Dr. E. Arthur Dreskin Distinguished Endowed Lecture Series
Dr. E. Arthur Dreskin Distinguished Endowed Lecture Series
E. Arthur Dreskin, M.D., had a long and distinguished career in medicine and public service until his death
in 2006. In memory of his outstanding leadership in South Carolina, his family has
established the Dr. E. Arthur Dreskin Distinguished Endowed Lecture Series. The endowed
lecture series brings nationally and internationally prominent speakers to address
and consult with our school’s community on topics of high importance to health care
and leadership. The lecture is presented annually.
Dreskin Distinguished Endowed Lecture Series
CRISPR and Human Health: Past, Present and Future
Gene Editing and Its Implications
WEATHER CANCELLATION
Due to Hurricane Helene and expected inclement weather, the Dr. E. Arthur Dreskin
Distinguished Endlowed Lecture at SOMG scheduled for Thursday, September 26, 2024
has been canceled. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and appreciate
your understanding.
Speaker Dr. Rachel Herder spoke to a small group of faculty and Dreskin family members
at a luncheon earlier in the day Thursday, Sept. 26. Dr. Herder’s topic was: CRISPR
and Human Health: Past, Present, and Future. Check it out:
Dr. Rachel Herder serves as Vice President of Intellectual Property at Mammoth Biosciences,
a firm that has done pioneering work in gene editing. Mammoth Biosciences is a biotechnology
company focused on developing potential long-term curative therapies for patients
with life-threatening and debilitating diseases. The company utilizes approaches that
enable them to access difficult to reach tissues. It was founded by Jennifer Doudna
who in 2020 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry with her colleague Emmanuelle
Charpentier for their discovery of programmable molecular scissors called CRISPR (Clustered
Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats). In less scientific terms, CRISPR
refers to gene editing and encompasses a range of techniques. Since the 2012 Doudna/Charpentier
publication, the field has exploded, opening the door for a variety of possibilities
for human and planetary health ranging from agricultural applications, to detecting
the COVID-19 virus, to the first FDA-approved gene edited cell therapy for Sickle
Cell patients (CASGEVY®). Dr. Herder will talk about the history of CRISPR technology,
provide a brief explanation of the technology, and discuss areas of medicine where
this has already worked and seems to be therapeutic. Dr. Herder is in a unique position
to also discuss some of the ethical issues associated with CRISPR and gene editing
and the implications for how this might impact the practice of medicine. This talk
aims to discuss the past, present, and future of CRISPR and human health.
2024 - Rachel Herder, JD, PhD
Rachel Herder is the Vice President of Intellectual Property at Mammoth Biosciences,
a pre-clinical CRISPR gene editing biotech company co-founded by Nobel Laureate Jennifer
Doudna. Rachel has over a decade of experience in the gene editing space. Prior to
Mammoth, Rachel was a law professor at Penn State and a patent attorney at a leading
global law firm. She received her law degree and Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular, Developmental
Biology & Genetics from the University of Minnesota.
Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier won the 2020 Nobel-Prize in Chemistry for
the discoveries related to CRISPR/Cas9 described in this 2012 journal article
Upinder Singh, MD, FIDSA is Professor in the Departments of Internal Medicine and
Microbiology and Immunology and Division Chief of Infectious Diseases and Geographic
Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Singh is an international
expert in infectious diseases. She is both a basic and a clinical scientist. Her basic
science research focuses on the molecular and genomic applications of parasitic diseases,
including Entamoeba histolytica and free-living amebae, and she has made many significant
contributions to this field. Her clinical research has focused on COVID-19 and Long-COVID.
Dr. Singh has contributed substantially to the leadership of large, national COVID
treatment studies, and she led the Stanford hub for the NIH RECOVER study which examines
the effects of Long-COVID. Dr. Singh led multiple investigator-initiated COVID-19
clinical trials. She established an outpatient COVID clinical trial research unit
which initiated the first FDA approved clinical trial in April 2020 at a time when
many were wary of bringing COVID patients into the health system, and she subsequently
also established a monoclonal antibody infusion center. The Covid-19 studies at Stanford
and the associated clinical data, epidemiological information, and biobanked samples
have been leveraged to answer multiple aspects of COVID-19, including natural history,
Long-COVID, diagnostics, and immune response. The research infrastructure that she
established has facilitated the local and national studies of both clinical and basic
pathophysiological aspects of COVID-19. At a national level Dr. Singh has conducted
multiple clinical trials for patients with mild/moderate COVID-19 including treatment
with antivirals (ACTIV-2 program and involved in program leadership), treatment with
repurposed compounds (ACTIV-6 program), a study defining the prevalence and pathophysiology
of post-acute sequelae (PASC) of COVID, and the first global trial on the use of Paxlovid
for the treatment of Long-COVID (STOP-PASC clinical trial). Dr. Singh has gained substantial
experience in treating patients with COVID and helped establish a Long-Covid clinic
which began to see patients in May 2021.
