Scientific Advisory Board
Prof. Dr. Josef Penninger, MD
Chairman
Josef Penninger was the founding scientific director of IMBA in Vienna and heads the Life Sciences Institute at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, the largest such institute at any Canadian University.
He studied Medicine at the University of Innsbruck, is a member of the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina, the Austrian Academy of Sciences (elected as the youngest member), the Academia Europea, and the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences.
He was also a Young Global leader of the World Economic Forum.
Josef is a Professor of Genetics at the University of Vienna, Adjunct Full Professor of Immunology at the University of Toronto, and holds honorary Professorships from the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Qingdao University.
Major achievements include pioneering insights into the molecular basis of osteoporosis and breast cancer, as well as the study of metastatic spread.
Josef Penninger’s major awards include the Descartes Prize, the Prize for medical excellence, an AAAS Award, the Innovator Award from Era of Hope/U.S. Department of Defense and a second ERC Advanced grant.
Dr. Norbert Bischofberger, PhD
Dr. Norbert Bischofberger received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Zurich’s ETH and received an honorary doctorate in Natural Sciences (2016) from The University of Innsbruck and an honorary doctorate in Letters in Medicine (2017) from Baylor College of Medicine.
He is the President & Chief Executive Officer of Kronos Biotech and he was the Executive Vice President, Research and Development and Chief Scientific Officer at Gilead Sciences.
He was part of the core management team that grew Gilead from less than 50 employees with no revenues to 10,000 employees with $25B in revenue.
Dr. Bert Klebl, PhD
Dr. Bert Klebl is Managing Director and Chief Scientific Officer of Lead Discovery Center (LDC) in Dortmund, Germany.
Dr. Bert Klebl has gathered more than 20 years of professional experience in the life sciences industry.
He has worked in different positions in drug discovery and early development, most recently as Senior Director Discovery Biology and Head of Biology at GPC Biotech.
Before that he was Axxima’s Vice President Research responsible for the discovery and development of the company’s portfolio of kinase inhibitors for various therapeutic indications.
In previous positions, he has worked as a project and platform manager, as well as a scientist at Aventis and Hoechst Marion Roussel.
He earned his PhD in biochemistry at the University of Konstanz, Germany, and did postdoctoral work at the NRC Biotechnology Research Institute in Montreal, Canada.
In the course of his research, he has published more than 55 articles in peer reviewed journals and co invented more than 25 patents and patent applications.