Velius, LLC, today announced the expansion of its Scientific Advisory Board, composed of leading medical professionals in the fields of dermatology, animal health and biopolymer chemistry.
The Scientific Advisory Board helps advance Velius’ mission to evolve, innovate and create new intellectual property from its nanofilm technology . This technology is currently used in its patented scar repair and dermatology products. Velius currently holds 5 U.S. patents as well as multiple trademarks and has patents issued in 25 other countries across the globe. Board members will assist the management team with assessing technology options, developing new IP, and providing expertise on future clinical trends.
The company has developed a large suite of pharmaceutical products for the treatment of various skin diseases, including its flagship OTC products, Scarguard and Bruiseguard. Its OTC products are sold in most major pharmacy chains in North America.
Velius has developed patented prescription drugs to fill voids in the current therapeutic offerings for psoriasis, eczema and cutaneous scarring. The company is also currently pioneering novel prescription medicines to treat several other serious diseases and is filing patents on new formulations and applications. All are a testament of its continued growth within the biopharmaceutical industry. With these new additions to its Scientific Advisory Board, Velius foresees even greater opportunities.
“The Scientific Advisory Board is essential to our future success because the application of solid science has always been the basis for the development and deployment of our innovative technology,” said Dr. Joel Studin, Founder and CEO of Velius. “The Board’s guidance and extraordinarily deep insight into varied, yet related areas will contribute greatly to our scientific advancements while ensuring that our products meet Velius’ global customer needs.”
The new additions to its Scientific Advisory Board are:
Richard D. Granstein, M.D.
Richard D. Granstein, M.D. is the George W. Hambrick, Jr. Professor and Chairman of the Department of Dermatology at the New York Weill Cornell Medical Center of New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Granstein obtained his undergraduate education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his medical education at the UCLA School of Medicine. After completing his internship in 1979, he trained in dermatology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. As a Research Fellow, Dr. Granstein studied immunology and tumor biology at the National Cancer Institute-Frederick Cancer Research Facility and at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Granstein joined the faculty of the Department of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts General Hospital in 1984. In 1995 he left Harvard to become Chairman of the Department of Dermatology at the Weill Medical College of Cornell University and Dermatologist-in-Chief at the New York Weill Cornell Medical Center of New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Dr. Granstein’s research interests center on the regulation of immunity within the skin and the relationship of the skin’s immune system to the development of skin cancers. He also has a special research interest in the regulation of the immune system by stress and the nervous system. He was the first to demonstrate that certain immune cells within the skin are capable of initiating an immune response against a malignant tumor and that immune cells within the epidermis (the upper layer of the skin) have an anatomic relationship with nerves and can be regulated by proteins produced by those nerves. His clinical interests include autoimmune disorders of the skin, skin cancer, and psoriasis.
Robert K. Prud’homme, PhD
Robert K. Prud’homme is a professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering at Princeton University and Director of the Engineering Biology Program. He received his BS at Stanford University and his PhD from the University of Wisconsin at Madison under Professor Bob Bird. He has served on the executive committees of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers Materials Science Division and the U.S. Society of Rheology and was the President of the U.S. Society of Rheology. He has served as the chair of the Technical Advisory Board for Material Science Research for Dow Chemical Company, which directs Dow’s materials research programs, and he was on the Board of Directors of Rheometric Scientific Inc., the leading manufacturer of rheological instrumentation. He also served on the Nanotechnology Scientific Advisory Committee for BASF, which provided guidance for future trends in nanotechnology for the company. His awards include the NSF Presidential Young Investigator Award, Princeton School of Engineering and Applied Science Outstanding Teaching Award, the Sydney Ross Lectureship at RPI, the Bird,Stewart and Lightfoot Lecturer at the University of Wisconsin, the Dinesh Shah lectureship at the University of Florida, and the Midland Macromolecular Institute Visiting Professor in Midland Michigan. He has been the organizer and Chair of the Gordon Conference on Ion Containing Polymers, and the Society of Petroleum Engineers Forum on Stimulation Fluid Rheology, in addition to organizing numerous sessions at AIChE, ACS, and SOR meetings. He directed the Princeton-University of Minnesota-Iowa State NSF NIRT Center on nanoparticle formation. His research interests include rheology and self-assembly of complex fluids. Systems of interest are biopolymer solutions and gels, surfactant mesophases, and polymer/surfactant mixtures. The goals of the studies are to understand how weak molecular-level interactions can be used to tune macroscopic bulk properties and phase behavior. Application of the work is directed at nanoparticle formation for the drug delivery, controlled release, targeting, and imaging.
James G. Krueger, M.D., PhD
Dr. Krueger, M.D., PhD is a Professor of Dermatology at Rockefeller University. Dr. Krueger received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University in 1979, his Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University in 1984 and his M.D. from Cornell University Medical College in 1985. He came to Rockefeller as a guest investigator in the Laboratory for Investigative Dermatology, was appointed assistant professor in 1990, associate professor and head of lab in 1995 and professor in 2003. Dr. Krueger has held positions at The Rockefeller University Hospital since 1989. In 2006 he became co-director of the Center for Clinical and Translational Science, established by a Clinical and Translational Science Award from the National Center for Research Resources of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Krueger was medical director and program director of the General Clinical Research Center from 1996 to 2006 and currently directs the Milstein Medical Research Program, which conducts new clinical studies of the pathogenesis of melanoma and other pigmentory diseases. In 2010 Dr. Krueger won the Astellas Award in Public Health from the American Academy of Dermatology as well as the Farber Award from the Society of Investigative Dermatology. In 2006 Dr. Krueger received the E.H. Ahrens Jr. Award for clinical research from the Association for Patient-Oriented Research. He is also a recipient of two awards from the American Skin Association: the Distinguished Achievement Award and the Psoriasis Research Achievement Award, both granted in 2001. Dr. Krueger is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.
Drore Eisen, M.D.
Drore Eisen is a dual trained dermatologist and dentist with expertise in diseases of the oral cavity. He received his B.A. from Columbia University, dental and medical degrees from the Medical College of Virginia and completed his dermatology training at the University of Michigan where he served as chief resident. He has authored 2 textbooks which have received accolades in many peer reviewed medical and dental publications, several chapters in textbooks and over 50 articles on oral and medical diseases including publications in The New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet. Drore has been an invited and featured speaker at numerous major medical and dental conferences and a visiting lecturer at many universities, both nationally and internationally. He is the recipient of the prestigious Harold O. Perry Lecture Award, Mayo Clinic. He has also served as a principal investigator or co-investigator in over 50 clinical trials with many large pharmaceutical companies and collaborated on oral cancer research projects with The National Cancer Institute.
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