The EVE-M Team

BOARD

Leigh Jasper

• CEO, Saniel Ventures
• Chair, LaunchVic
• Director, SEEK Ltd, Salta Properties, Buildxact, and Burnet Institute

Leigh Jasper is an entrepreneurial, strategic and people focused leader. In addition to his role as Director of Burnet Institute, he is the former CEO and Founder of Aconex, one of Australia’s largest technology companies and a global leader in construction software. As CEO, he led Aconex through multiple capital raisings, to an Initial Public Offering (IPO) in 2014 and company sale to Oracle Ltd for $1.6 billion in 2018.

Mr Jasper grew Aconex to over $200 million in revenue, employing 900 staff across operations in 50 cities around the world, including locations in Australia, Asia, the Middle East, Europe, South America and North America. MrJasper worked in the Melbourne, San Francisco and Paris offices of Aconex. Prior to founding Aconex, heworked in management consulting with McKinsey and Company.

Mr Jasper is active in the technology sector, investing in start-ups through Saniel Ventures. He is the Chair of LaunchVic (Victoria’s start-up agency), and a Director of SEEK Ltd, Buildxact and Salta Properties.

He holds a Bachelor of Engineering degree with First Class Honours, a Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics, and a Diploma of Modern Languages in French from the University of Melbourne. Mr Jasper will be a director on the EVE-M board.

Dr Roslyn Hendriks

C-Suite Corporate LLC

• Chief Executive Officer, C-Suite Corporate
• Chairman, MicrobiomX
• GMJ Technologies Inc. (Seattle)
• Provectus Algae Pty Ltd (Australia)

Dr Roslyn Hendriks is an experienced CEO and entrepreneur with lifelong success in founding new companies, accelerating profitable growth of emerging businesses, coaching executives and companies, and serving on boards. She has repeated these successes in angel, seed, VC and high net-worth backed start-ups spanning two decades.

She is an experienced director, governance-credentialed with the US National Association of Corporate Directors (NACD). She counsels early-stage companies in governance, creating compelling and energising visions, and authoring success strategies. She is currently Chairman of MicrobiomX, a spin-out from the University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital, and sits on the Advisory Boards of GMJ Technologies Inc. (Seattle) and Provectus Algae Pty Ltd (Australia), as well as Advisory Boards within Burnet Institute. She is also CEO of C-Suite Corporate LLC, a corporate advisory firm based in the Greater Seattle Area and an Extended Team Member of NextLevel (US Pacific North-West).

Roslyn has 30+ years’ experience in start-ups, small cap privates and non-profits in medical technologies, university foundations/tech transfer, and corporate advisory services. She has extensive cross-border business development, and commercial experience in US, Australia, UK and Europe. She was Founding CEO for 11 years of Immunexpress. The company raised over $40M in high risk capital under her watch, and developed the award-winning SeptiCyte technology (Medtech Insight Awards 2018, “Best Proof of Value of an Innovation”); SeptiCyte LAB is the first RNA-based multiplex molecular diagnostic to be cleared (Feb 2017) by the FDA for infectious disease and, in its point-of-care format, is destined to create a paradigm shift in sepsis diagnosis globally. Sepsis is one of the world’s deadliest and costly diseases.

Roslyn is recognised for her natural entrepreneurial DNA, and ability and to lead and inspire others. She is qualified in veterinary medicine and medical pharmacology (The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia; University of California, Davis) and has a summa cum laude MBA from the Queensland University of Technology. She is passionate about innovation and experienced in building effective organisations to bring cutting-edge technologies to the global market. She has lived and worked in Australia, France and the US, and has built successful business relationships across North America, Australasia, Europe and the UK. She is expert in seeing the big picture, rapidly finding the issues, and developing strategies for business development and transformation. She has lived and worked in the Greater Seattle Area of the US since early 2010.

Professor Sally McArthur

Swinburne University of Technology

• Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Swinburne University of Technology
• CSIRO Research + Science Leader in Biomaterials

As an engineering researcher, Professor McArthur has obtained approximately $22M in funding from research councils, industry and government in the UK and Australia. She is passionate about exploring new ways to translate research into clinical and commercial impact. In addition to her roles at Swinburne and CSIRO, she is the Victorian Regional Director of the National Medical Device Partnering Program (MDPP). She leads a team that provides development support to help de-risk, refine and develop ideas into commercially and technically viable prototypes by partnering clients with a community of experts including end-users and clinicians, manufacturers, service providers and world-class research partners and specialist facilities. Professor McArthur also leads the Biointerface Engineering Hub of the Australian National Fabrication Facilities Victoria (ANFF-Vic) which provides services to academic and industry partners seeking to interface technology with biology.

