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Home/Posts/Press Release/Prof. Dr. Michael N. Hall, member of the Board of Directors of Swiss Rockets AG, receives the Sjöberg Prize 2020

Prof. Dr. Michael N. Hall, member of the Board of Directors of Swiss Rockets AG, receives the Sjöberg Prize 2020

By Swiss Rockets|2020-03-18T21:05:37+01:0010th February, 2020|Press Release|

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has awarded the Sjöberg Prize 2020 jointly to Prof. Michael N. Hall, Biozentrum of the University of Basel, and Prof. David M. Sabatini, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Cambridge, USA. The two scientists receive this international award for their discovery of mTOR and its role in the control of cell metabolism and growth.

The Sjöberg Prize honors scientist for pioneering research in the field of cancer research. Michael Hall, Biozentrum of the University of Basel, and Prof. David M. Sabatini are jointly awarded for their discovery of the master regulator of cell growth, the target of rapamycin (TOR) kinase. This discovery allowed scientists to better understand cell growth and its importance in development, aging and diseases such as cancer. The award ceremony will take place in Stockholm, Sweden, in March 2020, in conjunction with the Academy’s Annual Meeting.

The Sjöberg Prize was established in 2016 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences to honor scientists that have made significant contributions to cancer research. The annually awarded prize consists of a total sum of approximately USD 1 million and is funded by The Sjöberg Foundation. The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences decides upon the Sjöberg Laureates.

The discovery of mTOR
Michael Hall discovered the highly conserved, nutrient-activated protein kinase TOR, and elucidated its role as a central controller of cell growth. This led to a fundamental change in scientists’ understanding and appreciation of cell growth. It is not a spontaneous process that just happens, but rather a highly regulated, plastic process controlled by TOR-dependent signaling pathways. As a central controller of cell growth, TOR plays a key role in development and aging and is implicated in various disorders including cancer, cardiovascular disease, allograft rejection, obesity and diabetes. Rapamycin is used in the clinic in three of the above major therapeutic areas, and several new mammalian TOR (mTOR) inhibitors are currently being evaluated as anti-cancer drugs.

Recent research
Since the initial discovery, TOR-related research has expanded to include the basic research community, medical researchers and the pharmaceutical industry. Michael Hall is its founder and has remained a major leader in this highly competitive field for over 25 years. His recent work continues to focus on mechanisms of mTOR signaling, elucidating the roles of mTOR in metabolic tissues and tumors. The aim of his work is to understand how mTOR controls whole body growth and metabolism. The goal of the tumor research, in mice and humans, is to understand mechanisms of tumorigenesis and evasive resistance to targeted cancer therapies. In summary, Hall’s studies on TOR have spanned yeast to human to elucidate fundamentally and clinically important biology.

About Prof. Dr. Michael N. Hall
Hall has been a researcher and faculty member at the University of Basel since 1987 and served as Vice-Director of the Biozentrum from 2002 to 2009, and from 2013 to 2016. A Swiss citizen born in Puerto Rico, Hall received his Ph.D. from Harvard and completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Pasteur Institute in Paris and the University of California, San Francisco.

About Swiss Rockets AG
Swiss Rockets AG, Basel, founded in 2018, is implementing a paradigm shift in healthcare. Cancer patients will benefit from new treatments which will be developed using innovative and disruptive methods. The Swiss-Rockets team combines the necessary specialist knowledge and experience to efficiently and sustainably break new ground in cancer medicine.

The Board of Directors of Swiss Rockets AG is chaired by Vladimir Cmiljanovic, a successful entrepreneur and the founder of Swiss biotech companies PIQUR and TargImmune. Other board members are Prof. Dr. Michael N. Hall, a renowned researcher, and Professor at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel, and André Debrunner, a financial expert and fund manager at Northern Trust Corporation Switzerland.

Founder and CEO of Swiss Rockets is Dr. Vladimir Cmiljanovic, a medicinal chemist with more than 15 years’ experience in the development of cancer drugs. Together with his sister Dr. Natasa Cmiljanovic, co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Swiss Rockets, he developed oncology drugs at the University of Basel and subsequently founded and successfully led several biotech companies. Manuel Ebner, Strategic Advisor of Swiss Rockets and CEO Switzerland at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, and Dr. Thomas Sander, Scientific Advisor and one of the first employees of the biotech company Actelion, are co-founders of Swiss Rockets AG.

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Dr. Erik Amble
Dr. Erik AmbleMember of Business Advisory Committee

Erik Amble is the Chairman and founder of NeoMed Management in 1997. NeoMed has raised and managed 6 funds that are specialised in investments in the healthcare industry. Erik Amble is since 2016 also an advisor of Boston based Omega Funds, which has a strategic collaboration with NeoMed Management.

