Dr. Kim Albizati is currently Chief Scientific Officer of Strategic Enzyme Applications (SEA), a cleantech startup company in San Diego.  SEA devises new manufacturing processes for value-added chemicals and processes for the conversion of biomass into fuels and commodity chemicals.  Prior to this position, Kim was involved in a number of large and small San Diego companies, including Pfizer and Agouron Pharmaceuticals, a San Diego area biotech success story.  He stayed with this latter company through two mergers and built a 70-person department with capabilities in process development, chemical engineering, automation and robotics, high-throughput screening, computational chemistry and intermediate scale drug production.  In the late 1990’s he created the first dedicated group in the pharmaceutical industry to use enzymatic biotransformations in chemical process development.  This group gained an international reputation in the industry and in academic circles for its innovations in high-throughput enzyme screening, solvent effects in enzyme chemistry, process computational chemistry and manufacturing process development.  Prior to his career in industry, Kim obtained a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at UCLA in 1983 and performed postdoctoral work in the chemistry of the marine environment at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.  He moved from Scripps to the Department of Chemistry at Wayne State University in 1985 where he built a nationally-funded, diverse research group, achieving tenure in 1992.  He has co-authored over 70 publications including two books, several book chapters, review articles and patents.  He left Wayne State in 1993 to return to his roots in California, taking a visiting professor position at UCSD, completing a tour of the UC system.  He taught a variety of chemistry courses until 1997, receiving the Revelle College Faculty Teaching Award in 1995 and 1997.  He has recently returned to teaching chemistry at UCSD and thoroughly enjoys his interaction with the students and the university.

Dr. Nigel R. A. Beeley obtained a BSc. Honours (Class 1) degree in chemistry from the University of Liverpool, UK followed by a Ph.D. from the University of Manchester, UK on prostaglandin synthesis (supervisor Prof. J.K. Sutherland).  He then spent two years as a Royal Society Overseas Research Fellow in Prof. A. Eschenmoser's laboratory (ETH, Zurich, Switzerland) on the synthesis of macrolide antibiotics.  His industrial career began at Reckitt and Coleman, Pharmaceuticals Division, UK working on opiates followed by several years in the cardiovascular group of Synthélabo Recherche, Paris, France working on ACE inhibitors, dopamine agonists and calcium antagonists.  Returning to the UK in 1988, he joined Celltech as Head of Oncology-Chemistry, contributing in particular to programs on antibody targeting to tumour antigens and inhibitors of matrix metalloproteinases.  In 1994 he became Senior Director of Chemistry at Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. San Diego, USA working on peptides and proteins related to amylin, leptin and exendin along with small molecule amylin antagonists, activators of mitochondrial uncoupling protein (UCPs) and anti-atherosclerotic compounds.  From early 1999 to June 2004 he was Vice President and Chief Chemical Officer at Arena Pharmaceuticals, Inc. where he built two substantial teams totaling over 120 chemically oriented scientists working on known and orphan G-protein coupled receptors. From June 2004 to January 2007 he was Vice President, Discovery for Senomyx, Inc. where he was focused on the identification and optimization of ligands for G-protein coupled receptors and ion channels involved in taste. Until recently Dr. Beeley was CEO, China Operations for BioDuro, Inc., Beijing, China, a position he held since January 2007. He has been involved in a number of projects that delivered clinical candidates, three of which (Mylotarg, Symlin and Byetta) have become products, a fourth of which, Lorcaserin, is in the late stages of Phase III.

Dr. Jim Wade joined Gevo in July, 2007 to direct the company’s efforts in analytical and process analytical chemistry. Prior to joining Gevo, Mr. Wade was a Research Fellow at CPKelco, where he was intimately involved in developing and troubleshooting new fermentation processes for food hydrocolloids, and implementing new analytical techniques and high-throughput (HTS) methodologies. Before CPKelco, Mr. Wade spent 13 years at Hercules, Incorporated, where he served in a number of scientific and project management roles. His analytical experience during this period ranged from advanced materials, rocket fuels, and high explosives to specialty chemicals derived from plant biomass (more than 60% of Hercules’ chemical business). He developed a number of proprietary HTS methods, and led a project which built and prototyped new analytical equipment for the high-throughput analysis of polymer physical properties. Hercules management recruited Mr. Wade to form a team which successfully recommended and led a new research effort into biotechnology. As part of that team, he drafted many of Hercules’ public statements and speeches on bio-technology, and managed a number of internal and external research programs aimed at plant biomass utilization, enzyme and plant bioconversions, and directed evolution. Mr. Wade is a native of the Midwest; he grew up near Chicago, and pursued his education in Minnesota, where he received his BS from Carleton College, and his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Minnesota.