Sally joined Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne in 2008 and commenced her academic career at The University of Sheffield in the UK in 2002 after completing her Post-Doctoral Studies at the University of Washington in Seattle, USA. She obtained her PhD in 2000 from the University of New South Wales working with contact lens manufacturer Ciba Vision and CSIRO. She obtained her MEng Sci (Biomedical Engineering) and B.Eng (Materials Engineering) from Monash University.

Professor McArthur will have a seat on the EVE-M Board, and also Chair the EVE-M Scientific Advisory Board.

Guillaume Herry

• Director, Biointelect

Guillaume Herry has a versatile profile combining international hands-on operational biopharma industry experience across various roles of increased responsibility (incl. CEO position), with successful strategic consulting experience advising the biopharmaceutical industry both locally and internationally. He is genuinely interested and enthusiastic about furthering innovation in healthcare and contributing to timely patient access to innovative medicines.

Mr Herry has more than fifteen years of international experience in the biopharmaceutical and medical device industries in the US, Europe and Australia. He has expertise and a successful track record in formulation and implementation of growth strategies, strategic market access & policy, driving innovation in healthcare across new product & service development, commercialisation, corporate and business development (acquisition, license-in, partnership), financial modelling, operational and general management (including sales & marketing, full company P&L ownership).

During his international career, Guillaume has been directly involved in women’s heath development programs and product launch. Relevant market segments in women’s health include contraceptives (incl. oral, vaginal ring, IUDs), hormone replacement therapy, luteal phase support, prenatal / perinatal vitamins, polycystic ovary syndromes (PCOS), iron deficiency anaemia, dysfunctional uterine bleeding, post-partum urinary incontinence, vaginal infections, restauration / maintenance of vaginal flora and HPV-related cancers.

Mr Herry is also the inventor of several granted US patents currently used in various commercial ventures. He is an active member of the Policy Scanning Working Group at Medicines Australia; the peak body representing the innovative pharmaceutical industry in Australia. He is based in Sydney and is a Director at Biointelect, a strategic consultancy to the biopharmaceutical industry.

He holds an MBA from the Australian Graduate School of Management at the University of New South Wales Business School, a Master’s Degree in Engineering for Health and Drugs (Biotechnology, Health and Management) from the University Joseph Fourier in Grenoble (France) and a Master’s Degree in Entrepreneurship in Life Sciences & Technologies from the University Paris-Sud X (France).

Guillaume is currently a member of the EVE-M Operational & Commercialisation Advisory Committee (OCAC) and during EVE-M Stage 2, he will serve on the EVE-M Board.

Warwick Tong

• Director, Medinnovate Ltd
• Chairman of Board at Amplia Therapeutics Limited

Warwick Tong, MB ChB, MPP, GAICD, is a NZ trained physician with more than 27 years’ experience in the life science sector, including director’s roles in private and public organisations, and leadership roles in public-private partnerships such as Cooperative Research Centres.

Following his initial career in General Medical Practice, Mr Tong held a variety of roles in the pharmaceutical and biotech industry in NZ(Glaxo) Singapore (GlaxoWellcome) London (GSK), Boston (Surface Logix) and Melbourne (CTx - Cancer Therapeutics CRC). His roles have included; Medical Director, Regional Business Development Director (Asia Pacific), Commercial Strategy Director (International) and SVP Development (USA).

Warwick was CEO and Director of CTx from 2011 until April 2018 and is Director and Chair of the CTx spin-out company, CTxONE. He was involved in two significant licensing deals from the CRC to major pharmaceutical partners. He is Chair of the Board of ASX-listed Amplia Therapeutics, a member of the Governance Board of the ARC CoE in Convergent Bio Nano Science, a member of the SAB of the Maurice Wilkins Centre in Auckland NZ and a member of the CSIRO Manufacturing, Business Advisory Committee.

Mr Tong held a previous position with BioMedVic (May 2018 - Dec 2019), as Director and Chair. He has current advisory roles with the Board for Cortex Health, a private Melbourne company; the Industry Advisory Board, School of Biomedical Sciences, University of Melbourne; and the Scientific Advisory Board Maurice Wilkins Centre, Auckland New Zealand.

