Meet our Scientific Advisors.

Dr. Di Bisceglie received his medical degree from the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa in 1977 and completed his training in Internal Medicine at Baragwanath Hospital, Johannesburg (1981-1984) before doing his research fellowship at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) between 1986 and 1988.  He went on to become a Senior Investigator, and then chief of the Liver Diseases Section, NIDDK.  Dr. Di Bisceglie joined the faculty of Saint Louis University School of Medicine as Professor of Internal Medicine in 1994.  Dr. Di Bisceglie is an internationally recognized expert in the field of viral hepatitis and liver disease and has published over 300 peer reviewed publications and has served on the editorial boards of many journals including Hepatology, Liver Transplantation and as Section Editor, Hepatitis C for UpToDate.  He has served on many international and national committees including the Scientific Planning Committee for the 13th International Symposium on Viral Hepatitis and Liver Disease (2009), and has chaired the AASLD Public Policy and Clinical Research Committees. He was recently appointed to the Governing Board of AASLD.  At the Food and Drug Administration he served as a member on the Blood Products Advisory Committee. He also serves as a member of the U.S. Hepatitis Panel for the U.S. Japan Cooperative Medical Sciences Program.  Dr. Di Bisceglie has received numerous honors and awards, including the Fiterman Foundation Clinical Research in Hepatology or Nutrition (Hugh R. Butt) Award.  He is currently is PI and Co-PI on several NIH sponsored grants and served as Chair, Steering Committee for the HALT-C Trial group from 1999-2011.  At Saint Louis University, Dr. Di Bisceglie initially served as Associate Chairman for Education and residency program director (1994-1999).  He has served on multiple institutional committees, including Curriculum Oversight Committee, the Governing Board of Saint Louis University Hospital (1998-2000) and more recently the Governing Board of the University Medical group.  He was appointed as acting chairman of the Department of Internal Medicine in 2006 and then as chairman in May 2009.

Dr. Rice is the Maurice R. and Corinne P. Greenberg Chair in Virology and serves as Head of the Laboratory for Virology and Infectious Disease at Rockefeller University. He is one of the world’s most accomplished virologists and a prominent figure in research on members of the Flaviviridae including hepatitis C virus (HCV). Dr. Rice received his bachelor’s degree from University of California Davis in 1974 and earned his Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology in 1981. From 1986-2000, Dr. Rice was a faculty member at Washington University in St. Louis. His research team has helped to understand the biogenesis and structure of HCV-encoded proteins, discovered a highly conserved RNA element at the 3’ terminus of HCV genome RNA, and produced the first infectious molecular clone of the virus—an essential tool for future studies on this important human pathogen. His laboratory has established cell culture systems and animal models for studying HCV replication and evaluating antiviral efficacy. Dr. Rice has co-authored over 400 articles in the field of virology, serves as a reviewer for numerous journals, is a former editor of Journal of Virology, is a past President of the American Society for Virology, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a Member of the National Academy of Sciences.  For more specific information about Dr. Rice’s research, please go to http://www.hepccenter.org.

Dr. Biller joined Agios Pharmaceuticals as Chief Scientific Officer in September of 2010. Agios, a biotech in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is focused on the discovery of novel antitumor therapeutics that capitalize on the metabolic dysregulation of cancer cells, as well as the discovery of therapies for rare genetic disorders of metabolism. Over the past five years, Agios has discovered five first in class investigational medicines, two of which have demonstrated clinical activity in acute myeloid leukemia. Prior to Agios, he was Vice President and Head of Global Discovery Chemistry at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. He was responsible for the world-wide chemistry functions at Novartis, including medicinal, combinatorial and computational chemistry, as well as discovery metabolism and pharmacokinetics. Prior to Novartis, Scott was Vice President, Pharmaceutical Candidate Optimization and Executive Director of Metabolic Diseases Chemistry at the Bristol-Myers Squibb Pharmaceutical Research Institute. Under his leadership, the Metabolic Diseases Area discovered multiple investigational medicines, leading to three marketed drugs: the DPP4 inhibitor Onglyza™ for Type 2 diabetes, the SGLT2 inhibitor Forxiga™ for Type 2 diabetes and the MTP inhibitor Juxtapid™ for familial hypercholesterolemia. The latter two molecules are first in class in their category. Scott was awarded the 2014 American Chemical Society’s Heroes of Chemistry Award for the discovery of Juxtapid™. Scott gained his SB degree at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1976 and his PhD in Organic Chemistry in 1982 at the California Institute of Technology. He held an NIH Postdoctoral Fellowship in natural product synthesis at Columbia University (1982-1983). He has co-authored over 100 patents and publications.

