Committee Members

Peter Richardson was a co-founder of BenevolentAI, and since 2018 he has served as VP
Pharmacology in BenevolentAI. He was a founding member of Cambridge Biotechnology
Ltd in 2001 and served as CSO and Executive Director until 2009, while also being EVP and
Head of Discovery in Biovitrum from 2005. Between 2009 and 2018 he served as an adviser
to Proximagen, Upsher Smith and BenevolentAI. In 2020 he was responsible for the
identification of baricitinib as a therapy for COVID-19.

Jonathan S. Minden, Ph.D., Founder and Chief Scientific Officer: Jon is a Professor in the department of Biological
Sciences at Carnegie Mellon University with over 30 years of experience in the field of proteomics. He holds several
patents through the university for proteomics and imaging technologies. One of his previous inventions, twodimensional
difference gel electrophoresis, was successfully licensed by Amersham (now GE Healthcare/Cytiva) and
created a million-dollar market that is still profitable today. Dr. Minden was also awarded four grants from the NSF
(PFI:AIR-TT, NSF I-Corps, SBIR Phase I, and SBIR Phase II) for development and commercialization of the
technology that went on to be commercialized by Impact Proteomics. As the Chief Scientific Officer, Dr. Minden’s
responsibilities include providing scientific guidance to drive operating strategies, directing scientific development,
which includes defining performance goals, and implementing the scientific strategy by interacting with the head of
research and development. In addition, Jon leads the scientific consultation process for developing new collaborations
and customers.

Dr. Im Sampen is a Principal Investigator funded by NIH and the Department of Defense (DoD) as a multidisciplinary osteoarthritis (OA) pain research group. Her research has been instrumental in establishing preclinical rodent models to examine mutual cause-and-effect relationships in OA that link tissue degeneration with pain. She has served on multiple NIH and Foundation study sections as a reviewer
administered by NIAMS, VA, or international funding agencies. She also served as an Editor-In-Chief for Gene Reports or Executive Editor (Gene) and an Editorial board member of numerous international journals. She has been a member of the Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) since 2000 and served the ORS as Nominating Committee (elected), an Executive Member of Women’s Leadership Forum and Asian Leadership Forum member. She received various awards and honors, such as the Arthritis National Research Foundation Scholar Award, OARSI Investigator Award, Kappa Delta Elizabeth Winston Lanier Award from the ORS, and VA Research Scientist Award.

Fiorenza Rancan, Assistant Professor at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, has a degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Technology at the University of Padua (Italy). She gained her PhD at the Humboldt University of Berlin (Germany) with a thesis on the biological effects of fullerene derivatives used is photodynamic therapy. She works since 2007 in the Clinical Research Center for Hair and Skin Science at the Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin in several interdisciplinary projects on transdermal vaccination, nanotoxicity, topical drug delivery, wound healing and wound infections. Current interests and projects are on topical antimicrobial treatments as well as ex vivo skin models as alternatives or complement to pre-clinical animal studies.

Byung-Chul Oh is a full Professor at the College of Medicine, Gachon University, and serves as the Vice President of the Lee Gil Ya Cancer and Diabetes Institute. His research focuses on the intricate interplay between intracellular calcium (Ca2 +) and phosphoinositides (PIPs). His research offers a comprehensive examination of how intracellular Ca2+ overload negatively regulates the membrane localization of PIP-binding proteins, broadening our understanding of the pathogenesis of various diseases and offering potential avenues for therapeutic intervention.

Dr. Jun Wan is tenured Associate Professor and Principal Investigator (PI) in bioinformatics and computational biology at the Department of Medical and Molecular Genetics, Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis, IN USA. He directs the Collaborative Core for Cancer Bioinformatics (C3B) shared by two NIH/NCI-designated cancer centers in Indiana, Indiana University Simon Comprehensive Cancer Center (IUSCCC) and Purdue University Center of Cancer Research (PUCCR).
Jun received his bachelor’s degree in physics from Shanghai Jiaotong University and master’s degree in physics from Fudan University in China. After obtaining his PhD degree in physics at Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario Canada in 2006, Dr. Wan switched his research field from physics to bioinformatics during the postdoctoral training at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland USA. At the end of 2016, Dr. Wan moved to Indiana University School of Medicine as a tenure-track Assistant Professor and independent PI. He was then promoted in 2022 to Associate Professor with tenure.
Dr. Jun Wan has broad research interests in bioinformatics and computational systems biology, especially with core motivation of understanding functional alterations of gene regulatory network from the perspectives of epigenetics, transcription, and translation, including but not limited to transcription factor regulation, DNA methylation, alternative splicing, microRNA regulation, histone modifications, genome-wide chromatin organizations, and crosstalk among these functional elements. His lab also employs data mining and deep learning methods to decipher genetic and epigenetic codes, dissect master regulators for gene programming to understand dynamics of gene regulatory networks, and investigate interactions between small molecules and proteins/DNA/RNA by incorporating a wide variety of ‘-omics’ datasets from the public domains to explore comprehensive patterns of gene regulatory networks. Jun has published over 120 peer-reviewed papers and is well recognized as an expert in computational biology and bioinformatics. He has demonstrated a longstanding record of successful collaborations with over 100 research groups from different universities and institutes. His own research and collaborative projects with other PIs have been supported by multiple grants funded by NIH, DoD, and other societies/foundations in USA. In 2023, Dr. Wan was awarded as Showalter Scholar selected by Ralph W. and Grace M. Showalter Research Trust and Indiana University School of Medicine.

Professor in Medicine & Immunology, Chair, Dept for Personalized Medicine, Precision Nutriciology and
Biodesign of the Institute for Biotechnology & Global Health of the RosBioTech National University
Moscow, Russia,
Department of Clinical Immunology of A.I. Evdokimov Moscow State University of
EPMA (European Association for Prediction, Prevention and Personalized Medicine), Brussels, EU
Member, New York Academy of Sciences, USA
Member, ISPM (International Society for Personalized Medicine), Tokyo, Japan;
Member, PMC (Personalized Medicine Coalition), Washington, USA
Member, ACS (American Chemical Society), Washington, DC, USA