Consortium Members
The MAVDA program is led by a public-private consortium of world-class virologists, academic drug discovery experts and industry leaders. This unprecedented and innovative approach will enable MAVDA to accelerate research from bench to bedside.
David S. Perlin, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer and Professor
Center for Discovery and Innovation
Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine
Georgetown University School of Medicine
MAVDA Project/Core Leader
Dr Perlin brings significant academic drug discovery and development experience to MAVDA. He is the inaugural Director for Center for Discovery and Innovation (CDI), and he has been engaged for over 30 years in developing molecular insights and technologies to detect, combat, and prevent deadly infections. During this period, he has led numerous BSL3 programs as a Principal Investigator (PI) for the major government agencies (NIH, DOD, CDC), foundations (Gates), and commercial (Pharma and biotech) grants/contracts for drug discovery programs. His current roles include service as the PI/PD leading an NIH Center of Excellence in Translational Research directed at developing novel therapeutics against high threat bacterial and viral pathogens. His experience in leading academic drug discovery programs with industry participation provides a strong foundation for the MAVDA.
Charles M. Rice, Ph.D.
Maurice R. and Corinne P. Greenberg
Professor in Virology
The Rockefeller University
MAVDA Core Leader
Dr Rice is widely recognized as one of the top virologists in the world. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. His pioneering and transformative studies on hepatitis C virus (HCV) were crucial to developing successful treatments for chronic HCV infections. His extraordinary contributions led to numerous honors, including the 2016 Lasker Award and the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. He has vast experience and insights in elucidating viral pathogenicity, host response, and virus vulnerabilities. In addition, he has been highly engaged in studies that focus on the prevention and treatment of viruses of global health concern, such as HCV, HBV, influenza A, dengue, yellow fever, Zika, chikungunya, SARS-CoV-2, and other coronaviruses. His breadth of knowledge on pandemic viruses and long-standing interactions with the private sector to create therapeutic solutions on a global scale are significant strengths of the MAVDA program.
David Ho, M.D.
Director, Aaron Diamond AIDS research center (ADARC)
Clyde ’56 and Helen Wu Professor of Medicine Columbia University
MAVDA Project Leader
Dr. Ho is the director of the Aaron Diamond AIDS research center (ADARC) and is the Clyde ’56 and Helen Wu Professor of Medicine at Columbia University. He has dedicated his clinical and academic interest towards combating infectious diseases, including making seminal discoveries in the effective treatment of HIV. His team has turned their virology expertise towards understanding the pathobiology of COVID-19 and developing novel antiviral therapies against the virus within their lab’s BSL-3 facility. Dr. Ho’s decades of expertise in the development of antivirals, previous experience creating protease inhibitors against HIV, and developing several clinical grade therapeutics make him a natural leader. For the past several years Dr. Ho has been collaborating with the Chavez lab on developing new methods for performing small molecule drug discovery. Dr. Ho will continue to guide all aspects of the project, along with spearheading all live virus testing with the full molecular clone.
Alejandro Chavez, M.D., Ph.D. Associate Professor Department of XX University of California, San Diego MAVDA Project Leader
Dr. Chavez is a tenure-track Associate Professor in the Department of XXX at the University of California, San Diego. His laboratory is focused on building new technologies to accelerate the rate of biological discovery. To date, his group has published on chemical inhibitors to coronavirus proteases, along with systems for modifying genomes, restraining evolution, and selectively regulating transcription. Dr. Chavez has been involved in all aspects of the project involving the development and validation of a novel approach to multiplex drug screening in collaboration with Dr. Ho and will continue to serve this role.
Stephen Goff, Ph.D. Higgins Professor of Biochemistry Columbia University MAVDA Core Leader
Dr. Goff is a Higgins Professor of Biochemistry at Columbia University. For over 35 years, his laboratory has studied the functions of various viral gene products, characterized host proteins that are exploited by viruses, and identified new restriction factors that block viral replication. His extensive knowledge of viral biology and previous experience in performing small molecule screens against viral proteins has been instrumental in guiding our research approach and focus. Dr. Goff will continue to play a key advisory role, along with assisting in interpreting primary data and placing our results within the context of the field.
