Gentel Biosciences

Gentel Biosciences Adds Two Internationally Renowned Scientists To Its Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Hiller currently serves as an executive director of the CPGR. Hiller is credited with the development of a protein microarray technology platform suitable for the miniaturization of antibody-profiling immunoassays while at VBC genomics. This platform led to the first fully CE-certified microarray-based test for allergic diseases in Europe.

“Specifically, Dr. Hiller’s experience in commercializing allergy protein arrays, one area of focus for GenTel, will help us accelerate our efforts in product development and commercialization,” Nelson said.

Prof. Blackburn, the research director of the CPGR, was appointed to a Research Chair in Functional Proteomics at the Institute of Infectious Disease & Molecular Medicine, University of Cape Town, in January 2008 and applies the expertise he has gained in both academia and industry to drive new independent and collaborative translational research programs in applied proteomics and molecular medicine. He is the inventor of 9 granted patents and 14 pending patents and is extensively published in leading scientific journals.Blackburn is currently interested in the applications of protein microarray technology in diagnostic marker discovery and in the high throughput study of protein-drug interactions.

Blackburn previously served as Chief Scientist at Procognia Ltd, a UK biotechnology company, and was the founding scientist and Chief Scientific Officer of Sense Proteomic Ltd, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Procognia that was originally spun out of the University of Cambridge and which developed world-leading protein function microarray technology. He is also a member of the UK GlycoArrays consortium who is developing array-based tools for glycomic analysis.

“Prof. Blackburn brings great experience right to the heart of where GenTel’s new technologies are positioned: biomarker discovery, cancer research and understanding the protein modifications most important to disease researchers,” Nelson said.

“GenTel has a progressive, forward-looking approach to providing industry-leading surfaces for protein microarrays. I was attracted to this opportunity because of that and their more recent move to build novel protein array-based tools that will enable biomedical researchers to use multiplexed immunoassays in their research programs,” Blackburn said.

“The addition of Drs. Hiller and Blackburn further enables us to effectively apply our protein array technology toward solving critical problems encountered by researchers studying disease. Our technology has the potential to directly impact the discovery and development of new pharmaceuticals and diagnostics and make life better for those with diseases like cancer and Alzheimer’s” said Alex Vodenlich, GenTel’s CEO and President.