iPierian Appoints Pamela B. Conley as Vice President of Research
SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., May 21, 2012 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- iPierian, Inc., announced today that it has appointed Pamela B. Conley, PhD, as its Vice President of Research. Pamela will be responsible for iPierian's emerging drug development pipeline for therapeutics to treat neurodegenerative diseases, as well as the company's proprietary patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) platform which provides insight for novel therapeutic targets or mechanisms of disease.
Pamela has an accomplished career as a research leader with over 20 years in biotech, across both small molecule and biologics therapeutic development. She brings to iPierian significant drug discovery experience in successfully advancing programs from target identification to clinical development and partnering. She is the author of over 50 scientific publications and reviews, as well as an inventor on multiple patents.
"iPierian has made enormous progress in the last year advancing its drug discovery programs in neurodegenerative disease," said Nancy Stagliano, PhD, CEO of iPierian. "As we move forward with our pipeline, Pamela's demonstrated leadership in the industry will be critical to our success in developing disease-modifying therapeutics."
"iPierian's recent advances in utilizing their patient-derived iPSC platform to further understand the biology of neurodegenerative diseases presents an exciting opportunity for the company to now translate these research findings into validation of important drug targets and novel therapies for these diseases," said Dr. Conley. "I am excited to take on the challenge to lead iPierian's research and I look forward to working with the accomplished team of scientists to take our drug discovery programs into the clinic."
Before joining iPierian, Pamela was Vice President of Research Biology at Portola Pharmaceuticals, where she played a leadership role in the successful identification and clinical progression of both small molecule and biologic therapeutics in the areas of thrombosis, coagulation and inflammation. Prior to joining Portola in 2003, Dr. Conley was a Director in Biology at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, responsible for the basic research and drug discovery efforts for the P2Y12 cardiovascular program, as well as identification of novel platelet targets through expression profiling studies. Dr. Conley joined COR Therapeutics in 1991, where she initiated the program to identify novel inhibitors of platelet ADP receptors. Dr. Conley's group was responsible for cloning and identification of the P2Y12 receptor, published in Nature in 2001. Dr. Conley received her BA degree in Biochemistry from the University of Texas at Austin, and her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. Afterwards, she worked as a postdoctoral fellow studying gene expression and mammalian transcription factors at Stanford University and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Stanford Medical School.
About iPierian
iPierian is a pioneering biopharmaceutical company focusing on harnessing the power of induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to discover novel therapies that are effective in addressing the vast unmet patient needs in neurodegenerative diseases. The company is focused on developing monoclonal antibodies against targets of the Tau protein and the Complement cascade of the innate immune system. The monoclonal antibody development programs evolve from iPierian's proprietary iPSC technology for disease modeling -- utilizing patient-derived cortical neurons, motor neurons, microglia, and astrocytes. iPierian is using these human disease models to discover and validate novel targets and molecules to create a pipeline of drug candidates for diseases in neurodegeneration and neuroinflammation.
iPierian is located in South San Francisco, California. For more information, please visit www.ipierian.com .
SOURCE: iPierian, Inc.
For iPierian, Inc.
Kathryn Morris, 845-635-9828
[email protected]