GSK Center - Personnel

Scientific Steering Committee

Scientific steering committee, 2017

GSK Scientists and Researchers

Current GSK Personnel and Bio

Director

Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering,
Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Bioengineering, Internal Medicine,
Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology,
http://biophotonics.illinois.edu

Stephen Boppart is the Abel Bliss Professor of Engineering with appointments in the Departments of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Bioengineering, and Medicine. He is also a full-time faculty member at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. His Biophotonics Imaging Laboratory is focused on developing novel optical biomedical diagnostic and imaging technologies and translating them into clinical applications. Prof. Boppart is an Illinois native and received his B.S. and M.S. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in Electrical and Bioengineering. After conducting research in the U.S. Air Force Laser Research Lab, he went on to complete his Ph.D. in Medical and Electrical Engineering from MIT, his M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and his residency training at the University of Illinois in Internal Medicine. Since returning to UIUC as a professor in 2000, he has published over 300 invited and contributed publications and over 40 patents related to optical biomedical imaging technology. He has mentored over 90 undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate interdisciplinary researchers. He was recognized by MIT’s Technology Review Magazine as one of the Top 100 Young Innovators in the World for his development of medical technology, received the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Early Career Award, and the Paul F. Forman Engineering Excellence Award from the Optical Society of America for dedication and advancement in undergraduate research education.

More recently, he received the international Hans Sigrist Prize in the field of Diagnostic Laser Medicine. He was Founding Director of the Mills Breast Cancer Institute at Carle Foundation Hospital, Urbana, Illinois, and has worked to establish and strengthen partnership ties between the University of Illinois and local medical institutions. Prof. Boppart has co-founded three start-up companies (LightLab Imaging, Diagnostic Photonics, and PhotoniCare) to commercialize and disseminate his optical technologies for biomedical imaging. He is a Fellow of AAAS, AIMBE, IEEE, OSA, and SPIE. He previously served as Director of a campus-wide Imaging at Illinois initiative for seven years to integrate imaging science, technology, and applications across multiple modalities and fields, and is currently Director of a new Center for Optical Molecular Imaging supported by an academic-clinical-industry partnership with GlaxoSmithKline. Prof. Boppart has been a strong advocate for the integration of engineering and medicine at Illinois to advance human health and our healthcare system, and is playing an active role in the visioning and development of a new engineering-based College of Medicine at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Co-Director

Steven Hood, Ph.D.

Steve was awarded a BSc in Biochemistry and a PhD in Molecular Toxicology from Surrey University before joining Glaxo Group Research as a Post-Doctoral Fellow in 1993. Following the formation of GSK in 2001, Steve managed a team determining the drug-drug interaction liabilities while developing ADME strategies for the emerging GSK antibody portfolio.
In 2010, Steve led a cross divisional team charged with understanding and overcoming the delivery issues inherent in GSK’s diverse oligonucleotide portfolio while helping to develop these molecules from early discovery to file. In 2011 Steve initiated a project that has grown into the active IMI academic/Industry COMPACT collaboration (http://www.compact-research.org/) .
Additionally, for the past 4 years, Steve has been responsible for helping GSK Programme teams explore “Where does my drug go and what does it do when it gets there?” using a range of Bioimaging methodologies.
Finally, after joining the GSK Bioimaging team as a Director in 2015, Steve is actively involved in facilitating the interaction between academia , biotech and large industry partners in the Bioimaging Expertise Network (BEN). Steve has recently succeded Zane Arp as Director for GSK’s Center for Optical Molecular Imaging a joint venture with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Steve is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology, The Drug Metabolism Discussion Group and a Senior Fellow in the GSK Fellows programme.

Associate Director

Marina Marjanovic, Ph.D.

Marina Marjanovic received the B.S. degree in molecular biology and physiology, and the M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physiology, from the University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1992 to 1996. In 1996, she accepted a faculty position at the Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, IL. In 2009, she returned to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as the Associate Director of the campus-wide initiative Imaging at Illinois and an Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering. She authored and coauthored 12 book chapters, 35 peer-reviewed publications, 54 presentations with published proceedings, and 46 meeting presentations. Her research interests include cancer biology, biomedical imaging and the development of imaging agents. As a member of Biophotonics Imaging Laboratory some of her current responsibilities are developing animal models for imaging (such as tumor-bearing rats, atherosclerotic rabbits, and mice expressing GFP in the skin stem cells), developing contrast agents (microspheres and nanoparticles) for specific targeting, and helping preparation and interpretation of histological images. She also serves as a Research Coordinator for translational studies providing expertise and experience in the development of experimental protocols, and serves as a liaison with Carle Foundation Hospital. In addition, she teaches physiology courses in the Department of Bioengineering.

Project Manager

Darold Spillman, B.S.