Dr. Protzer obtained her M.D. in at the University of Erlangen in 1988, and completed her training in Internal Medicine with a focus on Liver and Infectious Diseases in Frankfurt and at the University Hospital Mainz in 1996. She then completed a training in Medical Microbiology and Virology at the University Hospitals in Heidelberg and Cologne in 2005. She was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Molecular Biology Heidelberg, where her research focused on “Virus-Host Interaction of Hepatitis B Virus”, started her independent research group at the University of Heidelberg in 2000, and led the Molecular Infectiology group at the University of Cologne, Institute for Medical Microbiology, Immunology and Hygiene from 2002 – 2007. In 2007, she was a professor and Chair in Virology, Technical University of Munich (TUM), and has since served as the Director of Virology at Helmholtz Zentrum München and TUM. Dr. Protzer serves as a vice speaker and a member of the executive board of the German Center for Infection Research since 2011, and has been on different advisory boards e.g. of the German Ministry of Education and Research, University of Regensburg und University Hospital Cologne. Her memberships include the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL), German Association for the Study of the Liver (GASL), Society of Virology, the German Society for Gene Therapy, and the Global Virus Network. Dr. Protzer has published more than 120 articles.

Dr. Zoulim obtained his M.D. in Gastroenterology and Hepatology in Lyon Medical School in 1991. He has also obtained a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology and was trained as a post-doctoral researcher at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia. He is Professor of Medicine at Lyon I University since 1997. He is currently Medical Director of the Hepatology Department at the Hospices Civils de Lyon, and Scientific Director of the Department of Immunology and Virology of INSERM Unit 1052 where he is leading the team on ‘Antiviral therapy of viral hepatitis’. Dr. Zoulim has served as an Associate Editor for Journal of Hepatology and is currently Associate Editor for Gut. He also served as an expert in the microbiology study section of the INSERM and is currently head of the clinical viral hepatitis study section at ANRS. He served as a Governing Board member of the European Association for the Study of the Liver (EASL). Dr. Zoulim received the William Prusoff award of the International Society for Antiviral Research. Furthermore, he has been the scientific coordinator of a European community-funded Network of Excellence on the management of antiviral drug resistance, and is currently head of the ANRS “HBV cure” program in France. Fabien Zoulim is a recognized expert in the field of viral hepatitis and antiviral therapy. He has published more than 350 articles (H index 62, Web of Science). 

Dr. Kyong-Mi Chang is a translational investigator with expertise in immune pathogenesis of liver disease, including human viral hepatitis B and C that can cause chronic liver disease with progression to cirrhosis and cancer. Dr. Chang received her Medical Degree from the Medical College of Pennsylvania (Drexel) with further GI training at the University of California in San Diego and postdoctoral research training at the Scripps Research Institute with Dr. Francis V. Chisari. Currently, she is a tenured Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine with administrative leadership role as the Associate Chief of Staff and Associate Dean for Research at the affiliated Philadelphia Corporal Michael J. Crescenz VA Medical Center. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Chang has conducted NIH and VA-funded translational research on immune effector and regulatory mechanisms of viral persistence and liver disease progression in patients infected with HBV, HCV and/or HIV.