Scientific Team & Advisors
Douglas Burtrum
Doug Burtrum is a research scientist at Synthis, starting in 2021. Doug has over 20 years’ experience in both biotech and large pharma. He received a Bachelors in Science from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and then spent seven years at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York in the department of developmental immunology, investigating TCR gene re-arrangement. Doug joined ImClone Systems-Eli Lilly and Company and was a member of the Lilly Oncology as a Team Leader contributing to the commercialization of several antibody therapeutics. His expertise is in antibody discovery and characterization, and cell-based functional assay development.
Nathan Tumey, PhD
L. Nathan Tumey joined Binghamton University in 2017 as an Assistant Professor. Previously he had 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. He received his PhD in chemistry from Duke University in 2001, under the supervision of Michael Pirrung. His research emphasis was on the medicinal chemistry of LpxC inhibitors as antibacterial agents against gram negative bacteria. During his years in the pharmaceutical industry, Tumey was a key leader in multiple drug-discovery programs including the development of 5HT2c agonists for obesity, PKC-theta inhibitors for asthma, IRAK4 inhibitors for rheumatoid arthritis and antibody-drug-conjugates (ADCs) for the treatment of cancer. At Binghamton, his research focuses on the application of antibody-drug conjugates and related modalities for the treatment of auto-immune disorders and rare diseases. Additionally, his lab investigates bioconjugate stability, ADC linker design and new modalities for targeted drug-delivery.
SatwantNarula, PhD
Ed Ha, PhD
Dr. Ha is a medicinal chemist and ADC expert with over 20 years of industry experience. He did his undergraduate degree in chemistry at Washington University in St. Louis and then received his Ph.D. in chemistry from University of California at Los Angeles. He spent 10 years in Antibody Drug Conjugate Chemistry discovery at Genentech, where he honed his skills as an expert in ADC linkers and payloads discovery and development. He joined AngieX as a founding scientist and recently joined Iksuda, as their head of ADC Innovation, in New York.
Dr. Satwant Narula has had a long and illustrious career in the biopharma space. She was the former Vice President of Immunology at three established, large pharmaceutical companies, including Schering Plough, Roche Pharmaceuticals and Bristol-Myers Squibb. While VP, she has overseen large teams of multi-disciplinary scientists to advance multiple drugs into the clinic. As Dr, Narula's areas of expertise are autoimmune diseases, respiratory diseases, fibrosis, infectious diseases, immune tolerance and cancer immunotherapy, she was responsible for all preclinical drug discovery and early development. . She has had a long and successful track record in progressing biological drugs (cytokines and antibodies) and small molecule therapeutics into the clinic, bringing a personalized health care/biomarker approach to drug development. Her broad vision and expertise in drug development has been instrumental in successfully guiding Synthis' platform development.