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Board and Advisors

Board of Directors

Board of Directors

Andy Cates, Managing Member, Value Acquisition Fund

Andy Cates is the Managing Member of Value Acquisition Fund and the General Partner of RVC USA, LP (a related company). Cates began his real estate career in Dallas, Texas, where he worked as an Analyst in Trammell Crow Company's Capital Markets Group, and became an Associate for Crow Family Holdings. In 1996, Cates was a founding partner of Viceroy Investments, LLC which has been the General Partner in over $120 million of commercial real estate transactions.

In 1999, Cates developed the Soulsville Revitalization Project as its Project Developer and Board Chairman, a $30 million nonprofit project includes the Stax Museum of American Soul Music and The Stax Music Academy (www.soulsvillefoundation.org

Cates earned a Bachelor of Business Administration (Finance) degree from the University of Texas at Austin. In addition to serving as a Board Member of the Myelin Repair Foundation, Cates serves on the boards of the Pioneer Natural Resources (PXD: NYSE), the Soulsville Foundation, Soulsville Charter School, and Grizzlies Prep Charter School.

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James Gidwitz, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Continental Materials Corporation

Jim Gidwitz has held various positions at Continental Materials Corporation since 1978. Prior to his experience in business, Mr. Gidwitz served in the U.S. Air Force where his final rank was Sergeant. Co-founder and Director of the Jamestown Foundation, Mr. Gidwitz continues to be an active board member. Additionally, Mr. Gidwitz is a member of the Board of Trustees of the Hotchkiss School and a member of the Board of Overseers of the Hoover Institution. Mr. Gidwitz attended the Hotchkiss School and received a B.A. in Political Science from Stanford University.

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Scott Johnson, President and Founder, Myelin Repair Foundation

See bio under Myelin Repair Foundation Management

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Casey McGlynn, Partner, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati

Casey McGlynn is an attorney who specializes in the fields of corporate law, securities, and mergers and acquisitions. Mr. McGlynn has spent his career assisting entrepreneurs in organizing, building and financing their businesses. He received a B.S. in Economics in 1975 and a J.D. in 1978 from Santa Clara University. He was admitted to the Bar in California in 1978. Mr. McGlynn joined the law firm of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati upon his graduation from law school when the firm had only 14 attorneys. Today the firm has more than 550 attorneys. Mr. McGlynn is a member of the Executive Committee and has served on the Compensation and Nomination Committees of the firm. He is a frequent lecturer and writer, focusing on financing issues facing young companies. He is also a founding member of the American Heart Association Roundtable and the American Diabetes Association Leaders Forum, and assists these organizations in their fund-raising activities.

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Siddharth N. “Bobby” Mehta, TransUnion Board Member, Strategic Advisor

Siddharth N. (Bobby) Mehta is a director and the former President and Chief Executive Officer of Transunion. He joined the Company in August 2007 and served as the President & Chief Executive Officer until December 31, 2012. Prior to joining TransUnion, Mr. Mehta served as Chairman and CEO of HSBC Finance Corporation. He has also held positions as Senior Vice President at The Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Vice President of Citicorp's information business division. Mr. Mehta received a B.A. in Economics from the London School of Economics, and a M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.

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Executive Committee

photo of Susan Goelz

Susan Goelz, Ph.D.

Dr. Goelz received her undergraduate degree at UC Santa Cruz in Biology and Chemistry and her Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University. In 1988, she joined the research department at Biogen and was a member of project teams that have moved drugs from development, into the clinic and finally to regulatory approval (Avonex, Tysabri, Tecfidera). In 2011, Susan joined Elan Pharmaceuticals as Vice President of Translational Science and in 2013 became an independent scientific advisor in the field of translational science with a focus on neurological diseases.

Since about 2000, finding areas of collaboration between the biotech industry and academic groups has also been a major area of her focus. She has initiated and managed more than 100 collaborations in these areas. Dr. Goelz is an author on more than 60 publications, dozens of posters and lectures presented at international meetings; and is named as an inventor on several patents.

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Peter Calabresi, M.D., Director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center at Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Peter Calabresi received his undergraduate degree from Yale University and his medical degree from Brown University. He then completed an internship and residency training in internal medicine at Strong Memorial Hospital. He went on to complete a fellowship in Neuroimmunology at the National Institutes of Health.

Now a Professor of Neurology at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Calabresi serves as the Director of the Multiple Sclerosis Center, focusing on the diagnosis and management of MS. He is the principal investigator on several clinical trials and oversees research projects seeking to create new anti-inflammatory and neuroprotective therapies for MS.