Erik Amble has served on the board of a. o. Clavis Pharma AS (which went public on the Oslo Stock Exchange), GenoVision AS (sold to Qiagen), Thommen Medical AG (investment sold in a secondary transaction), Vessix Vascular Inc. (sold to Boston Scientific Corporation) and Sonendo Inc. (USA) and currently serves on the board of Axonics Modulation Technologies Inc. (USA), JenaValve Technology Inc. (USA, Germany), CorFlow Therapeutics AG (Switzerland), Serca Pharmaceuticals AS (Norway) and Sequana Medical NV (Belgium, Switzerland).

From 1985 to 1992, Erik Amble was CEO of Origo Ventures AS, a Norwegian private equity investment company. Origo was an early investor in Navia AS, VMetro AS and Agresso AS, emerging growth companies that achieved successfully a listing on the Oslo Stock Exchange. Before that, he was an Associate with Glenwood Management, a venture capital management firm based in Palo Alto, California. From 1981 to 1983, he was responsible for international business development at Rumen Kjemi AS, a joint venture between companies, which are now part of Sanofi, a global healthcare company headquartered in France, and Orkla, a major Norwegian industrial and consumer products firm.

Erik Amble is a founder and former Chairman of the Norwegian Venture Capital Association. He holds a Dr. Scient. degree in organic chemistry from the University of Oslo and a Master of Science degree in Management from the Graduate School of Business, Stanford University, USA.

Erik Amble is a Swiss citizen.

Dr. Christoph Heusser
Dr. Christoph HeusserHead of Immunology

Dr. Christoph Heusser, Head of Immunology, is an immunology expert who pioneered antibody-based therapies and antibody-mediated effector functions. He was Head of Immunology at Ciba-Geigy and Head of the Transplantation- Immunology Unit at Novartis and gave lectures on antibody-based interventions at the University Basel for 15 years. During this time, he initiated and executed several intervention strategies in the area of allergy, autoimmunity, and transplantation. He co-invented the concept of anti-IgE treatment, which resulted in the development of Xolair, - an antibody drug for the treatment of moderate to severe persistent allergic asthma and chronic spontaneous urticaria, - and the follow-up drug Ligelizumab. He was a Ciba-Geigy Fellow and nominated Novartis Distinguished Scientist and served as Principal Research Investigator at the Novartis Research Institutes of Biomedical Research. Dr. Heusser received his Dr. sc. nat. in Biochemistry and Immunology from the ETH Zürich, discovered the diversity of Fc-receptors in Denver, and was a member at the Basel Institute for Immunology, working on B cell immune regulation, before he devoted his energy to medicinal immunological research. Since several years Dr. Heusser supports different biotech companies as consultant and advisor.

Dr. Robert Ettlin
Dr. Robert EttlinHead of Preclinical Safety

Dr. Robert Ettlin is the Head of Preclinical Safety in Swiss Rockets. After some years in toxicological pathology at F. Hoffmann La Roche Ltd., Ettlin joined Sandoz Ltd. in Basel, where he advanced to Head of Toxicology and later Head of Development Operations Switzerland. In between, he served as Head of Preclinical Development and member of the Executive Committee of Novartis Pharma in Japan.

Dr. Christian Mittelholzer
Dr. Christian MittelholzerHead of Project Management

Dr. Christian Mittelholzer, Head of Project Management,  is a molecular biologist by training, with more than 15 years of experience in veterinary and human virology, and in the development of novel vaccines. After his Ph.D., performed at the Institute for Virology and Immunology in Mittelhäusern, Switzerland, Christian worked on several EU-funded research projects in Sweden and on Atlantic cod in Norway. Returning to Switzerland, he was working on self-assembling protein nanoparticles as vaccine candidates at Alpha-O Peptides, later using polyomavirus virus-like particles (VLPs) at the Institute of Medical Microbiology at the University of Basel, and then as Chief Scientific Officer at Redbiotec in Schlieren, Switzerland, also working on virus-like particles as vaccine candidates.

Before joining Swiss Rockets, Christian obtained an MBA in General Management from the University of St. Gallen (HSG) and worked as a project manager for a large pharma and biotech engineering company in Basel, acquiring valuable management skills in projects of various sizes. Christian holds an M.Sc. in Biology from the University of Basel and a Ph.D. from the University of Berne and is the author of over 30 scientific articles.

