Max Planck Institute For Biophysical Chemistry

Helge Bastian, PhD, joins executive team as new CEO. SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- iXCells Biotechnologies USA, Inc. (“iXCells”), a cell technology company specializing in providing cell-based products and drug discovery service solutions to the global academic, biotech, pharmaceutical, and rare disease communities, today announced the appointment of Helge Bastian, PhD, as the company’s new Chief Executive Officer. The company’s co-founder and former CEO, Lynn Zhang, commented, “iXCells has undergone a remarkable transformation over the past few years adding talented scientists and commercial staff, building infrastructure for scalable growth, and expanding our innovative product and service offering while delivering the best possible service to our valued customers worldwide. To help drive our next phase of growth, we’re thrilled to warmly welcome Helge Bastian to our executive team. Helge brings to iXCells a wealth of entrepreneurial and intrapreneurial leadership experience across the life sciences and healthcare space in building businesses for small and large companies with a proven track record of value creation. Helge’s leadership will be pivotal for shaping the ongoing development and execution of iXCells’ growth in the years ahead.” “I’m impressed with iXCells outstanding scientific and technology expertise and its pragmatic approach to leverage the highly enabling, Nobel Prize winning iPSC reprogramming and genome editing technologies in combination with its deep knowledge of differentiating mammalian stem cells and developing cell-based assays for generating highly predictive human disease models,” said Dr. Bastian. “I’m simply amazed by the team’s focus to provide best in class cell-based products and drug development and discovery service solutions to the market and equally excited with iXCells’ engagement and assistance to stakeholders from the rare disease community to support patients, clinics, and biopharmaceutical companies in their efforts to develop cell-based solutions and therapies to improve patient’s conditions and even save a patient’s life. I’m grateful for the opportunity to join iXCells at this important stage in the company’s development and looking forward to working with iXCells’ highly talented team to grow and establish the company as a customer and patient-centric leading provider of disease-relevant human cell models and trusted partner for our customers to accelerate the discovery & development of novel and more effective medicines and therapies.” Dr. Bastian joins iXCells with a plethora of experiences from the life science and healthcare sector where he contributed to building, growing and revitalizing product, custom-product, and services businesses with a variety of portfolios of innovative and highly enabling technologies or new business models in RUO and regulated markets. Dr. Bastian served as a member of several executive leadership teams and held senior leadership positions with global responsibilities in Germany, Switzerland and USA, such as Thermo Fisher Scientific (VP & General Manager of Sample Preparation and Synthetic Biology businesses), Sigma-Aldrich (VP Global Marketing, Business Development and Strategy for Sigma’s innovative Research Biotech division), SGS (Executive VP/divisional CEO Life Science Services) and QIAGEN (VP, Molecular Diagnostics, VP Global Strategic Marketing, and VP PreAnalytiX, a QIAGEN / Becton Dickinson joint venture). In addition, Dr. Bastian led oncology focused Indivumed and M2GEN (now Aster Insights) as Managing Director & Chief Commercial Officer and CEO, respectively. Dr. Bastian serves as a Board Member to enzymatic DNA-synthesis pioneer Molecular Assemblies (San Diego) and Strategic Advisor to functional personalized oncology and drug profiling company PreComb Therapeutics (Switzerland). Dr. Bastian studied at the universities in Kiel, Goettingen and Munich, Germany, earned his diploma in biology/biochemistry from Georg-August University, Goettingen, and holds a Ph.D. in molecular & cell biology performed at the Max-Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, Germany. Dr. Bastian is an alumnus from the Max-Planck-Network and the Columbia Business School. Dr. Lynn Zhang will continue to serve on iXCells’ board of directors and assist with transitioning CEO leadership responsibilities in the coming months. About iXCells Biotechnologies Founded in 2014 and based in San Diego, CA, iXCells Biotechnologies is an innovative cell biology and cell technology company that provides preclinical drug discovery solutions with the focus on disease relevant cellular models enabling technologies and services to the academic, biotech and pharma communities to accelerate the pace of drug discovery. iXCells offers customers access to high quality primary and iPSC derived cells, custom iPSC services, functional bioassay development and drug screening. To learn more about this innovative leader within the preclinical iPSC sector, visit . Follow iXCells Biotechnologies on LinkedIn, Twitter, and on YouTube. View source version on businesswire.com: Contacts Wayne E. Vaz Corporate Development & Commercial Operations wayne.vaz@ixcellsbiotech.com Source: iXCells Biotechnologies USA, Inc. View this news release online at:

