Prof. Hubel, BioCoR director, will be speaking at the 3rd Annual Biospecimen Research Network (BRN) Symposium: Advancing Cancer Research Through Biospecimen Science. March 24-25, 2010 at the Bethesda North Marriott Hotel & Conference Center, Bethesda, Maryland.Faculty
Alptekin
Aksan, PhD: Dr. Aksan,
BioCoR Assistant Director, is currently an Assistant Professor in the
Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. He
received his B.S. and M.S. degrees in Mechanical Engineering from the Middle
East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. He completed his Ph.D. studies on
thermomechanics of collagenous tissues in Michigan State University, Mechanical
Engineering Department. He worked for three years as a post-doctoral researcher
in Center for Engineering in Medicine in Massachusetts General Hospital,
Harvard Medical School before joining the faculty of Mechanical Engineering in
University of Minnesota. His research interests are Biothermodynamics,
Biostabilization, and Bioheat/mass Transfer.
Allison
Hubel, PhD: Dr. Hubel, BioCoR Director, is currently
a Professor of
Mechanical Engineering at the University of Minnesota. She is
also a former faculty member in the Department of Laboratory Medicine
and Pathology at the University of Minnesota. For almost 20
years, Dr. Hubel has studied both basic science and translational
issues behind cell and tissue preservation (liquid storage and
cryopreservation). Her research focuses on development of
protocols for cell and tissue preservation, development of tools to
improve preservation, and understanding molecular mechanisms of damage
and education/training in the field of preservation. She has
published numerous articles related to cell and tissue preservation and
has been awarded three patents related to cell preservation technology.
Diane Kadidlo: received her B.S. from Iowa State University. She has over 19 years experience in cell and tissue manufacturing, regulationa nd quality assurance. She has served as the Supervisor for the University of Minnesota Medical Center Clinical Cell Therapy Laboratory since 1996 overseeing the production of cell and tissue productions in support of the University of Minnesota's Blood and Marrow Transplant Program. Currently she is the Director of the UMN's Mollecular and Cellular Therapeutics Facility and plays a key role in coordinating the transfer of cell and tissue engineering methods from the laboratory bench to clinical trial while ensuring compliance with the FDA's Good Manufacturing Practices/Good Tissue Practices.
David McKenna, M.D: Dr. McKenna is an Associate Professor in
the University of Minnesota Medical School. He is also the
Scientific and Medical Director of Molecular & Cellular
Therapeutics, the cGMP facility of the University of Minnesota, the
Director of the Cell Therapy Laboratory of the University of Minnesota
Medical Center and the Director of the Division of Transfusion Medicine
in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology. Dr.
McKenna is actively involved with the National Heart, Lung, & Blood
Institute (NHLBI)-sponsored PACT (Production Assistance for Cellular
Therapy) group. He is a member of AABB having served as the Chair
of their Cellular Therapies Committee from 2006-2009 and currently
serving as the Vice-Chair of the newly formed Cellular Therapies
Section Coordinating Committee, the International Society for Cellular
Therapy, the International Society for Stem Cell Research, Tissue
Engineering/Regenerative Medicine-International Society, and the
American Society of Hematology. He is also a Scientific Member of
the Biomedical Excellence for Safer Transfusion (BEST) Collaborative
Cellular Therapy Team. His interests include umbilical cord blood
research, quality assurance/quality control in cellular therapy, and
translational research/clinical scale-up of biotherapeutics.
Fran Rabe: has over 20 years of experience working in the areas of tissue and cell quality assurance and regulatory compliance. She currently oversees the quality assurance aspect of operations at the University of Minnesota Molecular and Cellular Therapeutics (MCT) Facility, a GMP facility that manufactures standard and IND hematopoietic products, pancreatic cellular products and active pharmaceutical ingredients. Fran has extensive experience with audits, having performed in excess of 50 GMP audits at multiple U.S. and international institutions. She also has extensive experience with FDA IND submissions and working directly with FDA as it relates to the regulation of cellular and tissue products. In addition to holding a Masters Degree in Manufacturing Systems, Ms. Rabe is an American Society for Quality (ASQ) Certified Quality Manager.
Amy P.N. Skubitz, PhD: Dr. Skubitz is a Professor in the
Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of
Minnesota where she serves as the Director of the Academic Health
Center's BioNet Tissue Procurement Facility. She has been a
member of the International Society for Biological and Environmental
Repositories (ISBER) since 1999 where she has served as a member of
ISBER's Education and Training Committee for 5 years; serving as an
Associate Editor of the "Best Practices for Repositories".
Professor Skubitz's research is focused on biomarkers for ovarian
cancer, which relies heavily upon her expertise in high quality
accural, processing, and preservation of human tissues, cells, and
fluids. During the past 30 years, Professor Skubitz has published
over 100 manuscripts and book chapters.
Raj Suryanarayanan (Sury): is a Professor in Pharmaceutics in the College of Pharmacy, University of Minnesota. He also holds the William and Mildred Peters Endowed Chair in Pharmaceutics. He obtained his B.Pharm. and M.Pharm. degrees from Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India and M.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Pharaceutics from University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada. His research is focused in the area of solid-state properties of drugs. His publications in this field deal with phase transitions in solids, implications of in situ phase transitions on product performance, evaluation of concepts of crystallinity and development of new techniques to evaluate crystallinity in solids. He has developed X-ray diffractometric techniques for the qualitiative and quantitative analysis of solid phases, to determine the grug content in intact tablets and to study solid-state reactions. His research group is currently involved in developing low temperature powder X-ray diffractometric techniques to study frozen and freeze-dried pharmaceutical systems. He is a concultant to numerous pharmaceutical companies and has served as a member of the United States Pharamacopeia Expert Committee (Excipients test methods). He is a fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists and is the past-chair of the Teachers of Pharmaceutics preservation of livers, in particular reclaiming marginal donor livers (non-heart-beating donors and fatty livers). His reserach has utilized intravital microscopy, rodent transplant model, rodent and porcine isolated perfusion models. He has published numerous papers on hypothermic preservation and two patents are pending based on hypothermic machine perfusion.
Christine Wendt, MD: Dr. Wendt is an Associate Professor in
the Department of Medicine at the University of Minnesota and Director
of the O-Brien Biobank whose specialty is identifying biomarkers of
lung disease using state-of-the-art proteomics.
