Speakers

Education

• Ph.D., Department of Chemistry, Florida State University, Tallahassee FL. (1991)
• B.S., Department of Chemistry, Fu-Jen University, Taipei. (1982)

Work Experiences

• Director General, Department of Life Sciences, Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan. (2017-Present)
• Associate Vice President, Office of Research and Development, National Cheng Kung University, Tainan, Taiwan. (2016-2017)
• Chairman in Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, National Cheng Kung University College of Medicine, Tainan, Taiwan. (2014-Present)
• Distinguished Professor in Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, National Cheng Kung University College of Medicine, Tainan, Taiwan. (2009-Present)
• Professor in Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, National Cheng Kung University College of Medicine, Tainan, Taiwan. (2003-2009)
• Director, Center for Instrument Development of NCKU-NSC. (2005-2007)
• Associate Professor in Department of Biochemistry, National Cheng Kung University College of Medicine, Tainan, Taiwan. (1994-2003)

Professor Yufeng Jane Tseng received her B.S. degree in Pharmacy from National Taiwan University in 1997, and Ph.D. degree in Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacognosy from University of Illinois at Chicago in 2002. Prof. Tseng worked as a postdoctoral research associate at UIC in 2003 and 2004 and then moved to the National Center for Biotechnology Information, National Institutes of Health in 2005 as an IRTA Research Fellow. Dr. Tseng joined the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering of National Taiwan University in 2006 and holds a joint appointment at the Graduate Institute of Biomedical Electronics and Bioinformatics, National Taiwan University. She is currently a professor at the Graduate Institute of Biomedical Electronics, and Bioinformatics, the Department of Computer Science and Information, and the School of Pharmacy. Prof. Tseng is the founder and the Principal Investigator of the Metabolomics Core Laboratory at the Genomics Center. She is currently the Director of the Drug Research Center and also associate director of Neurobiology and Cognitive Science Center of National Taiwan University.

Her research interests include AI-assisted Drug Design/Discovery, and Metabolomics. Prof. Tseng’s specialty in AI-assisted drug design and discovery has made fast discovery and showed promising clinical results for novel CNS and cardiovascular drug developments. Prof. Tseng’s extraordinary effort in drug discovery also recently resulted in three prestigious awards: Taiwan National Bio-Innovation Award (2016), Novartis Venture Fund Mentorship Grantee (only two cases in 2016), and NTU EECS Academic Merit Award (2017). She is also the recipients of many international awards including IBM Faculty Award (USA, 2015), and Ching Kang Foundation Young Investigator Award and Drug Repurposing Innovation Award from TWi Pharmaceutical Foundation (2016, and 2015, Taiwan). She has been organizing the drug discovery symposiums at America Chemical Society (ACS) National Meetings since 2009. Her recent global efforts including TDT – Teach, Discovery, Treat initiatives for treating neglected diseases. TDT initiative was awarded by the ACS IPG innovation fund in 2012. In 2013, TDT was awarded with ACS Chemluminary award for its global effort combating neglected diseases.

Dr. Federspiel holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Minnesota and has been the Associate Director of SPARK at Stanford University School of Medicine since August of 2015. Prior to joining SPARK, she was the Program Officer for Strategic Research Development for 7 years for the Stanford Institute of Immunity, Transplantation & Infection and the Center for Innovation in Global Health. She has held faculty and research scientist positions in various organizations and has wide-ranging expertise in diverse areas of basic, translational, and clinical research, as well as deep experience in multi-disciplinary project management and in federal and foundation grant development. Dr. Federspiel is excited to be working with SPARK both at Stanford and with SPARK Global affiliates to accelerate the development of basic science research discoveries from the lab to the patient, generating a major impact on addressing unmet clinical needs and the world’s critical health problems.

Dr. Ikeno is a Research Associate, Cardiovascular Medicine, Stanford University. In this role, he is responsible for pre clinical studies including GLP for medical devices and also regenerative medicines for cardiovascular diseases. Currently, he is devoting himself to the international regulatory project between Japan and United State, also known as “Harmonization by Doing”, whose focus is to collaborate with regulatory agencies such as FDA, PMDA/MHLW, academia and industries for improving the regulatory process in the 2 largest medtech markets. He serves as the Global PDP Liaison for Stanford Biodesign to Japan.

After 9 years clinical practice as an interventional cardiologist and Family Doctor in rural areas of Japan, Dr. Ikeno came to Stanford as a Researcher and completed his Biodesign Certificate Program. Being part of the ecosystem in Silicon Valley, Dr. Ikeno participated in more than 200 medtech projects and 50 GLP studies as well as in the analysis of clinical trials for cardiovascular medicine (BARI2D, FAME, ReOPEN etc). His other academic consortium projects include Peripheral Academic Research Consortium, Global Consensus Working Group of Optical Coherence Tomography, and Japan-US consensus document for the treatment of critical limb ischemia.

Over the last decade, Dr. Ikeno has served as an advisor for medical device industries and currently serves as a chief medical officer of an incubation fund specific for medtech (Medventure Partners, Inc, Tokyo) as a spin-off from Innovation Network Corporation of Japan (INCJ) that is the largest government and private partnership fund in Japan. He is also serving as a chair of cardiovascular working group of APAN (Asian Pacific Advanced Network) that contributes the remote education, research activities, and tele-health using a specialized internet network. Dr. Ikeno has authored over70 peer reviewed publications and textbooks and has been invited to lecture at international medical conferences.

Dr. Taylor is the Founder and Principal of NonClinical Safety Assessment, a consulting firm focusing on the safety evaluation of drugs and medical devices. Dr. Taylor has more than 25 years of R&D experience in the pharmaceutical industry. His pharmaceutical industry career started with Syntex Research. He has held executive leadership positions at Roche Bioscience, Durect Corporation, Protein Design Labs, Alexza Pharmaceuticals, and Limerick BioPharma. He is currently a mentor in Stanford University’s SPARK program, providing pharmaceutical development guidance to students and aspiring entrepreneurs. He holds Ph.D. (1988) and M.S. (1984) degrees in toxicology from Utah State University with postdoctoral training at the CNRS of France and the NIH (1987-1990), is an active member of the Society of Toxicology and the American College of Toxicology, and is certified by the American Board of Toxicology. Dr. Taylor is author/co-author of more than 50 publications, including peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and abstracts.

Dr. Taylor’s experience includes development of both small and large molecules covering a wide variety of therapeutic areas, successfully supporting the development of both novel and repurposed therapeutics. He is experienced with multiple modes of drug delivery, including pumps, patches, and controlled release formulations. His consultation services include study design/planning, lab selection, oversight, data interpretation/reporting, and regulatory document preparation; strategic planning for lead selection and backup strategy; IND/registration planning, document preparation, and regulatory interaction.

Meg Snowden is Vice President, Intellectual Property, Litigation and Licensing at Impax Laboratories, Inc., a specialty pharmaceutical company applying its formulation expertise and drug delivery technology to the development of controlled-release and specialty branded and generic products. Ms. Snowden is responsible for all intellectual property matters, patent and corporate litigation, licensing transactions, and regulatory advice and counseling. Prior to Impax, Ms. Snowden held in-house positions of increasing responsibility in the biotechnology field, and also worked in patent litigation in a law firm setting for a variety of industries.