Dr. Mohammad Johri
Dr. Mohammad JohriDeputy CEO

Dr. Mohammad H Johri, Deputy CEO, holds a Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from London where his work involved the Study of Metal Complexes derived from Quinone Type Ligands. The compound synthesized during his Ph.D. eventually found its use in Medical as well as Industrial sectors.

He is a result-driven entrepreneur with more than 35 years of experience in a variety of diverse fields such as Chemical, Surface Coating, and Electronic industries. He has worked for world-class organization such as Morton International, Desoto, Bunzl Pulp, and Panasonic Avionics Corporation. He has been actively involved in leading teams in creating and developing products for markets on a Global basis in general and the Middle East, Europe, Africa and South Asia in particular.

In recent times he has been involved in exciting Pharma startup entities and due to his broad experience and drive is asked to serve as a board member. He has a strong background of managing complex and demanding projects which need to be carried out in a timely manner to meet delivery schedules. He sets his eyes on long-term strategies that have a high potential for future growth and has a keen eye on realizing ground realities thus satisfying market needs. Currently, he is actively involved in helping few Swiss-based cutting-edge start-ups companies to bring their products to market place.

Prof. Dr. med. Semir Beslija
Prof. Dr. med. Semir BeslijaMember of Oncology Advisory Committee

Prof. Semir Beslija is a well-recognized oncologist whose interests specifically target breast cancer treatments. Currently he is working as a Head of the Oncology Division at the University Clinical Center Sarajevo and as Professor at the Department of Oncology of the University of Sarajevo, School of Medicine. He is a member of several professional associations including the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO). In addition, Dr. Beslija is a member of the Scientific Committee of the Central European Cooperative Oncology Group. He is an author and co-author of more than 50 scientific publications and a visiting lecturer of the European Institute of Oncology in Milan and Austrian Oncology Academy. Besides, Dr. Beslija is a member of the editorial board of the MEMO magazine (Magazine of European Medical Oncology).

Prof. Dr. med. Filip Janku
Prof. Dr. med. Filip JankuMember of Oncology Advisory Committee

Prof. Filip Janku is a competent and experienced scientist whose research interests focus on proof-of-concept clinical trials, molecular profiling of cell-free DNA and therapeutic use of oncolytic bacteria. Prof. Janku serves as an Associate Professor and medical oncologist in the Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics (Phase I Program) at MD Anderson Cancer Center in the US. In 2018, he became a Center Medical Director in the Clinical and Translational Research Center at MD Anderson Cancer Center. Prof. Janku is the principal investigator for numerous phase I trials, most of which study novel targeted agents. He was involved in multiple clinical trials, initiated by pharma giants Roche and Novartis. Prof. Janku is a winner of several Research Grants and received numerous awards for his research achievements, including the Sidney Kimmel Scholar award. He is the author of 218 articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Prof. Dr. med. Jean-Yves Blay
Prof. Dr. med. Jean-Yves BlayMember of Oncology Advisory Committee

Prof. Jean-Yves Blay is a well-known scientist and a medical oncologist whose main research interests focus on clinical and basic research in sarcomas. Dr. Blay is a General Director of the Centre Leon Bérard, the Comprehensive Cancer of Lyon, France, as well as a Professor of Medicine at the Université Claude Bernard. He serves as a President of the French Federation of Cancer Centres “Unicancer” and as a President of the French Sarcoma Group. In 2016, Prof. Blay was designated by the EU Commission to be a Network Director of ERN-EURACAN to improve the quality of care for patients with rare cancers in the European Union. He has co-authored over 1000 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters and was distinguished as a Highly Cited Researcher in 2019. He advises various national and international institutions and research organizations and is an active member of several oncology scientific organizations and societies, such as ESMO, CTOS, ASCO, and AACR. Besides, Prof. Blay is a winner of several scientific awards.

Prof. Dr. med. Richard Herrmann
Prof. Dr. med. Richard HerrmannMember of Oncology Advisory Committee

Prof. Richard Herrmann is a leading expert in Oncology with extensive experience in cancer clinical trials methodology in Phases I–III. He is Professor of Oncology at the University of Basel and former Head of the Division of Oncology and the Department of Clinical Research at the University Hospital Basel. During his career, Prof. Herrmann headed various national oncology societies and study groups as President of the Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research and President of OncoSuisse. In 2009, he became Vice-President of the Cancer Research Switzerland Foundation. Besides that, Prof. Herrmann has remarkable 20 years of experience (1991-2011) as a Head of the Division of Oncology at the University Hospital Basel. Prof. Herrmann is the winner of several scientific awards, honorary member in the Scientific Association of Swiss Radiation Oncologists, the Hungarian Society of Medical Oncology and the German Society of Haematology and Medical Oncology as well as an elected personal member of the Swiss Academy of Medical Sciences. He is an author of more than 300 scientific publications.