Darold R. Spillman Jr. received an Associate of Arts degree in Human Resources from the Community College of the Air Force, Maxwell AFB, GA in 2005 and the B.A. degree in General Studies from Eastern Illinois University, Charleston IL in 2015. He served in the United State Air Force from 1984 – 2007. Mr. Spillman brings real world experience to the Biophotonics Research Laboratory and brings out-of-the-box thinking to research. His focus in research is in the design and development of novel ideas in the form of packaging and use of equipment. He has also studied the effects of probiotics on lactose intolerance as well as imaging of chromophores on live cuttlefish to explore how the chromophores provide camouflage. He was a 1993 Presidential Point of Light Award nominee and was spotlighted in the Inside Illinois publication.

Lab Manager

Eric Chaney, B.S.

Eric J. Chaney received his B.S. degree in Biology from the University of Evansville in 1992. From 1993 to 1997, he was a Research Assistant at the Indiana University School of Medicine, Indiana State University. Eric has been at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for over 20 years where he worked as a Transmission Electron Microscopy Technologist, Research Specialist in Molecular Biology, and currently as Research Scientist in Biomedical Imaging. Eric has been a member of the Biophotonics Imaging Laboratory at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, since 2005. He conducts all training sessions for the new lab members, oversees the animal care and all animal experiments, and regularly assists with translational studies in the Carle Foundation Hospital. Eric has assisted in numerous research projects, and has two first-author and over 50 coauthor peer-reviewed publications.

Study Manager

Ronit Barkalifa, Ph.D.

Ronit Barkalifa received her B.Sc., M.Sc. and Ph.D. from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev at Israel. In her master thesis she examined the therapeutic responses of the lipophilic zinc chelator DP-b99 on neuronal cell death using live cell imaging techniques. For her Ph.D. work, she studied the metabolic and genetic basis of diabetes in the Cohen Diabetic rat, a model of diet-induced diabetes and received the Levtzion Fellowship award for outstanding doctoral students. She is certified CRA (Clinical Research Associate) and had an appointment as Clinical Research Coordinator (CRC) at the Barzilai Medical Center in Israel. She also served as Lecturer and Teaching Lab Manager at the Department of Biotechnology Engineering at Sapir College in Israel. Currently, Dr. Barkalifa is managing human and animal studies, coordinating clinical trials and participating in and conducting laboratory project research for developing innovative optical biomedical diagnostic and imaging technologies for clinical applications.

Visiting Scholar (GSK)

Aneesh Alex, Ph.D.

Aneesh Alex received his Master’s degree in Photonics from Cochin University of Science and Technology, India in 2007, and doctoral degree in biomedical optics from Cardiff University, UK in 2011. During his post-doctoral research at Medical University Vienna, Aneesh developed non-invasive optical imaging techniques for dermatological applications. He moved to Lehigh University, Pennsylvania in 2012 to work on cardiac optogenetics. In March 2015, he joined GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) and has been involved in the development activities of Center for Optical Molecular Imaging at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign since then. In this role, he is working on developing label-free multi-modal optical imaging tools for pharmaceutical research and development.

Postdoctoral Associate

Jang Hyuk Lee, Ph.D.

Jang Hyuk Lee received his M.S. and Ph.D. in Physics and Photonics science from the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology (GIST) in South Korea in 2015. He joined the group in the Molecular Spectroscopy Department at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Germany as a postdoctoral researcher in March 2015. His main project was about broadband coherent anti-Stokes Raman Scattering (CARS) microspectroscopy for biological samples. He designed and developed the unique hyperspectral imaging system of broadband CARS microscopy. In addition, he demonstrated an integrated multimodal multiphoton microscope, combining BCARS, SHG, and TPEF microscopy in one platform. In 2016, he joined Center for Optical Molecular Imaging as a postdoctoral researcher, where he is currently working on developing advanced multimodal multiphoton imaging system.

Visiting Scholar (FSU)

Shawn M. Sternisha

Shawn Sternisha received his B.S. degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Illinois State University in 2014. He then went on to pursue his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Florida State University (FSU) and was awarded an in-flight M.S. degree in 2016. As a graduate student, his research involves elucidating the molecular and cellular mechanisms governing human metabolic enzymes under physiological and pathological conditions. While still a student at FSU, Shawn accepted a one-year position in the Biopharmaceutical Advanced Manufacturing Technologies group at GSK in January 2018. He is currently working on utilizing label-free multimodal microscopy to investigate cells expressing recombinant therapeutic proteins. Shawn will return to FSU in 2019 to finish his Ph.D

Past GSK Personnel and Bios

Postdoctoral Associate

Jose Rico-Jimenez, Ph.D.

Jose Rico received his M.S in Computer Engineering form CICATA-IPN, Mexico, and his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Texas A&M university. He was a member of the Laboratory for Optical Diagnosis and Imaging in Texas A&M, where he developed computational tools for data acquisition, image processing, machine learning, and visualization of Optical Coherence Tomography and Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy applied to intravascular and oral cancer imaging. In February 2017, he joined the Biophotonics Imaging

Laboratory as a postdoctoral researcher to work on developing multimodal imaging systems.