Scientific Advisory Board

The Scientific Minds Supporting Our Work

Our strategic, supportive Scientific Advisory Board guides our research and development to enhance our success. As a cutting-edge business, Cytotheryx requires cutting-edge leadership. Our Scientific Advisory Board provides their expertise and experience to our team to support our work and technology. With world leaders in their fields on our Scientific Advisory Board, we’re able to utilize their knowledge to best optimize and apply our technology in new and innovative ways. They also support us in bringing new ideas to our work, allowing us to continue growing and expanding over time. As global innovators, our Scientific Advisory Board provides invaluable experience to help guide our work. Get to know them and their qualifications.

Joe Tector

A. Joseph Tector, M.D., Ph.D., is a globally recognized expert in groundbreaking xenotransplantation, which he focuses on in the hopes of addressing the shortage of organs faced in medicine today. He is familiar with the challenges of organ transplantation, including the limited supply of viable organs that leaves many without additional opportunities for transplants. With over 30 years of experience in transplant surgery, Tector has plans to revolutionize organ transplantation with his work. Currently, Tector acts as the Director of Transplant Research at the Miami Transplant Institute, University of Miami School of Medicine. He is also the founder of Makana Therapeutics, a pioneering company developing pigs with reduced xenoantigen expression in order to make human transplantation of cells, tissues, and organs more viable. He received his training from McGill University, University of Miami, and the St. Louis University School of Medicine.

Stuart Forbes

Stuart Forbes, M.B., Ch.B., Ph.D., is a global leader in the research of liver regeneration, with an emphasis on chronic disease and injury and how liver regeneration is altered in the development of liver cancer. His work aims to ultimately promote healthy liver regeneration and reduce incidences of liver failure and cancer, and has three linked programs of research, including: the basic biology of the hepatic progenitor cell niche, cell therapy for liver regeneration, and the liver cancer niche in cholangiocarcinoma. Among Forbes’ numerous accomplishments are nearly 200 publications, as well as his roles as Director of the Institute for Regeneration and Repair and the Centre for Regenerative Medicine at the University of Edinburgh. Additional roles include Dean of Research for the College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine, Director of The Engineered Cell Environment at the UK Regenerative Medicine Platform Hub, and Professor of Transplantation and Regenerative Medicine. Forbes received his MBChB from the University of Edinburgh, and his Ph.D. from Imperial College. He also worked in London as a hepatologist before returning to Edinburgh to pursue his research.

Stephen Strom

Stephen Strom, Ph.D., is a world-renowned researcher with decades of experience investigating human liver biology, pathology, and disease. With research interests ranging from hepatocytes transplantation as a clinical treatment of liver disease to the regulation of human hepatocyte replication and differentiation, Strom’s body of work is expansive, with hundreds of publications and speaking invitations. He began his research career in the Department of Pharmacology at the University of Kansas Medical Center before undertaking postdoctoral work and, later, an Assistant Professorship at Duke University under George Michalopoulos. His research and work on hepatocyte isolation and transplantation continued at the Medical College of Virginia. After a move to Pittsburgh, Strom’s laboratory was the first in the U.S. to receive FDA approval for the isolation of hepatocytes for clinical transplantation. Dr. Strom has been Professor of Cell Transplantation and Regenerative Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden since 2012.

Markus Grompe

Markus Grompe, M.D., is responsible for forward-thinking research on the use of in vivo selection to enhance gene and cell transplantation therapy in the liver, work for which he is known worldwide. An additional focus of Grompe’s work includes hepatic stem cells and their use in therapeutic liver repopulation. Ultimately, the goal of his work is to contribute to the development of innovative treatments for metabolic liver diseases, among others. He is currently a Professor at Oregon Health Sciences University and Director of the Oregon Stem Cell Center in the Papé Family Pediatric Research Institute. Grompe received his M.D. from the University of Ulm Medical School in Germany, trained in Pediatrics at Oregon Health Sciences University and Baylor College of Medicine, where he was a Fellow in the Pediatric Scientist Training Program in the Institute for Molecular Genetics. He has published over 200 articles in peer-reviewed publications, holds multiple patents, and has been honored with awards such as the E. Mead Johnson Award for pediatric research and the Merit Award of the Fanconi Anemia Research Foundation.