Microorganisms in aquifers deep below the earth's surface produce similar amounts of biomass as those in some marine waters. Applying a unique, ultra-sensitive measurement method using radioactive carbon, they were able to demonstrate for the first time that these biotic communities in absolute darkness do not depend on sunlight. Instead, they can obtain energy autonomously from rock oxidation or from compounds transported into the deep. Terrestrial and marine habitats have been considered the ecosystems with the highest primary production on earth by far, i.e., the conversion of inorganic to organic carbon. Microscopic algae in the upper layers of the oceans and plants on land bind atmospheric carbon (CO2) and produce plant material driven by photosynthesis, i.e. the sun provides energy. Since sunlight does not penetrate into the subsurface, hardly any such primary production is to be expected. So much for the theory. However, genetic analyses of microorganisms in groundwater have indicated that even here many microorganisms are capable of primary production. In the absence of light, they must obtain the energy from oxidising inorganic compounds, like from reduced sulfur of the surrounding rocks. However, the role of primary producers in the subsurface had never been confirmed before. Groundwater is one of our most important sources of clean drinking water. The groundwater environment of the carbonate aquifers alone, which is the focus of the study, provides about ten per cent of the world's drinking water. With this in mind, the researchers carried out measurements of microbial microorganism carbon fixation in a subsurface aquifer, 5 to 90 metres underground. Surprisingly high primary production rates in total darkness "The rates we measured were much higher than we anticipated," says the first author of the study Dr Will Overholt, Postdoctoral Researcher at Friedrich Schiller University Jena. "They equal carbon fixation rates measured in nutrient-poor marine surface waters and are up to six-fold greater than those observed in the lower zones of the sunlit open ocean, where there is just enough light for photosynthesis." Based on the measured carbon fixation rates, the researchers conservatively extrapolated global primary production in carbonate groundwater to be 110 million metric tons of carbon per year. Collectively, the net primary productivity of approximately 66 per cent of the planet's groundwater reservoirs would total 260 million metric tons of carbon per year, which is approximately 0.5 per cent that of marine systems and 0.25 per cent of global net primary production estimates. "This may sound small but these measurements represent only our first estimate of what the true global value may be," says senior author Prof Kirsten Küsel from the University of Jena and iDiv. "Since there is very little energy available in these nutrient-poor and permanently dark habitats, even a small percentage of the global primary production is a surprise." The researchers also sought to identify the microorganisms responsible for fixing carbon and generating new biomass within the aquifer. Metagenomic analyses point to a highly abundant microorganism not closely related to previously studied bacteria, within an uncharacterised order of Nitrospiria. "As food, these organisms are thought to form the basis of life for the entire groundwater ecosystem with all of its thousands of microbial species, similar to the role algae play in the oceans or plants on land," says Overholt. Unique method to measure primary production of microorganisms in aquifers Measuring carbon fixation can be done with radioactively labelled carbon dioxide. "In carbonate rock environments, there is abundant dissolved CO2, that can make it difficult to directly observe rates of carbon fixation," says Prof Susan Trumbore from the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry in Jena. The team, therefore, used a special method to trace a small amount of labelled CO2 using highly sensitive accelerator mass spectrometry. "It is exciting to see what new insights these methods can lead to," she says. "Our findings offer new insights into how these subsurface ecosystems function, giving clues on how to monitor or remediate groundwater sources," says Kirsten Küsel. This study is part of the Collaborative Research Centre AquaDiva of the University of Jena and iDiv, and is partially funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) -- CRC 1076 -- Project Number 218627073. Sebastian Tilch