Dr. Calabresi’s specific laboratory research interest lies in understanding the mechanisms of T lymphocyte migration into the brain and spinal cord. He has published numerous articles on the adhesion molecules and chemokine receptors responsible for T cell homing to the brain in MS, and was involved in the early testing of natalizumab (Tysabri).  He also has funding from the National Institutes of Health to study a potassium channel, Kv1.3, which is specifically and highly expressed on chronically activated immune cells in the blood and brains of people with MS.

Dr. Calabresi’s group was awarded a five year Tissue Repair MS center grant from the National MS Society to study mechanisms of neurodegeneration and strategies for neuroprotection in MS. This has fueled extensive collaborations with neuroscientists at Hopkins utilizing a variety of transgenic and knockout mice to examine the mechanisms of myelin and axon pathology that may occur in MS. Im addition, his group collaborates with imaging experts at Hopkins and NIH utilizing cutting edge brain and spinal cord MRI technologies such as diffusion tensor imaging as well as optical coherence tomography (OCT), which allow assessments of axonal integrity.

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Professor Gavin Giovannoni MBBCh, Ph.D., FCP (S.A., Neurol.), FRCP, FRCPath

Gavin Giovannoni was appointed to the Chair of Neurology, Blizard Institute, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University London and the Department of Neurology, Barts Health NHS Trust in November 2006. Gavin did his undergraduate medical training at the University of the Witwatersrand, South Africa, where he graduated in 1987. He moved to the Institute of Neurology, University College London, Queen Square, London in 1993 after completing his specialist training in neurology in South Africa. He was awarded a PhD in immunology from the University of London in 1998. He was appointed as a Clinical Senior Lecturer, Royal Free and University College Medical School, in 1998 and moved back to Institute of Neurology, Queen Square in 1999. He was promoted to Reader in Neuroimmunology in 2004.

His clinical interests are multiple sclerosis and other inflammatory disorders of the central nervous system. He is particularly interested in clinical issues related to optimizing MS disease modifying therapies. His current research is focused on Epstein Barr virus as a possible cause of multiple sclerosis, defining the “multiple sclerosis endophenotype”, multiple sclerosis related neurodegeneration, multiple sclerosis biomarker discovery, multiple sclerosis clinical outcomes and immune tolerance strategies. His team focuses on translational research and therefore have an active clinical trial programme.

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photo of Andrew Hill

Andrew Hill, Ph.D., Director of the La Trobe Research Centre for the Study of Extracellular Vesicles (RCEV)

Professor Andy Hill gained his PhD at Imperial College, London, studying the molecular basis of human prion disease strains. He has spent nearly 30 years researching the molecular basis of neurodegenerative diseases and identifying new biomarkers for disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and prion diseases. His laboratory works on the understanding of molecular mechanisms underpinning neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s and prion diseases with an aim of translating fundamental discoveries into the design of novel therapeutics and diagnostics for neurodegenerative diseases. He has published over 200 publications, been the recipient of several awards and prizes including a Victorian Young Tall Poppy Award in 2006, the Beckman Coulter Discovery Science Award (2019) from the Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and the 2020 Special Achievement Award from the International Society for Extracellular Vesicles.

The Hill lab uses a combination of Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology to investigate neurodegenerative diseases. The lab is interested in understanding the molecular mechanisms by which these proteins exert their neurodegenerative properties and in the case of prion proteins, gain their infectious properties.

The lab is also interested in extracellular vesicles such as exosomes and microvesicles as vehicles for the transfer of misfolded proteins between cells. It also investigates the RNA content of these vesicles using next generation sequencing.

The lab is based at the La Trobe Institute for Molecular Science, at La Trobe University in Melbourne, Australia

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Ted Yednock, Ph.D., Consultant

Dr. Yednock is a scientific advisor to several companies and foundations focused on neurodegeneration, inflammation and oncology. He was previously Chief Scientific Officer for Prothena Biosciences, Head of Research for Elan Pharmaceuticals and a scientist at Athena Neurosciences (which was purchased by Elan). While at Athena, Dr. Yednock initiated research on multiple sclerosis that led to the development of Tysabri®, a marketed monoclonal antibody with 2012 sales exceeding $1.5 billion. In addition to his work in multiple sclerosis, Dr. Yednock has contributed to the invention or progression of more than a dozen drugs in the areas of rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn’s disease, pain, Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson's disease. He has been involved in collaborations with Biogen-Idec, Wyeth/Genetics Institute, Johnson & Johnson, Janssen Alzheimer's Immunotherapy, the Michael J. Fox Foundation, the Alzheimer’s Drug Discovery Foundation and the Parkinson’s Institute, among many others. Dr. Yednock earned his B.S. in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Illinois and his Ph.D. in Anatomy and Cell Biology from UCSF, where he also completed postdoctoral fellowships in Cell Biology and Immunology.

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Focus on Biomarkers

The Myelin Repair Foundation is identifying biomarkers to help accelerate myelin repair treatments.