He was educated at the University of Auckland and Victoria University, Wellington, and is a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Mr Tong will be appointed as an independent director of the EVE-M board. His combination of leadership, governance, commercialisation and technical experience will provide significant value to EVE-M.

SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD

Professor Jim A. Turpin

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Rockville MD

• Acting Deputy Director, Prevention Sciences Program (PSP); DAIDS/NIAID/NIH
• Branch Chief for the Preclinical Microbicides and Prevention Research Branch (PMPRB)

Jim Turpin. is the Acting Deputy Director of PSP and a Program Officer in the Prevention Sciences Program (PSP) in the Division of AIDS (DAIDS) in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). As Acting Deputy Director his responsibilities include oversight and management of the scientific operations of the PSP non-vaccine biomedical prevention preclinical program. He is the Program Officer and contact for the following grant programs supported by PMPRB: Integrated Preclinical/Clinical Program (IPCP) for HIV prevention,  Microbicide Innovation Program (MIP), Prevention Innovation Program (PIP), Mucosal Environment and HIV Prevention Program (MEHP), Sustained Release Antiretrovirals for HIV Treatment and Prevention (SRATP), Risk of Adolescence and Injury in HIV Susceptibility (RAIS), Next Generation Multipurpose Prevention Technologies (NGM), Advancing Sustained/Extended Release for HIV Prevention (A-SER) and Transgender People: Immunity, Prevention, and Treatment RFAs and PARs.

Mr Turpin is the preclinical lead for the PSP non-vaccine biomedical prevention Sustained/Extended Release (SER), Multipurpose Prevention Technologies (MPT), and preclinical preexposure prophylaxis (PEP) programs. In his role as a Program Officer he has written and developed over 40 RFA/PARs and supported over 35 phase 1 clinical trials of topical microbicide, MPT and SER candidates.  As the Chief of PMPRB he also oversees the PMPRB contract team which supports the Comprehensive Resources for HIV Topical Microbicide and Biomedical Prevention (CRMP) contract, which provides gap-filling resources to academic and industrial sponsors and developers of topical microbicides and prevention products. 

Dr Andrea Thurman

Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, Virginia

• Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, Eastern Virginia Medical School (EVMS)

Dr Andrea Ries Thurman is a Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology in Norfolk, Virginia. She is a member of the senior management team for the CONRAD program and is the Director of the Clinical Research Center at EVMS.  

Dr Thurman’s research interests include reproductive tract and sexually transmitted infections, mucosal susceptibility to HIV, phase I testing of HIV prevention products, the interaction of bacterial vaginosis and contraceptive hormones with mucosal susceptibility to HIV and the implementation of objective biomarkers of adherence for topical microbicides and oral pre-exposure prophylaxis.  She is the site Principal Investigator for CONRAD Clinical Trials and is a Principal Investigator on several commercially funded studies related to women’s reproductive health. She is an investigator for the NICHD Clinical Contraceptive Trials Network. She works closely with the CONRAD laboratory on clinical and pre-clinical projects, including statistical analyses and data management. She served as the technical leader for CONRAD cooperative agreements focusing on adherence to HIV PrEP and incorporating human centred design to increase uptake and adherence to PrEP by young women in South Africa. She is the project lead and site PI for an NICHD grant examining mucosal immunity in premenopausal and postmenopausal women. With over nine years of experience at CONRAD, she has worked on dozens of CONRAD clinical projects focusing on different dosage forms for both oral and topical PrEP, multi-purpose prevention technologies and the interaction between exogenous contraceptives and reproductive tract infections on mucosal susceptibility to HIV. Dr Thurman also served as the site principal investigator for two commercially-sponsored BV treatment studies, with both oral and topical antibiotic treatments.

Professor Alan Landay

Rush University Medical Centre, Chicago IL

• Professor, Departments of Internal Medicine and Microbial Pathogens and Immunity
• Vice Chair for Research, Department of Internal Medicine, Rush University

Professor Alan Landay PhD has been involved in HIV research for over 35 years having performed some of the first immune evaluations of HIV-infected haemophiliacs in 1982 while completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. His laboratory has made important original contributions in understanding the role of immune activation and inflammation in outcomes of non-communicable disease related to ageing in the HIV population. This work has been translationally focused with his participation in the AIDS Clinical Trials Group and leading clinical trials on interventional strategies to reduce systemic inflammation and activation in the HIV population. He has extensive experience in ageing related studies and has been PD/PI of an R24 grant that integrated efforts of the Center for AIDS Research and Older American Independence Centers. He has participated on the Office of AIDS Research HIV and Ageing Committee and has been an advisor to UN AIDS on HIV and Ageing.