July 6, 2021 09:00 UTC BONN, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- NEUWAY Pharma today announced the formation of its Scientific Advisory Board (“SAB”) including leading drug delivery and drug development experts Hans Grünhagen, Olaf Ritzeler, and Georg Terstappen. NEUWAY’s SAB will provide scientific guidance and advice as the Company defines its preclinical and early clinical strategies for its proprietary EnPC platform. NEUWAY’s EnPC protein capsule technology harbors a built-in property to cross the blood-brain barrier, allowing to transport a variety of therapeutic loads, as translated from a virus for engineering without using virus material. “We have established our Scientific Advisory Board with these highly distinguished industry experts to support the successful development of our unique technology to deliver therapies to the brain and view their commitment as vote of confidence in our proprietary EnPC delivery approach”, stated Oliver Ernst, Ph.D., Managing Director and Chief Operating Officer of NEUWAY Pharma. “Their scientific vision and deep understanding of drug delivery in the therapeutic area of CNS diseases will be a significant contribution that may enable rapid demonstration of proof-of-concept as well as acceleration of development. The formation of the SAB comes at a key phase for corporate development as we explore the full potential of our next-generation enabling technology that holds the promise of transforming the treatment landscape for serious CNS diseases.” Founding members of the SAB include: Hans-H. Grünhagen, Ph.D. Hans serves as consultant for young biotech companies and industry VCs, as well as expert for public translational medicine efforts comprising of drug delivery programs, backed by decades of functional and management experience in the pharma- and biotech industry. During his earlier career, he introduced novel approaches including High Throughput Screening using cloned subtype receptors and developed new formulation technology to regulatory approval, at BASF Pharma, where he was also in charge of CNS discovery and a member of the Global R&D Project Portfolio Management Team. Thereafter, he held several management positions at Evotec where he was responsible for the in-house development of Ultra-high Throughput and High Content Screening to maturity, to evolve the technological competence also to a discovery service offering and for corporate projects. In parallel, Hans participated in German initiatives such as Impulskreis Nanotechnology and Nanobiomedicine, to develop and characterize nanomaterials, including their biological processing. He has studied Chemistry, with Physics and Biology minor, got his Ph.D. with distinction with M.Eigen 1974 at the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry and worked as a Postdoc with J.P. Changeux in Neurobiology at the Pasteur Institute. Olaf Ritzeler, Ph.D. In his current position as Business Development and Licensing Director, External Innovation at Sanofi, Olaf seeks and executes external R-D-C opportunities to address Sanofi's strategic priorities. In his role he helps to define the innovation strategy and perform global external searches and assessments in the therapeutic area of rare and neurological diseases. He is working in a global, transversal team to which he brings his strong expertise on drug discovery and development he gained over 23 years working in pharmaceutical industries and his deep insights in the European academic and biotech landscape as well as rare disease ecosystem. Through his key contributions, several successful collaborations with academic groups and companies in various therapeutic areas were started. In addition, he is an invited lecturer and jury member on subjects such as target and compound profiling, rare diseases, general drug discovery. His research teams delivered multiple preclinical-, phase I-, phase II-, and lead candidates. Olaf’s contribution to Sanofi’s drug-pipeline was awarded by the “Meilenstein Preis” and “Drug Hunter Award” for outstanding efforts and key contribution to drug innovation and approval. Georg C.Terstappen, Ph.D. Georg is the Executive Vice President of Drug Discovery at Cambrian Biopharma. He has nearly 30 years of experience in big pharma and biotech, holding R&D leadership positions at Bayer, Abbott/AbbVie, and most recently as Head of Preclinical CNS Drug Development at GSK. Georg was also Co-Founder and CSO of the CNS drug discovery company Siena Biotech and, more recently, CSO of OxStem (a University of Oxford spin-out focused on regenerative medicine). In addition, Georg has led EU R&D framework organizations as Vice-Chair of the Innovative Medicines Strategy group in the context of EFPIA and IMI. In addition, he was adjunct Professor at several European universities for more than ten years and leader of several European-wide research programs funded by the EC. Georg has published over 90 scientific articles and is an inventor/co-inventor of 15 patents. He has a first-class honors degree in Biology and conducted research at the Max-Planck-Institute in Cologne and the Federal Research Centre Juelich for which he has received a Ph.D. in natural sciences. About NEUWAY Pharma NEUWAY Pharma is committed to bringing transformative neuropharmaceuticals across the blood-brain barrier through its proprietary, EnPC protein capsule technology. The company aims to be a partner of choice in particular for antibody and mRNA drug developers stymied by the hurdles of delivering these and other drug modalities into the brain and CNS tissue. Operating as a drug developer and a delivery expert, NEUWAY will demonstrate and exploit the value of its technology through its internal rare disease pipeline for indications with a high unmet medical need and partnered programs. View source version on businesswire.com: