Clinic. Dr. Bridges specializes in Dermatology and Dermatopathology.
She is a member of the American Academy of Dermatology and is a part of their Rapid Response Committee. Dr. Bridges graduated from the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in 1994, and the Mayo Clinic College of Medicine.
Prof. Dr. med. univ. Peter Wolf, MD is the Chair of the Department of Dermatology and Director of the Research Unit of Photodermatology, and Full Professor for Dermatology and Bioimmunotherapy at the Medical University of Graz, Austria. His clinical and research interests focus on photodermatology and photoimmunology, including phototherapy and photopheresis, photodermatoses, and photoprotection. Dr. Wolf is the principal investigator of numerous previous and ongoing clinical trials investigating phototherapeutic protocols to treat inflammatory and neoplastic skin diseases.
The focus of this laboratory is to determine whether these factors play a role in UV-induced immunosuppression and its long-lasting therapeutic effects on inflammatory conditions of the skin, including psoriasis and its comorbidities as well as neoplastic diseases such as cutaneous T-cell lymphoma. He studied medicine at the Karl Franzens University of Graz, Austria.
Adele Diamond, Ph.D., FRSC is the Canada Research Chair Tier I Professor of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of British Columbia (UBC), Vancouver, BC, Canada. A member of the Royal Society of Canada, she has been named one of the “2000 Outstanding Women of the 20th Century” and has been listed as one of the 15 most influential neuroscientists alive today. She was educated at Swarthmore (BA, Phi Beta Kappa), Harvard (Ph.D.), and Yale Medical School (postdoc).
Prof. Diamond is recognized as a world leader in the field of Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience as evidenced by impact, awards, success in research funding, leadership roles, and abundant invitations to speak across disciplines, professions, and nations.
Stephen Rudin, MD is co-founder of Cytokynd Inc. A non-practicing graduate of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, where he received his MD degree, Dr. Rudin’s work focuses in part on the experiential acquisition of transformative neurocognitive skills for the 4th Industrial Revolution and beyond. The founder of three iconic mentoring organizations, he works with families in the US and internationally on understanding and expressing all five capitals for thriving (spiritual, social, intellectual, human, and financial) and as a thought leader and speaker within the family office ecosystem. Dr. Rudin is a founding Elder for the Intergen Family Initiative, preparing Millennials and GenZers to navigate future uncertainty and to fully engage in intergenerational collaboration and learning. Stephen’s endeavors help to foster consciousness, community, culture, and communication within and between families. In his spare time, he is a writer, disruptive innovator, and hands-on advisor/investor in arenas including science, wellness, medicine, communications, and learning. His mother wished he had practiced medicine.
John MacMahon is a serial entrepreneur specializing in early-stage product development. Beginning with Kerberos Proximal Solutions (acquired by Fox Hollow Technologies), He has led and/or founded numerous medical device startups in the vascular field. John was COO for Maya Medical (acquired by Covidien) and led their transfer of manufacturing from the US to Ireland. He was also the General Manager for Europe for Claret Medical (acquired by Boston Scientific).
Presently, John is the CEO of Mitre Medical and is a member of the corporate boards of Luma Therapeutics and Smart Human Dynamics. John is an active mentor for entrepreneurs from Stanford BioDesign, Enterprise Ireland, and the Kauffman Foundation. He received his Bachelors’s in Physics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and graduate studies in both electrical and biomechanical engineering at Stanford University (MS EE).