Prof. Dr. med. Solange Peters
Prof. Dr. med. Solange PetersVice-Chairwoman of Oncology Advisory Committee

Prof. Solange Peters is an experienced scientist whose main fields of research include discovery and validation in preclinical/clinical settings of new biomarkers for thoracic cancers, as well as targeted therapy and immunotherapy. Prof. Peters runs the Thoracic Malignancies Program and the Medical Oncology Service in the Department of Oncology at the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) in Switzerland and manages the organization and coordination of clinical trials. She acts as the scientific coordinator and member of the Foundation Council of the European Thoracic Oncology Platform (ETOP). Prof. Peters is a referee for numerous scientific journals and serves as a grant reviewer for the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), Swiss Cancer League Grants and many others. She is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed journal publications, book chapters and book editions. In 2014, Solange received the Prize of the Faculty of Biology and Medicine of Lausanne for her excellence in clinical research. Prof. Peters is the youngest ever President of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO) for the 2020-2021 term.

Prof. Dr. med. Alex A. Adjei
Prof. Dr. med. Alex A. AdjeiChairman of Oncology Advisory Committee

Prof. Alex A. Adjei is an accomplished researcher in the field of experimental therapeutics and clinical drug development. He is a Professor of Oncology and a Professor of Pharmacology in the Mayo College of Medicine (Rochester, USA) as well as a consultant in Medical Oncology at Mayo Clinic. Prof. Adjei is a Director of the Early Cancer Therapeutics Program and leads the Lung Cancer Program across all Mayo Clinic campuses in Arizona, Florida and Minnesota. Prof. Adjei is co-chair of the Thoracic Malignancies Steering Committee as well as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology. He received the first American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Drug Development Research Professorship 2012-2017, in recognition of his mentorship and his work in cancer drug development. In 2018, Prof. Adjei was recognized by ASCO for his extraordinary volunteer service, dedication, and commitment. He served on several National Cancer Institute Committees and is an author of 260 scientific publications.

Dr. Thomas Ladner
Dr. Thomas LadnerBoard Member and Secretary of the Board

Dr. Thomas Ladner, Board Member and Secretary of the Board, became in 2002 the youngest partner at Meyerlustenberger Lachenal, one of Switzerland's leading law firms, where he specialized in private equity and M&A. From 2000 to 2004, Thomas lectured on corporate law and contract law at the University of St. Gallen (Switzerland), from where he also holds a Ph.D. Since 2009 he is a Counsel to the law firm and active as an angel investor. To date, two of the several start-ups he co-founded went public. In addition, he sits on the board of more than a dozen companies ranging from tech-start-ups to mature companies with a turnover of several billion Swiss francs.

Thomas is passionate about creating communities of business and thought leaders and has founded or co-founded the Entrepreneurs' Roundtable (with chapters in Switzerland, Germany, France, The Netherlands and Poland), the Club zum Rennweg in Zurich and the WORLD.MINDS Foundation. In addition he is engaged in several nonprofit initiatives as a member of their board of trustees.

Dr. Paul Hebeisen
Dr. Paul HebeisenMember of Scientific and Drug Discovery Advisory Committee

Dr. Paul Hebeisen is a highly experienced medicinal chemist with an impressive track record in drug discovery over 28 years of service at F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG, Switzerland. Paul served in various positions, most notably as a Group Leader in Chemistry in the discovery of novel anti-infectives. In collaboration with Sumitomo Corporation, Japan, Paul was the Chemistry Leader in the search for novel carbapenems overcoming resistance to marketed agents, a major and an on-going global public health problem. He is a co-inventor of Zevtera, a cephalosporin antibiotic with activity against a range of drug-resistant microorganisms. Paul also has experience in metabolic research, where he successfully contributed to the introduction of appetite suppressants as well as anti dyslipidemia drugs into the clinics. He is a member of several professional organizations and author of more than 60 publications and patents.

Dr. Doriano Fabbro
Dr. Doriano FabbroMember of Scientific and Drug Discovery Advisory Committee

Dr. Doriano Fabbro is a renowned drug discovery and kinase expert with more than 20 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical industry, following 10 years in academia. Until 2005, Doriano was an Executive Director for the Oncology Drug Discovery Division of the Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research (NIBR) in Basel, Switzerland and was a member of the NIBR Oncology Advisory Board overseeing the oncology portfolio from target discovery to clinical development. From 2005 to 2012, he was an Executive Director of the NIBR Expertise Platform Kinases dedicated to global Kinase Drug Discovery Projects of all indication areas of Novartis. During his exemplary career, Doriano contributed to the discovery and development of several approved drugs, including Afinitor, Alpelisib, Glivec, Midostaurin and Tasigna. From 2012 until 2019, Doriano was the Chief Scientific Officer of Piqur Therapeutics, Switzerland. He is currently a scientific advisor for several pharmaceutical companies in the area of kinase drug discovery. Doriano is an author of more than 140 scientific publications.

