Brian Mead

Pharmacology team lead: 7 FTEs responsible for in vitro and in vivo pharmacology and bioanalytics. External Collaboration Lead: Improved non-viral base and targeted delivery of novel proprietary cargoes. Project Leader: Leader of the cross functional platform project team aimed at evaluating biodistribution, PK/PD, tolerability and function of novel cargoes in vitro and in vivo.

• Translational Biology team lead: 10 FTEs across in vivo and bioanalytical/histology functions • Project leader: Led research activities for a collaboration with an external collaborator (big biotech). • Leading and executing non-clinical safety and pharmacology studies (rodents, NHPs) to evaluate biodistribution, immunogenicity, cytokine release, complement activation, PK/PD, and histopathology for a novel proprietary delivery modality and multiple nucleic acid cargoes and therapeutic areas.

● Generated novel non-viral cell targeted gene delivery modalities for gene editing cargoes. ● Optimized high throughput nanoparticle formulation/analytics and screening platforms for mRNA and DNA-based payloads.

● Innovated novel strategies to enhance therapeutic uptake and dispersion in healthy brain and tumor tissue leading ~5-fold improvement in efficiency over standard. ● Oversaw early studies to enhance tumor antigen exposure and immune-cell activation in tumors with focused ultrasound. Early flow cytometry data suggest enhancement in T-cell and dendritic cell activation.

● Established novel strategies for gene delivery and therapy and ultimately led a collaborative team to develop a platform allowing spatially localized uptake and transgene expression in rodents. ● Optimized delivery of GDNF gene vectors across the BBB in rodent models of Parkinson’s disease, led improvement in behavioral, biochemical and immunohistochemical indicators of disease. ● Developed strategies to improve drug transport in the brain, tested under live confocal fluorescence imaging of 3D cell culture matrices and after infusion into rodent brain or brain tumors in vivo.

● Taught chemistry, physics and public health/life skills to secondary school students in a rural Kenyan school. ● Collaborated with local teachers to create more dynamic and interactive teaching strategies. ● Organized and led multiple national camps including a "Model School" to help train incoming volunteers and a "Girls Leading Our World" camp to teach leadership skills to young women.

● Screening and pharmacodynamic modeling of candidate small molecular inhibitors of purified protein kinetic activity and identified 2 candidates for further testing. ● Optimized protein expression and purification procedures, tested activity with biochemical assays.

● Investigated mechanistic role of α and β subunits of the proteasome in the halophilic archaeon H. volanii. ● Engineered over 1000 randomly mutated plasmids to establish temperature-inactivatable proteasome subunits.