17th WRIB conference: Meet the Frontage Laboratories attendees
Dr John Lin
President
Frontage Laboratories (PA, USA)
Dr John Lin is the President of Frontage Laboratories, Inc. He has extensive CRO and pharmaceutical industry experience in compliance, technical/commercial operations, client communication, project management, finance, sales and marketing and strategic planning. He’s worked in various roles at Frontage Laboratories for the past 16 years. Prior to joining Frontage, he worked as a Director for Avantix Laboratories, Inc. (DE, USA) and a business leader (eMile project)/Outsourcing Manager for AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, LP (DE, USA).
Nann Green
Senior Director of Business Development
Frontage Laboratories
Nann Green is the Senior Director of Business Development, Central Lab & Bioanalytical Services at Frontage Labs. She has been with Frontage since 2020 and currently manages the Bioanalytical BD and Proposals team. Nann has a PhD in endocrine physiology and over 20 years in the Bioanalytical CRO industry with extensive experience in laboratory operations, laboratory management as well as business development.
Ericca Stamper
Senior Scientist I, Biologics
Frontage Laboratories
Ericca earned her PhD from the University of California, Berkeley (CA, USA) in Molecular and Cell Biology. Her thesis research was focused on understanding meiosis and genetic recombination. She then went on to do a 5 year postdoc at the University of Cambridge (Cambridge, UK) and the European Bioinformatics Institute in the area of functional genomics. Her research project was aimed at studying the evolution of gene regulatory regions across the genomes of 10 mammalian species. Ericca then became a faculty member at the Wilkes Honors College of Florida Atlantic University (FL, USA), where she taught a range of biology courses and led an undergraduate research program. She then transitioned to industry and started at Frontage Laboratories in Deerfield Beach, FL in January 2023. Ericca is a Senior Scientist at Frontage and also serves as a subject matter expert in the area of genomics.
Jialu Liu
Associate Director, Biologics
Frontage Laboratories
Dr Jialu Liu is an Associate Director and Subject Matter Expert (SME) for the Biomarker Services team at Frontage Laboratories, providing scientific leadership and contributing to the development of the Global Biomarker Strategy. He works as a liaison between business operations, development, and various other departments, and has been involved with communicating and presenting biomarker bioanalysis capabilities to biopharma sponsors. He also leads the biomarker method development team for new LBA method development, transfer and validation projects at Frontage.
Yeijia (Jayden) Liu
Director of Business Development, Biologics
Frontage Laboratories
Jayden is a Director of Business Development for Bioanalytical & Biologics Services at Frontage Laboratories. Jayden holds a degree in Bioscience from Huazhong University of Science & Technology (Wuhan, China) and has more than 10 years of experience in life science business development in the US and Asia Pacific regions. Jayden serves a key role in the management of Frontage’s AsiaPac business.
Lili Liao
Associate Director
Frontage Laboratories
Lili Liao works as Associate Director at Frontage Laboratories. In this role, she leads the development, validation and sample analysis of bioanalytical methods, including ADA (anti-drug antibodies), NAb (neutralizing antibodies) and biomarker assays. She has been establishing various platforms for neutralizing antibody assays at Frontage, such as competitive ligand binding assay, enzymatic-based NAb assay, gene reporter assay, virus reporter assay and cell proliferation assay. She takes charge of a range of immunogenicity projects and oversees the immune-PCR Biomarker projects.
Additionally, she is a critical member of Frontage’s Biologics, Gene, and Cell Therapy program. Her expertise includes critical quality attributes assessment of mRNA therapeutics, TCID50 assay and cell-potency assays for virus-based gene therapy pipelines.
Chen Chen
Group Leader, Genomics, Biological Services
Frontage Laboratories
Dr Chen is a Group Leader of the Genomics Team under Biologics Services at Frontage Laboratories. She offers a wide range of expertise, including qPCR, ddPCR, NGS, ligand binding assays, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics studies. In her current role, Dr Chen serves as a team leader at the Exton site that develops, qualifies, and validates fit-for-purpose nucleic acid-based assays in accordance with applicable regulatory guidelines and supports a variety of client projects from the early discovery stage to fully regulated clinical trials. She received her PhD in Medical Neuroscience from Indiana University School of Medicine (IN, USA) with a focus on neurodegenerative diseases and the neuroregenerative capacity of the central and peripheral nervous systems.
Ryan Grabert
Global Key Account Director, Biologics
Frontage Laboratories
Ryan Grabert is a Global Key Account Director for the Northeast Region of Bioanalytical Services at Frontage Laboratories, Inc. He received his BA in Biology from the University of Vermont (VT, USA) and an MA in Biotechnology Management from Harvard University Extension School (MA, USA). He started his career at Genzyme (MA, USA). He was there for 9 years as a Senior Research Associate in the Clinical Lab Sciences group developing bioanalytical methods to support large molecule clinical development programs (Ph I-IV), in multiple therapeutic areas (rare genetic disease, immunology and multiple sclerosis).
After Genzyme, he was at Shire (MA, USA) for 4 years as a Scientist in the Bioanalytical and Biomarker Development group. In this role, he was responsible for the strategy, development and management of the bioanalytical and biomarker needs of programs from late discovery to commercial support. These programs included therapeutic modalities such as peptides, enzyme replacement therapy, antibodies and gene therapy. In addition, he was responsible for the transfer and management of bioanalytical and biomarker development and testing at partner CRO’s. Most recently he was a Senior Business Development Representative at Q2 Solutions (NC, USA), where he maximized sales growth for complex bioanalytical service offerings. In this role, he identified and qualified leads, grew existing strategic partner relationships and provided BioA sales support to pharma/biotech clients in the US, EU and China.
David Willoughby
Vice President of Genomic Services
Frontage Laboratories (FL, USA)
David Willoughby earned a PhD in Molecular Biology from The University of Southern California (CA, USA) in 1994 and completed postdoctoral training in gene regulation at the Burnham Research Institute (CA, USA) by 1998. He spent six years working for biotech platform companies Nanogen (CA, USA) and CuraGen (MA, USA) where he specialized in setting up microarray-based high-throughput diagnostic and gene expression assays and was also introduced to early iterations of next generation sequencing (NGS) technology. In 2005, Dr Willoughby capitalized on the opportunity to return to his home state when it became apparent that The Scripps Research Institute would open up a new facility in Jupiter, Florida.
Together with early investor Prof A. Donny Strosberg, Dr Willoughby initiated a new contract research service business, Ocean Ridge Biosciences (ORB) using extra lab space available in the Scripps facility. The company focused on the provision of microarray- and NGS-based services for profiling mRNA and microRNA and on multiplex protein expression analysis services, which were in demand from biotech companies that use the data in their drug discovery programs. ORB specialized in the extraction of RNA and protein from a wide variety of clinical and biological research sample types, generating data using multiple platforms and conducting bioinformatic processing and statistical analysis of data sets. Using a strategy of directly contacting scientific managers in biotechnology companies in Boston and San Diego, David was able to grow the company into a sustainable and profitable business with >$2M in annual revenue. Ultimately the company was sold to and became part of Frontage Laboratories, Inc. in April 2021, where Dr Willoughby became VP of Genomic Services.
At Frontage, Dr Willoughby has focused on converting the prior ORB lab to a location for Frontage that can provide a wide array of genomic services for both pre-clinical studies and clinical trials in accordance with the GLP and CLIA regulatory frameworks.
Tao Xu
Associate Director & Subject Matter Expert, Biologics
Frontage Laboratories
Tao Xu is the Associate Director and SME of Biologics Services at Frontage Laboratories. The Frontage Biologics team provides bioanalysis services including PK, immunogenicity (ADA and NAb), flow cytometry and genomic analysis. Tao is leading a team that focuses on immunogenicity assays to deliver method development, validation and sample analysis. Tao has over 10 years of experience of bioanalysis on PK (both LC-MS/MS and ligand binding assay), immunogenicity and PD/biomarker. As SME, Tao provides strategic and scientific oversight to Frontage Biologics Services business and supports global biologics strategy. He also provides support to operations and commercial teams in responding to client requests that require scientific or regulatory support with a special focus on Biologics PK and ADA/NAb assays and the cell and gene therapy industry.
Tao Xu holds a PhD degree in Food Science at Utah State University and two master’s degrees in chemistry and Bioengineering.
Kelly Abramson
Conference and Events Manager
Frontage Laboratories
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