Page 9 - 2020 Winter CMTA Report

NEW SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD MEMBER

he CMTA welcomed Robert Burgess, PhD, to its Scientific Advisory
T Board in 2019. Burgess received his BS in biochemistry from
Michigan State University (1990) and his PhD in neuroscience from
Stanford University (1996). After a post-doctoral fellowship at
Washington University in St. Louis, Dr. Burgess took a faculty position
at The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor in 2001 and is now a full
professor there.
The Burgess Lab’s research seeks to understand the molecular mech-
anisms of synapse formation and maintenance at two sites in the nervous
system: the peripheral neuromuscular junction and the retina. Its studies
address basic molecular mechanisms relevant to human neuromuscular
and neurodevelopmental disorders. The lab is increasingly using the
mouse models it generated to test therapeutic strategies in preclinical studies, especially related to gene
therapy approaches, with the goal of translating these findings to patients.
Dr. Burgess is on the scientific advisory boards of the Hereditary Neuropathy Foundation and
the Talia Duff Foundation, and he is the chair of the NIH study section for Cellular and Molecular
Biology of Neurodegeneration. He is also the director of the NIH-funded Center for Precision
Genetics, the director of the post-doctoral training program in Bar Harbor, and the director for the
cooperating PhD program in neuroscience with Tufts University.

cacies of Piemonte, his favorite Screening Centers and the found- assembling the teams, funding and
part of Italy. ing of a public-private partnering management needed to advance
Mark returned to Denmark effort across its Clinical and Trans- them to the clinic. On learning
in the early 2000s to serve as lational Science Awards (CTSA) that Mark had left the NIH to
managing director-Europe and consortium of 60 clinical research set up a consultancy, the CMTA
senior vice presi- centers, which suc- invited him to present a strategic
dent of MDS STAR is “a unique ceeded in plan to the board to expand its
Proteomics, a com- aggregating and STAR consortium into alliance
pany headquartered approach among marketing their work aimed at therapy develop-
in Toronto, disease-oriented intellectual prop- ment. The Sanofi-Genzyme and
Canada. He was nonprofits … and erty via the web Ionis Pharmaceutical relationships
responsible for bio- one that will hopefully tool CTSA-IP. were the first to come out of that
logical, analytical pay off big in Both efforts gar- planning.
and informatic the years to come.” nered NIH The CMTA, Mark’s biggest
operations at the Director’s Awards client, has partnered with more
Danish site of this for Mark. While at than 20 of the world’s best
leading proteomic company, and the NIH, he was asked to advise pharmaceutical companies and
for its alliance with Abgenix visiting CMTA board members on contract service organizations in
aimed at co-developing therapeu- a project to screen large libraries of search of treatments and ulti-
tic antibodies. small molecules. He introduced mately a cure for CMT. Clinical
Returning to the United them to Jim Inglese at the NIH trials are already underway on sev-
States, Mark accepted a position as screening center, who eventually eral treatments, and efforts now
senior scientific officer at the became a collaborator on a large- span a host of approaches, includ-
NIH, where he developed and scale CMTA screening project ing the use of small molecule
directed trans-NIH roadmap ini- with Sanofi-Genzyme. drugs, biologicals and gene ther-
tiatives. These included an effort Mark founded HumanFirst apy. Mark’s marathon quest for a
to create technologies and projects Therapeutics LLC in 2011 with treatment or cure for CMT con-
for use by the Molecular Libraries the goal of identifying therapy tinues unabated and the finish line
Consortium of High-Throughput development projects and then gets closer every day. h

WINTER 2020 THE CMTA REPORT 9