Dr. Thompson has served as a member of our board of directors since October 2023. Dr. Thompson is currently Executive Vice President of Research and Development, Rare Disease at Amgen.  At the time of its acquisition by Amgen, Dr. Thompson served as the Executive Vice President of Research and Development of Horizon Therapeutics. During her time at Horizon, Dr. Thompson played an important role in the transformation of Horizon into a science-based biopharma company, establishing and growing an R&D function comprising scientists and technical experts across research, translational sciences, clinical development, clinical operations, biometrics, PV and safety, regulatory affairs, project and program management, R&D strategy and external innovation. She also played a key role in the acquisition and integration of Viela Bio as well as the expedited filing and approval of TEPEZZA®, including its successful FDA Advisory Committee meeting. Prior to Horizon, Dr. Thompson held roles of increasing seniority and scope at AbbVie, Raptor, InterMune and Amgen in a career spanning clinical development, business development and medical communications. Dr. Thompson has served as a member of the board of California Life Sciences, a life sciences membership organization and was named to the PharmaVoice 100 list in 2023 and the Healthcare Businesswomen’s Association Luminary list in 2021.  Dr. Thompson received a Ph.D. in Macromolecular and Cellular Structure and Chemistry from the Scripps Research Institute and a B.S. in Chemistry from Harvey Mudd College.

 

Ms. Topsøe has served as a member of our board of directors since August 2018, and previously served as an observer on our board of directors beginning in 2013. Since March 2013, Ms. Topsøe has served on the board of directors of Haldor Topsøe A/S, and has served on the board of directors of Topsøe Holding A/S, its holding company, since June 2015. Ms. Topsøe previously was a lawyer at Allen & Overy LLP and Simpson Thacher and Bartlett LLP. Ms. Topsøe pursued a B.A. in Chinese Studies from the University of Copenhagen, studied Chinese Language and Literature at Peking University, and received an LL.B. from the University of London and an M.B.A. from London Business School and Columbia Business School.

Mr. Topsøe has served as a member of our board of directors since August 2018. Since June 2015, Mr. Topsøe has served as Chairman of the board of directors of Topsøe Holding A/S, and has served on the board of directors of Haldor Topsøe A/S, a Danish catalysis and chemical processing company and a subsidiary of Topsøe Holding A/S, since October 2010 and as its Vice Chairman since August 2016. Since January 2009, Mr. Topsøe has served as Partner at AMBROX Capital, a Danish investment management firm, and as Associate Partner since September 2016. From 1996 to 2008, Mr. Topsøe was employed in various functions within Alfred Berg/ABN Amro Bank including Head of Equities, Denmark. Mr. Topsøe served as a member of the board of directors of Motortramp, a Danish provider of marine transportation services, and Dampskibsselskabet Orients Fond, a Danish charitable foundation, from 2017 to October 2020. Mr. Topsøe received a Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (Finance) from the Copenhagen Business School.

Dr. Ahmed is a virologist and immunologist, and an internationally recognized expert on T cell survival, function and the development of immunological memory. He is a Director of the Emory Vaccine Center; Charles Howard Candler Professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Emory University School of Medicine. His work includes discoveries related to how immune memory cells are created, how long they survive and how factors such as IL-2 and IL-15 relate to these responses within different microenvironments within an organism and the relationship between chronic viral infection and ongoing immunity. His work impacts the development of therapeutics in infectious disease, particularly in the setting of viral infection and viral persistence to cancer and cancer immunology. Dr. Ahmed is the author or co-author of more than 300 peer-reviewed articles, has received numerous awards, including the William B. Coley Award in 2017 and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences. Dr. Ahmed received his Ph.D. degree in microbiology from Harvard University. Before coming to Emory, he was a Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles School of Medicine.

Dr. Davis is one of the world’s leading authorities on T cell recognition. His research focuses on how T cells and B cells recognize antigen and behave following such interactions. This includes the structural and biochemical underpinnings of T cell receptor binding and signal transduction and the dynamics of molecular movement at the T cell/antigen-presenting cell interface, in both preclinical models and humans. His discoveries include identifying the T-cell receptor gene, development of peptide-MHC tetramers to study T cell populations capable of recognizing particular targets and elucidation and quantification of specific events at the immunologic synapse required for T cell function. Dr. Davis is the author or co-author of more than 300 peer-reviewed articles and books, is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, and is the recipient of numerous awards and distinctions, including the William B. Coley Award in 2000. Dr. Davis received his B.A. degree in molecular biology from Johns Hopkins University and his Ph.D. degree in molecular biology from the California Institute of Technology. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Laboratory of Immunology at the National Institutes of Health prior to joining Stanford.

Dr. Freeman is renowned for his work characterizing the PD-L1/PD-1 interaction and elucidating the functional impact of inhibiting this interaction on T cells in health and disease. Dr. Freeman’s research identified the ligands for the major pathways that control the immune response by inhibiting T cell activation or stimulating T cell activation. He showed that engagement of PD-1 by PD-L1 or PD-L2 inhibited T cell activation, cytokine production, and cytolytic activity whereas blockade enhanced these activities. Dr. Freeman’s work led directly to the development of a successful strategy for cancer immunotherapy: block the pathways that tumors use to turn off the immune response. Dr. Freeman has published over 300 scientific papers and holds over 50 US patents on immunotherapies. He has received numerous awards, including the William B. Coley Award for Distinguished Research in Tumor Immunology in 2014 and the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize for the discovery and development of PD-1 pathway blockade in 2017. Dr. Freeman received his Ph.D. degree in 1979 from Harvard University and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard prior to joining the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.