Over the past 10 years, his research focus has been on studies of the human microbiome and metabolome and better understanding its role both in health and disease, resulting in over 30 peer reviewed publications. He has been the Chair of the HIV and Microbiome working group for the Women's Interagency HIV Study and Co-Chair of the Microbiome Working Group for the AIDS Clinical Trial Group. He has chaired the International HIV and Microbiome meeting sponsored by the NIH for the last five years. Dr Landay has published over 490 peer reviewed papers focused on basic and clinical studies of HIV with an emphasis on the role of immune activation, inflammation and microbiome in HIV pathogenesis and therapy.

MANAGEMENT TEAM

Professor Gilda Tachedjian

Burnet Institute

Eve-M Chief Scientific Officer

BSc (Hons), PhD

Professor Gilda Tachedjian (Burnet) is a NHMRC Senior Research Fellow and Heads the Life Sciences Discipline and the Retroviral Biology and Antivirals Laboratory and is co-Head of Eliminate HIV program at the Burnet Institute. She received her PhD in virology in1997 from Monash University and completed postdoctoral studies at Columbia University in New York.

She is a molecular virologist with an interest in HIV treatment and prevention, and the role of the vaginal microbiome and their metabolites in modulating susceptibility to STIs and adverse reproductive health outcomes. Professor Tachedjian is CIA of the EVE-M Initiative MRFF Frontier Stage 1 and CSO of Stage 2 application. She has a strong track record in leading multidisciplinary and multinational teams funded by NIH and NHMRC and working with industry partners. She played a leading role in preclinical (Project 2 co-lead) and clinical studies (Director of Antiviral studies) that contributed to advancing an antimicrobial dendrimer to market as part of a large multidisciplinary program funded by NIH ($US5.6M).

As the Lead Principal Investigator of EVE-M, Gilda will be the Chief Scientific Officer, managing the scientific activities being undertaken.

Serina Cucuzza

Burnet Institute

EVE-M Executive General Manager

BCom/BSc (Hons), MBA

Serina Cucuzza has over 15 years’ experience in the Australian biotechnology industry and is known as a consummate connector, networker and facilitator. She is the Executive General Manager of Commercial Strategy and Industry Partnerships and leads a team of five people. Her portfolio of responsibility includes the identification and management of Intellectual Property, Commercial contracts, Industry and academic technology lead partnerships; Commercialisation and raising funds and capital to support technology and product development activities. She has been successful in helping raise over $6M of funding over the past six years to support the development of technologies through investment, public and philanthropic sources. Ms Cucuzza has been involved in managing spin out companies and was a past board member of AusBiotech (Australia’s industry organisation as voted by members).  She currently sits on the board of 360 Biolabs, a CRO focused on supporting clinical trials by conducting complex bioanalytical assays under quality standards. 360 Biolabs has achieved a close to 50% year on year growth during the time of her tenure on the board. She was also the founder of qDOS LAB, a unique accelerator concept established at Burnet to assist in the acceleration of technology through early phases of development

Ms Cucuzza will take the role of EVE-M Executive GM and the main responsibility of managing the EVE-M initiative, working closely with CIA Gilda Tachedjian.

Dr Teresa Howard

Burnet Institute

EVE-M Senior Project Manager

Dr Teresa Howard is a qualified research manager, business manager, program manager, writer, and researcher with over 25 years’ experience in the fields of public health, medical research and research administration. She is experienced in managing a diverse range of research including project grants, large multi-site programs, development and training programs, contract research, HDR and honours student programs, with high level stakeholder engagement skills.

Dr Howard began her career as a scientist working with early HIV diagnostics, later working with the WHO as a temporary advisor running inter-country workshops. She has conducted large research and clinical studies in India and has written several state trauma plans for India. Dr Howard has experience in Biotech start- ups and commercialising Australian research, with a number of commercialised products currently on the market. She also has experience in biotechnology manufacturing and in designing and implementing quality management systems. She currently has two patents.

Dr Howard will be the senior project manager for EVE-M assisting the Genital Microbiome Theme. She will be responsible for implementing the EVE-M Quality Management System across the EVE-M projects, and will lead the quality compliance activities for QLP, ISO 17025 and ISO 13485. She will also assist the communications activities.