Disrupting the Immunotherapy Field - A Novel Platform for Targeting Chronic Diseases

Vaccines are some of the most successful modalities for global disease management. However, the application of vaccines for chronic disease treatment has been limited due to the challenge of inducing a safe immune response against self-antigens. Passive immunotherapy approaches - like monoclonal antibodies - have become the means to target disease-associated proteins for chronic diseases. 

Vaxxinity is disrupting this paradigm by developing a novel platform that triggers a safe, specific antibody response against self-antigen, enabling the use of vaccines to treat chronic diseases. This cost-effective approach is amenable to wide distribution, allowing broader global reach compared to mAb-based treatments. 

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Justin Boyd, Ph.D.

Director of Translational Science, Vaxxinity

Justin Boyd has more than 15 years of experience in drug discovery, utilizing cellular models of disease as platforms to characterize disease biology and experimental therapeutics. Justin is currently Head of the Translational Sciences Group at Vaxxinity. He leads a group of scientists and researchers in building models of chronic diseases (particularly Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and hypercholesterolemia) in order to test the efficacy of vaccine leads. 

Prior to Vaxxinity, Justin was Head of the High Content Technology Center at Pfizer, working across research units on programs from target validation to candidate selection. In addition to industry, Justin spent time at Harvard Medical School as an investigator focusing on therapeutic discovery for Alzheimer's, ALS and Parkinson's disease.

Throughout his career, Justin has focused on biological relevance and applying these systems across therapeutic modalities, including small molecule, gene therapies and immunotherapies.

David Apiyo, Ph.D.

Senior Manager, Applications, Sartorius

David is a Senior Manager of Applications at Sartorius, focused on Octet label-free detection platforms and applications. In this role, he leads a team of Applications Managers and is responsible for the strategic direction of the GMP/GxP and bioprocessing vertical markets. 

David started out as a Field Applications Scientist in 2011 and transitioned to the marketing applications team in 2015. Prior to this, David worked as a Senior Development Scientist, R&D department, at Beckman Coulter where he was involved in the development and validation of protein and antibody conjugate chemistries. 

David obtained his Ph.D. in Protein Chemistry from Tulane University, New Orleans.