Eric Schadt Eric Schadt has been the Head Scientific Advisor to Whole Biome since its inception. Eric is the Director of the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology, Chair of the Department of Genetics and Genomics Sciences, and the Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor of Genomics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Eric is an expert on the generation and integration of very large-scale sequence variation, molecular profiling and clinical data in disease populations for constructing molecular networks that define disease states and link molecular biology to physiology. He has published more than 200 peer-reviewed papers in leading scientific journals, and contributed to a number of discoveries relating to the genetic basis of common human diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and Alzheimer’s disease.
Prior to joining Mount Sinai in 2011, he was Chief Scientific Officer at Pacific Biosciences. Previously, Eric was Executive Scientific Director of Genetics at Rosetta Inpharmatics, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., and before Rosetta, Eric was a Senior Research Scientist at Roche Bioscience. He received his B.A. in applied mathematics and computer science from California Polytechnic State University, his M.A. in pure mathematics from University of California, Davis, and his Ph.D. in bio-mathematics from University of California, Los Angeles (requiring Ph.D. candidacy in molecular biology and mathematics).
Eric Topol Eric J. Topol joined the Advisory Board of Whole Biome in 2016. Eric is the Founder and Director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute in La Jolla, California. He also serves as the Chief Academic Officer for Scripps Health, a professor of Genomics at The Scripps Research Institute, and a Senior Consultant at the Division of Cardiovascular Diseases at Scripps Clinic. He is editor-in-chief of Medscape and theheart.org. His most recent book The Patient Will See You Now, published in 2015, explores how smartphones, big data, and technology are combining to democratize health care.
Before moving to Scripps, Eric served as chairman of cardiovascular medicine at Cleveland Clinic and founded the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. In 2016, Eric was awarded a $207M grant from the NIH to lead a significant part of the Precision Medicine Initiative, a one million American prospective research program.
Alfred Spormann Alfred Spormann joined the Scientific Advisory Board of Whole Biome in 2016 and is a Professor in Civil and Environmental Engineering at Stanford University. Alfred specializes in the metabolism of anaerobic microbes in disease, bioenergy and bioremediation. Alfred has over 120 peer-reviewed publications in microbiology and disease and is a thought leader in metabolic characterization of microbes. Alfred received his Ph.D. from Philipps-University, Marburg.
Peter Turnbaugh Peter Turnbaugh is a Scientific Advisor to Whole Biome and is an Assistant Professor of Department of Microbiology and Immunology for G.W. Hooper Research Foundation at University of California, San Francisco. He is also Faculty Director of Gnotobiotic Mouse Core Facility, a co-organizer of Bay Area Microbial Pathogenesis Symposium, and a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society for Nutrition, American Gastroenterological Association, UCSF Diabetes Center and UCSF Nutrition and Obesity Research Center. Turnbaugh and his research group combine metagenomics and gnotobiotics (germ-free and intentionally-colonized mice) to study the impact of the gut microbiome on nutrition and drug metabolism.
Prior to joining UCSF, Peter was a Bauer Fellow in the FAS Center for Systems Biology at Harvard University. He received a B.A. in Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Molecular Biology from Whitman College and a Ph.D. in microbial genomics from Washington University in Saint Louis.
Vern Norviel Vern Norviel has been the Intellectual Property Counsel for Whole Biome since 2013 and sets the strategic direction for the patent portfolio. Vern is a Partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he leads the patents and innovation counseling practice. Vern has three decades of experience in formulating successful strategies for life science companies and the development of their IP programs. He represents a wide variety of companies, as well as venture capital firms, in areas such as therapeutics, diagnostics, nanotechnology, genomics, proteomics, and personalized medicine. In fact, Vern's interest in the field of personalized medicine prompted him to become the first attorney to have had his or her entire genome sequenced and made available in a public database.
Before joining the firm in 2003, Vern was the general counsel and corporate secretary of Perlegen Sciences, Inc., a start-up biotechnology company that scans the entire human genome for important therapeutic and diagnostic products. Previously, as senior vice president and general counsel, he was an early employee of Affymetrix, the biotechnology company that pioneered and developed DNA chip technology. He also had been a partner at Townsend and Townsend and Crew in Palo Alto. Vern currently serves as a member of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati's Executive Committee and on the board of the WSGR Foundation. In addition, he is a lecturer in biotechnology law at UC Berkeley School of Law. Vern received his B.A. from the University of Colorado, Boulder, his Masteres from the University of Santa Clara and his J.D. from the University of San Francisco School of Law.
Alan Mendelson Alan Mendelson is the Corporate Counsel for Whole Biome and is a Partner at Latham & Watkins where he represents emerging and public growth companies, primarily in the life sciences industry. He served as the Co-chair of the firm’s Emerging Companies Practice from 2001 to 2013 and currently is Co-chair of the Life Sciences Industry Group. Alan has handled and supervised a variety of major business transactions.
Alan currently serves on the Board of Directors of the California Life Sciences Association (CLSA), the Board of Trustees of the UC Berkeley Foundation and the Board of Advisors for the UC Berkeley Department of Chemistry. Alan previously served on the Board of Directors of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), the Board of Trustees of The Scripps Research Institute and the BayBio Board of Directors. He serves as the corporate secretary for many public and private companies. Alan is a member of the UC Innovation Council to advise UC President Janet Napolitano on technology and entrepreneurship initiatives for the UC system. From 2009 to 2011, Alan served as President of the Cal Alumni Association. Previously, Alan served as the President of the National Kidney Foundation of Northern California, Inc., as a member of the Board of Regents of the University of California and as a member of the Board of Overseers Visiting Committee of Harvard Law School.
Alan serves as a member of the Major Gifts Council for the Lucile Packard Foundation for Children's Health and as a member of the Board of the American Friends of Rambam Medical Center, Haifa, Israel. Alan received his AB from the University of California, Berkeley and his J.D. from Harvard Law School.
Emeran Mayer Emeran Mayer joined as a Scientific and Medical Advisor to Whole Biome in 2016. Emeran is a Gastroenterologist, Neuroscientist and Professor in the Departments of Medicine, Physiology and Psychiatry at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. He is the Executive Director of the G Oppenheimer Center for Neurobiology of Stress & Resilience and the co-director of the CURE: Digestive Diseases Research Center at UCLA. As one of the pioneers and leading researchers in the role of mind-brain-gut interactions in health and chronic disease, he has made major scientific contributions to the area of basic and translational enteric neurobiology with wide-ranging applications in clinical GI diseases and disorders. He has published more than 300 scientific papers (h-factor 95), and co edited 3 books. He is the recipient of the 2016 Paul D McLean award from the American Psychosomatic Society. In addition to his ongoing research in chronic visceral pain, his most recent work in the area of brain gut interactions has focused on the role of the gut microbiota in influencing different aspects of the brain gut axis, including food addiction in obesity, and gastrointestinal symptoms in Irritable Bowel Syndrome.
Emeran has been interviewed on National Public Radio, PBS and by many national and international media outlets including the Los Angeles Times, Atlantic magazine and Spiegel Online. He has spoken at UCLA TEDx on the Mysterious Origins of Gut Feelings in 2015, and his book The Mind Gut Connection has been published by Harper&Collins in July of 2016