Yosef Sabo, Ph.D. Assistant Professor Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center Columbia University MAVDA Project/Core Leader
Dr. Sabo is a tenure-track Assistant Professor at the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center at Columbia University. His laboratory is focused on mechanisms of viral pathogenesis and has developed a system for introducing mutations of interest into the full SARS-CoV-2 molecular clone along with a SARS-CoV-2 replicon system. Dr. Sabo will help direct all efforts involving the manipulation of the SARS-CoV-2 genome, generation of the recombinant virus and its testing within the BSL-3 facility. In addition, due to his general knowledge of viral pathogenesis and antiviral therapeutics Dr. Sabo will also assist in interpreting the results of our studies.
Thomas Tuschl, Ph.D.
As a chemist and RNA biologist, he is familiar with all aspects of the project. Furthermore, as cofounder of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Ventus Therapeutics he understands the process of translation of basic discoveries into commercial drugs.
Jingyue Ju, PhD Professor, Departments of Chemical Engineering and Pharmacology Director, Center for Genome Technology & Biomolecular Engineering
Dr. Ju will direct the Project, coordinating the efforts with the Co- PI, Dr. Souza, and five of the Scientific Cores, as well as the overall MAVDA PIs. His laboratory has unique expertise in the design and synthesis of nucleotide analogues as polymerase inhibitors, and has been actively engaged in the research and development of inhibitors of both the SARS-CoV-2 RNA-dependent RNA polymerase and exonuclease, key targets for the development of COVID-19 therapeutics. The experience and expertise that the Ju team has established provides the basis for the current proposal. The Ju laboratory invented cleavable fluorescent nucleotide reversible terminators for 4-color DNA sequencing-by-synthesis, a novel sequencing chemistry that is a foundation of nextgeneration DNA sequencers. His group also invented and collaborated to develop nanopore-based real-time singlemolecule electronic sequencing-by-synthesis technology. Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic last year, a major focus of the Ju laboratory has been the identification and characterization of SARS-CoV-2 polymerase and exonuclease inhibitors as potential combination therapeutics for COVID-19.
Joseph Fraser Glickman, Ph.D Research Associate Professor Director, RU High Throughput Screening Rockefeller University
Dr. Glickman is the Director of High-Throughput Screening Resource Center (HTSRC) at Rockefeller University. He will serve as an expert advisor on the development and implementation of high-throughput screening assays, and on drug discovery. He will supervise the high-throughput screening and subsequent secondary assays for study of hit compound mechanism of inhibition. As the director of the RU HTSRC, he will be responsible for providing state-of-the-art infrastructure for high throughput screening, which includes instrumentation, technical support, automation, chemical databases and software for data analysis and the expansion of instrument resources and personnel to ensure that the requirements for the MAVDA HTS Core are available independent of his obligation to serve the RU HTSRC. Dr. Glickman will also contribute his broad expertise including large pharma drug discovery to advise during the process of hit-to-lead and clinical candidate development.
Lawrence Shapiro, PhD Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics Member of Aaron Diamond Research Center Member of Columbia Mind, Brain and Behavior Institute Email: lss8@columbia.edu
Research: structural biology of diverse recognition, including antibody-based immunity and adhesion proteins that wire the nervous system
Website
Larry Shapiro Dinshaw Patel Jim Balkovec Joel Freundlich Veronique Dartois Matt Zimmerman
Steven Park Director of Laboratory Support Operations Center for Discovery and Innovation, HMH MAVDA Core Leader: Animal Models
Mr. Park is the Director of Laboratory Support Operations, Center for Discovery and Innovation. His primary responsibilities involve guiding the CDI Principal Investigators and research staff to key resources to initiate and perform their studies. This includes acquiring state of the art instrumentation, negotiating service agreements, assisting in animal study design and obtaining relevant regulatory. approvals.
Yanan Zhao, PhD
She will work closely with the Cores to ensure the project leads are screened and advanced for GLP studies for IND submission. She will work closely with the project leadership in developing interim and final reports and providing regulatory oversight. Dr. Zhao will coordinate the GLP Tox screens with CROs and will have operation responsibility for all aspects of this project.
Madhuvika Murugan, PhD Project Coordinator - MAVDA Center for Discovery and Innovation Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine
Cindy Meyer, PhD Research Assistant Professor/ Senior Research Associate Tuschl Lab Columbia University
Aitor Garcia, Ph.D Research Assistant Professor/ Senior Research Associate Tuschl Lab Columbia University
Brief write up about members
Center for Discovery and Innovation - Hackensack Meridian Health
The Rockefeller University
Columbia University
Industry Partners
Consortium Members Primary HMH Rockefeller Columbia University Aligos
CROs TRI I-TDI FIOTEC Biodura Wuxi App Tec Eurofins Hera Biolabs Evotec
MAVDA Leadership Team