Dr. Marc Lang
Dr. Marc LangMember of Scientific and Drug Discovery Advisory Committee

Dr. Marc Lang is a medicinal chemist with an outstanding career served in Novartis, Basel, Switzerland and spanning more than 30 years in drug discovery across various therapeutic fields, including infectious diseases and oncology. Marc contributed personally to the discovery of three compounds that were successfully developed and approved to treat patients (Femara, Reyataz and Tasigna). As Executive Director of the Medicinal Chemistry Unit for Oncology in Basel and a member of the Global Oncology Decision Board, Marc oversaw the discovery of many other innovative drugs in the Novartis Oncology portfolio that progressed into clinical trials and some of which are now on the market. Marc is currently a scientific and strategic advisor to several biotech companies. He is an author of numerous publications, a co-inventor of 50 patents and a winner of several scientific awards.

Dr. Donald Ogilvie
Dr. Donald OgilvieMember of Scientific and Drug Discovery Advisory Committee

Dr. Donald Ogilvie is currently an independent scientific consultant providing expert advice on cancer drug discovery to academic, industrial and venture capital organizations. Donald has had a highly successful career of over 20 years in cancer drug discovery and early clinical development, spent mostly in AstraZeneca, United Kingdom, where he held senior research positions. He led the discovery of many innovative cancer drug candidates, which have progressed to the stage of clinical development and some to regulatory approval. After leaving AstraZeneca, Donald set up and led the Drug Discovery Unit at the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute (University of Manchester, UK). Under his leadership, the team built a drug discovery infrastructure and a leading cancer project portfolio; three projects were successfully licensed to downstream partners. Donald is an author on more than 80 peer-reviewed academic publications.

Dr. Elena Levitskaia
Dr. Elena LevitskaiaVice-Chairman of Scientific and Drug Discovery Advisory Committee

Dr. Elena Levitskaia is an accomplished scientist with broad experience in research program building across infection biology, virology, human parasitology and onco-immunology. Elena has established laboratories and directed independently funded research programs at world-leading academic institutions, including Karolinska Institute, Sweden and Johns Hopkins University, USA. She has supported the development of pre-clinical portfolios of several biotech companies in the US, Europe and Japan. Most recently, Elena served as a Differentiation Strategy Advisor and Ad hoc Executive Team Member of Crescendo Biologics, Cambridge, UK, helping the company to develop its biologics-based portfolio in onco-immunology. She is an author of numerous scientific papers published in prestigious scientific journals.

Dr. Jeanette Wood
Dr. Jeanette WoodChairwoman of Scientific and Drug Discovery Advisory Committee

Dr. Jeanette Wood is an accomplished scientist with extensive experience in all aspects of drug discovery across multiple disease areas, including cancer. Jeanette has held senior management positions in big Pharma (Novartis, Switzerland and AstraZeneca, United Kingdom) and small Biotechs (S*BIO, Singapore and Genkyotex, Switzerland) and has contributed to the discovery and profiling of several drugs which entered clinical trials (including Vatalanib, Pacritinib, Pracinostat, Setanaxib) and some that reached regulatory approval (Diovan, Aliskiren, Osimertinib). She serves as a Board Member and Scientific and Strategic Advisor to several biotech companies and university drug discovery groups around the world. Jeanette has been awarded several prizes for her scientific and drug discovery excellence and is an author of numerous patents and academic publications.

Sergey Shneyerson
Sergey ShneyersonMember of Business Advisory Committee

Sergey Shneyerson is a founding partner of Basil Street Advisory, a strategy, private equity, and M&A advisory business. Previously, Sergey was Partner with Exigen Capital, USA, where he led the firm’s investment activities. Sergey held several senior management positions with global technology companies. At Microsoft, he led the development of cloud strategy and offerings for Microsoft Services, the largest division within the company, with over 20,000 employees worldwide.

Earlier in his career, Sergey co-founded a pioneering consumer Internet business and led its acquisition by Amazon.com. Sergey also worked for the Boston Consulting Group in Chicago, advising senior management at companies in the software, financial services, and private equity industries.