biOasis Announces Formation of Scientific Advisory Board to Advance the Science for the Company’s Blood-Brain Barrier Drug Delivery Platform
VANCOUVER, BC, Canada – biOasis Technologies Inc. (OTCQB: BIOAF; TSX.V: BTI), a biopharmaceutical company focused on overcoming the limitations of therapeutic drug delivery across the blood-brain barrier (BBB) and into the central nervous system for the treatment of neurological diseases and disorders, today announced the appointments of Prof. John H. Krystal, M.D., Jeffrey L. Cummings, M.D., and John P. Wikswo, Jr., Ph.D., to its newly established Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). These independent experts will serve as a strategic resource to biOasis as it continues to advance the company’s proprietary drug delivery platform. Dr. Krystal will serve as chairman of the SAB.
“I’m excited to serve as chair of the biOasis SAB and to work with Mark again,” said Dr. Krystal. “Most drugs created to treat central nervous system diseases and disorders fail because they aren’t optimally designed to be delivered in sufficient quantities to the brain. I look forward to working with Mark and his team to untap the potential of the biOasis platform in the development of differentiated treatments for previously untreatable neurological diseases and disorders.”
Additional members will be added once their institutions approve their membership to the biOasis SAB. The SAB will be composed of leaders from the academic, pharmaceutical, and biotechnology industries from discovery, translational medicine, and clinical development areas. The SAB will work closely with the biOasis management team to advance the development of the company’s proprietary BBB drug delivery platform, xB3. The role of the SAB is to provide strategic guidance and direction for the biOasis inhouse development programs as well as strategic research alliances. The SAB will also play a role in guiding and prioritizing the company’s research investment.
“I am intrigued by the proprietary xB3 BBB drug delivery technology that biOasis has developed, and I am eager to assist with the strategy for its development,” said Dr. Cummings.
“I am excited at the opportunity of working with biOasis and their SAB. This is translational science at its best—my academic research group received five years of funding from NIH/NCATS to develop a neurovascular unit on a chip and the supporting hardware. We learned a lot from our experiments, colleagues, pharma, and organ-on-chip companies, and are proceeding to develop on-chip disease models. Now I can help guide the development of a specific therapeutic platform,” said Dr. Wikswo.
“We are honored to welcome Dr. Krystal, Dr. Cummings, and Dr. Wikswo to the new biOasis SAB. Having worked with Profs. Krystal and Cummings previously, I’ve been fortunate to have had their guidance and support on several key studies. They helped guide my translational research during one of the most productive periods in my career. I can’t wait to work with them again. Dr. Wikswo adds significant BBB experience to our board. His work developing a BBB on a chip as part of his organs-on-a-chip program has been extraordinary, and I look forward to working with him as well. They are all true leaders in their fields,” said Mark Day, Ph.D., president and chief executive officer, biOasis Technologies, Inc. “Our new SAB members will provide a tremendous knowledge base that will help to inform our approach to our ongoing research and clinical development activities. Their collective knowledge and guidance will be invaluable as we advance our in-house research programs and external research alliances.”
Prof. John H. Krystal, M.D., is the Robert L. McNeil, Jr., professor of translational research, chair of the department of psychiatry, and professor of neuroscience at the Yale University School of Medicine and chief of psychiatry at Yale–New Haven Hospital. Dr. Krystal has published extensively on the neurobiology and treatment of schizophrenia, alcoholism, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and depression. Notably, he led the discovery of the rapid antidepressant effects of ketamine in humans. Dr. Krystal is the director of the National Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism Advisory Council Center for the Translational Neuroscience of Alcoholism and the Clinical Neuroscience Division of the VA National Center for PTSD. Dr. Krystal is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Medicine. Currently, he is president of the International College of Neuropsychopharmacology, a member of the National Institute of Mental Health National Mental Health Advisory Council, and editor of Biological Psychiatry.
Dr. Krystal received his bachelor of science degree in behavioral sciences from the University of Chicago and his doctor of medicine degree from Yale University School of Medicine. He completed his residency in the Yale Psychiatry Residency Training Program.
