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Alydar Pharmaceuticals Expands Scientific Advisory Board
Broad Expertise in Infochemicals Established
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., Dec. 11 /PRNewswire/ -- Alydar Pharmaceuticals,
Inc. today announced that it has named three additional experts in
infochemicals to its scientific advisory board: Professor Thomas Eisner,
Ph.D., and Professor Jerrold Meinwald, Ph.D., both of Cornell University, and
Professor Jocelyn G. Millar, Ph.D, of the University of California, Riverside.
Alydar is pioneering Pheromics™, a new pharmaceutical product platform
based on infochemicals, which are unique classes of biologically active
well-characterized small molecules of diverse chemical structures and
functions. Research to date indicates that infochemicals, which are chemical
messengers used by most organisms to communicate with other organisms of the
same or different species, elicit physiological, behavioral, and developmental
responses. Alydar has demonstrated activity of its Pheromics library of
infochemicals in disease-specific models. The company intends to develop the
infochemicals and their derivatives as new therapeutics for the treatment of
major human diseases and disorders, including cardiovascular, neurological,
psychiatric, and cancer, and to commercialize them through corporate
partnerships.
"We are very pleased to welcome to Alydar's scientific advisory board
scientists who bring decades of achievement and leadership in the field of
infochemicals," said Rivka Sherman-Gold, Ph.D, president and chief executive
officer of Alydar. "They, together with the existing advisory board of
international experts, will help Alydar realize its objective of developing
new pharmaceutical compounds based on our unique product platform."
Professor Thomas Eisner, Ph.D, has been the Jacob Gould Schurman Professor
of Chemical Ecology at Cornell University since 1976, and has served as
Director of the Cornell Institute for Research in Chemical Ecology since 1993.
He is a world authority on animal behavior, ecology, and evolution, and is a
founder of chemical ecology, the discipline dealing with the chemical
interactions of organisms. Prof. Eisner is a field biologist with working
experience on four continents, and an active conservationist. He currently
serves on the Board of Directors of the Union of Concerned Scientists, and has
previously been a board member of the National Audubon Society and the
Scientific Council of The Nature Conservancy. Prof. Eisner is member of the
National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the Royal Society, and the recipient
of numerous honors, including the National Medal of Science and the Tyler
Prize for Environmental Achievement. Prof. Eisner has published over 400
articles and nine books, and currently serves as an editorial board member of
the Journal of Chemical Ecology and of Chemoecology. He is a well-known
nature photographer, and has helped make award-winning film documentaries.
Prof. Eisner holds a B.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University.
Professor Jerrold Meinwald, Ph.D., has been Goldwin Smith Professor of
Chemistry at Cornell University since 1980. His research interests cover a
broad range of topics, including organic photochemistry, natural product
structure and synthesis, anesthetic stereochemistry, and insect chemical
ecology. Prof. Meinwald was a founding scientist of the International Centre
of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Nairobi, and served as an ICIPE
Research Director from 1970 to 1977. A founding member of the Cornell
Institute for Research in Chemical Ecology (CIRCE), Prof. Meinwald has served
on advisory committees for the Max Planck Society, PROBEM/Amazonia, the
Biosphere 2 Center of Columbia University, Arizona, the National Institutes of
Health, Brookhaven National Laboratory, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and
the Princeton University Department of Chemistry. He has received many
honors, among them membership in the National Academy of Sciences, the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the American Philosophical Society.
Prof. Meinwald's numerous awards include the Tyler Prize in Environmental
Achievement, a Silver Medal from the International Society of Chemical
Ecology, and the Chemical Pioneer Award from the American Institute of
Chemists. Prof. Meinwald is the author and co-author of more than 390
scientific articles, and currently serves on the editorial boards of Current
Organic Chemistry and the Journal of Chemical Ecology. Prof. Meinwald holds
M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University, and a Ph.B. and B.S. from the
University of Chicago.
Professor Jocelyn G. Millar, Ph.D., is a Professor in the Department of
Entomology at the University of California, Riverside, where he has taught
since 1988. His research interests focus on the identification and study of
natural chemicals that mediate insect behavior, substrate-borne vibrational
communication in insects, and the management of introduced pests of
Eucalyptus. Prof. Millar is currently the secretary of the International
Society of Chemical Ecology and serves as editor of the International Society
of Chemical Ecology Newsletter. He also serves on the editorial boards of the
Journal of Chemical Ecology and Crop Protection, and previously was a
Scientific Advisory Board member of IPM Technologies and Tillie Chem. Prof.
Millar recently received the Recognition Award in Entomology from the
Entomological Society of America. He is the author or co-author of over 120
research papers, eight book chapters, and two edited books. Prof. Millar
earned his B.Sc. and Ph.D. in chemistry from Simon Fraser University in
Canada.
On November 6 of this year Alydar Pharmaceuticals announced the
appointment of three other infochemicals experts to its scientific advisory
board: Professor Wittko Francke of the University of Hamburg in Hamburg,
Germany; Professor Kenji Mori of the Science University in Tokyo, Japan; and
Professor Stefan Schulz of the Technical University Braunschweig in
Braunschweig, Germany. Alydar now has on its scientific advisory board six
leading researchers in the infochemicals field.
Alydar Pharmaceuticals is a privately held biopharmaceutical company
developing a new product platform, Pheromics™, as a source of therapeutic
products to treat cardiovascular, neurological, and psychiatric, and cancer
diseases and disorders. The company's product platform is derived from a
unique library of biologically active, highly diverse compounds known as
infochemicals that serve as chemical communication modalities between
organisms of the same or different species. Alydar intends to commercialize
its Pheromics library and advance its product pipeline through relationships
with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. The Israel-based Alydar
Pharmaceuticals Ltd. and its U.S. subsidiary, Alydar Pharmaceuticals, Inc.,
received seed funding from Medison Biotech, the investment arm of Medison
Group, which includes Medison Pharma, an Israel-based pharmaceutical
commercialization company. Additional information on Alydar Pharmaceuticals
can be found at http://www.alydarpharma.com.
SOURCE Alydar Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Web Site: http://www.alydarpharma.com
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