Scientific Advisory Board
Frank Giles, M.D.
Professor of Cancer Therapeutics, National University of Ireland Galway & Trinity College Dublin
Professor of Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio
Memgen Scientific Advisory Board
Frank Giles, M.D., is a cancer specialist with more than two decades of experience in the development of novel drugs, immunotherapies, and other highly targeted approaches, including cancer-directed viruses. He led the efforts to develop Tasigna®, a kinase inhibitor initially approved by the U.S. FDA to target relapsed chronic myelogenous leukemia, and recently approved for first-line therapy.
Dr. Giles' specific disease areas of interest include leukemias, lymphomas, and multiple myeloma, with a focus on innovations and novel approaches likely to lead to FDA-approved therapies across the oncology spectrum. At the UT Health Science Center, San Antonio, where he is a Professor of Medicine, he has served as Deputy Director, Cancer Therapy & Research Center (CTRC); the A.B. Alexander Chair in Medical Oncology; AT&T Chair, CTRC; Chief of the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology; Director of the Institute for Drug Development, CTRC; and Program Co-Leader for Experimental and Developmental Therapeutics, CTRC.
At the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Dr. Giles was a Professor in the Division of Cancer Medicine; Chief of the Section of Developmental Therapeutics; Senator for the Faculty Senate; Vice Chair of the Institutional Review Board; Co-Chair, Division of Cancer Medicine Phase I Group; Chairman, Clinical Research Committee; and a member of the Cancer Medicine Executive Council. He also was an Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles; an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; and in instructor in the Department of Hematology at University College and Middlesex Hospital, London.
Dr. Giles received MB, BCH, BAO, and Doctor of Medicine degrees from the National University of Ireland. He was a member and held fellowships with both the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland and the Royal College of Pathology (U.K.). His awards have included the BioLink USA-Ireland Lifescience Award and the Medtronic Award for Health Care and Medical Science, National University of Ireland, Galway.
He holds numerous patents and technology licenses and has authored over 500 peer-reviewed medical publications. He has held membership in more than a dozen professional societies and has assumed leadership roles in many prestigious organizations, including Chairman and Founder of the International Oncology Study Group; President of the Hematology Education Institute; and President and Founder of the Developmental Therapeutics Consortium.
Armand Keating, M.D.
Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto
Memgen Scientific Advisory Board
Armand Keating, M.D. is an internationally renowned investigator in blood and marrow transplantation, leukemia, lymphoma, anti-cancer cell therapy and cell-based tissue regeneration. He has over 330 publications in these fields and holds three patents.
Dr. Keating is Professor of Medicine, Director, Division of Hematology, Epstein Chair in Cell Therapy and Transplantation and a Professor in the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. In addition, he is Director of the Cell Therapy Program and the Orsino Cell Therapy Translational Research Laboratory at Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto and a Senior Scientist in Experimental Therapeutics at the Toronto General Research Institute.
After obtaining his M.D. degree from the University of Ottawa, Dr. Keating completed residencies in internal medicine and hematology at the University of Toronto and research fellowships at the University of Washington and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle. For ten years, he was a cancer research scientist at the National Cancer Institute of Canada. During this period, he established the largest stem cell transplantation program in Canada. More recently, he spent a decade as the Chief of Medical Services and Head, Department of Medical Oncology and Hematology, at Princess Margaret Hospital/Ontario Cancer Institute. He continues to lead a clinical practice and was recently listed in Best Doctors in Canada.
Dr. Keating serves on numerous editorial boards of scholarly journals and is a Co-Editor of Bone Marrow Transplantation and Associate Editor of Biology of Blood and Marrow Transplantation.
Dr. Keating is active in the American Society of Hematology (ASH), serving as a Councilor and Secretary before being elected Vice President in 2010. He will become President of ASH in 2012. He is also a past president of the American Society for Blood and Marrow Transplantation; Chair of the Steering Committee for Cell-Based Therapy of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH); Chair of the Medical and Scientific Committee of The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society and a member of its Board of Directors; a member of the Canadian Stem Cell Network; and a member of the Advisory Board of the Argentine Stem Cell Consortium.
Clemens-Martin Wendtner, M.D.
Professor of Medicine & Deputy Medical Director, University of Cologne
Memgen Scientific Advisory Board
Clemens-Martin Wendtner, M.D., is a distinguished researcher in the fields of hematology and oncology. At the University of Cologne, he is a full Professor of Medicine and Deputy Medical Director in the Department of Hematology and Oncology, as well as Research Director of the university's Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Immunology of CLL.
Dr. Wendtner's research group is part of the University of Cologne Cluster of Excellence "Cellular Stress Responses in Aging-Associated Diseases" (CECAD) and is funded by the German Research Council (DFG). His group focuses on the molecular pathogenesis and immune biology of chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), a common leukemia of elderly patients. He and the researchers he directs approach CLL from a number of perspectives, including the study of chromosomal aberrations, microRNAs, lipid metabolism, apoptosis resistance, immune biology, and cellular immunotherapy.
Dr. Wendtner was a founding member in 1996 of the German CLL Study Group (GCLLSG), is a member of its steering panel and holds the position of Secretary. The German CLL Study Group is the largest cooperative study group for chronic lymphocytic leukemia in the world.
In addition, Dr. Wendtner serves as head of the University of Cologne's EORTC Soft Tissue Bone Sarcoma Group as well as head of the Interdisciplinary Oncologic Project Group on Sarcomas for the Center of Integrated Oncology, located in Cologne/Bonn.
He received his M.D. from Westfälische Wilhelms University (WWU) of Münster, Germany, where he also studied undergraduate medicine and theology. He spent an academic year at NIH (National Cancer Institute) in Bethesda, Md., and studied pre-doctoral medicine at both Emory University (Atlanta) and the University of Florida (Gainesville). He did his medical residency at the Medical Clinic at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich; was a post-doctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Martinsried, and at the NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI); and was a Research Fellow at the German Research Center for Environmental Health in Munich.
Dr. Wendtner received a Young Investigator Award from the Connective Tissue Oncology Society (CTOS) of Amsterdam; 1st prize at the Wilmanns Foundation 6th International Symposium on Biological Therapy of Cancer (Munich); a Curt-Bohnewand Research Award (Munich); and a Merit Award of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in New Orleans. He holds several patents and has been principal investigator for numerous Phase I-III clinical studies. Dr. Wendtner consults with leading pharmaceutical companies that include Berlex/Schering AG (as a member of its Global Hematology Advisory Board), Celgene, Fresenius Biotech, Genentech, Genmab, Hoffman-LaRoche AG, and Mundipharma.