Jeffrey L. Cummings, M.D., is director of the Cleveland Clinic Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas and Cleveland, the Camille and Larry Ruvo Chair of the Neurological Institute of Cleveland Clinic, and professor of medicine (neurology) at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Cummings is principal investigator/director of the National Institutes of Health/National Institute of General Medical Sciences-funded Center for Neurodegeneration and Translational Neuroscience.
Dr. Cummings is a world-renowned Alzheimer’s researcher and leader of clinical trials. He has been recognized for his research and leadership contributions in the field of Alzheimer’s disease through the Henderson Award of the American Geriatrics Society (2006), the Ronald and Nancy Reagan Research Award of the national Alzheimer’s Association (2008), and the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for Behavioral and Cognitive Neurology (2017). In 2010, he was honored by the American Association of Geriatric Psychiatry with their Distinguished Scientist Award. He was featured in the Gentleman’s Quarterly ( June 2009) as a “Rockstar of Science.”
Dr. Cummings’ interests embrace clinical trials, developing new therapies for brain diseases, and the interface of neuroscience and society. Dr. Cummings was formerly a professor of neurology and psychiatry at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), director of the Mary S. Easton Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research at UCLA, and director of the Deane F. Johnson Center for Neurotherapeutics at UCLA. He is past president of the Behavioral Neurology Society and of the American Neuropsychiatric Association.
Dr. Cummings has authored or edited 39 books and published over 700 peer-reviewed papers. Dr. Cummings completed his neurology residency and a fellowship in behavioral neurology at Boston University, Boston. His U.S. training was followed by a research fellowship in neuropathology and neuropsychiatry at the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases, Queen Square, London.
John P. Wikswo, Jr., Ph.D., is the Gordon A. Cain University Professor at Vanderbilt University and is the founding director of the Vanderbilt Institute for Integrative Biosystems Research and Education. He has been on the Vanderbilt faculty since 1977. His research has included superconducting magnetometry, the measurement and modeling of cardiac, neural, and gastric electric and magnetic fields and nondestructive testing of aging aircraft. In 1980, he and his group made the first measurement of the magnetic field of a nerve impulse.
As a tenured member of the departments of biomedical engineering, molecular physiology and biophysics, and physics and astronomy, he is guiding the development of microfabricated devices, optical instruments, and software for studying how living cells interact with each other and their environment and respond to drugs, chemical/biological agents, and other toxins, thereby providing insights into systems biology, physiology, medicine, and toxicology.
He has over 200 publications, is a fellow of seven professional societies, and has received 22 patents. He loves teaching and learning, and sharing his enthusiasm for research and inventing with high-school students, undergraduates, and graduate students. He is happiest when he is tinkering and doing plumbing, carpentry, and wiring, either on his house or the ones that he and his group are building to grow cells and miniature human organs. His group’s work on organ-on-chips focuses on the development of intelligent well plates that serve as perfusion controllers, microclinical analyzers, and microformulators; developing a blood-brain barrier on a chip; and integrating multiple organs to create a milli-homunculus from coupled organs on chips. To learn more about the development of a microfluidic device containing human cells, which can model the blood-brain barrier, visit www.technologynetworks. com/neuroscience/videos/blood-brain-barrier-on-a-chip-290733.
Dr. Wikswo trained as a physicist, and he received his bachelor of arts degree from the University of Virginia and his doctor of philosophy degree from Stanford University.
biOasis Technologies Inc. is a biopharmaceutical company focused on overcoming the limitations of therapeutic drug delivery across the blood-brain barrier (BBB). The delivery of therapeutics across the BBB represents the single greatest challenge in treating neurological disorders. The company is developing and commercializing a proprietary brain delivery technology to address unmet medical needs in the treatment of central nervous system diseases and disorders. The company maintains headquarters in Vancouver, Canada, with offices in Connecticut, United States. biOasis trades on the OTCQB under the symbol “BIOAF” and on the TSX Venture Exchange under the symbol “BTI.” For more information about the company, please visit www.bioasis.ca.