Dr. Matthew (Matt) Gevaert is the Chief Executive Officer, a Co-Founder and a Board
Member of Kiyatec, Inc. Under Matt’s leadership Kiyatec is disrupting cancer therapy
selection with patient-specific prediction of response to drug therapies, prior to
treatment. Kiyatec achieves this by measuring the response of individual patient live
cancer cells with its innovative 3D cell culture technology platform, with success
demonstrated in peer-reviewed publications for multiple tumor types that score >95th
percentile in on-line impact. Through a dedicated focus on direct relevance to cancer
patients, Kiyatec has successfully attracted multiple rounds of private sector investment,
developed its 3D PredictTM and KIYA-PredictTM ex vivo 3D cell culture platforms, and
published the first functional precision oncology assay with clinically-correlated
prospective predictive therapeutic response evidence in multiple tumor types. To-date,
Kiyatec has been awarded more than $5M of competitively awarded federal funding including
contracts from the National Cancer Institute, cultivated clinical collaborations at
leading national cancer institutions and built productive relationships with premier
biopharmaceutical companies developing the cancer therapies of the future.
Matt is a graduate of the University of Waterloo (B.Sc., Chemistry) and of Clemson
University (M.S. and Ph.D., Bioengineering). He serves on a number of professional
and community boards and occasionally teaches an MBA graduate course in technology
entrepreneurship for professional business students.
Dr. Chiriva Internati has been an Associate Professor at the MD Anderson Cancer Center
in Houston, Texas since August 2019. Prior to that, he served as an Associate Professor
at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center from September 2013 to June 2017.
His research has led to the identification of novel cancer-testis antigens for the
development of immunotherapeutic strategies against solid and non-solid tumors. This
led to the development of the bioinformatic software Diamond CancerSplice, which is
a key core platform of our company, leading to the discovery and prioritization of
isoform antigens via insilico system.
Dr. Chiriva-Internati earned a PhD in Immunology from the University of Nottingham,
United Kingdom. He also earned a PhD in Morphological Science from the Universit`a
degli Studi di Milano, Italy, and a Doctoral Degree in Biological Sciences from the
University of Milan, Italy. Dr. Chiriva- Internati was a Post-Doctoral Fellow in Immunology
at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, earned a certificate in Artificial
Intelligence from MIT Sloan School of Management and earned a certificate in Financial
Technology from Oxford Sa¨ıd Business School.
Sarah Hallberg, DO, MS is the Medical Director at Virta Health, the first clinically-proven
treatment to safely and sustainably reverse type 2 diabetes without medications or
surgery.
As a physician and exercise physiologist with a passion for helping people be healthy
through diet and exercise, she is responsible for providing medical supervision to
Virta's expert team of physicians and oversees the clinical strategy for Virta Clinic
participants.
Before joining Virta, Dr. Hallberg founded Indiana University Arnett's Medically Supervised
Weight Loss Program where she still serves as Medical Director. Her clinic served
as the host for Virta's clinical trial.
Dr. Hallberg is an expert in diabetes care and is board certified in Internal Medicine,
Obesity Medicine, and Clinical Lipidology. Dr. Hallberg is also the Chair of the
Scientific Advisor Board and the Board of Directors of The Nutrition Coalition, a
nonprofit organization that aims to educate the public and policymakers about the
need to strengthen national nutrition policy so that it is founded upon a comprehensive
body of conclusive science, and where that science is absent, to encourage research.
Dr. McBride is a professor in the Department of Medicine'ssection of cardiovascular medicine and theDepartment of Family Medicineat the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, where he also
served as Associate Dean for Students. Dr. McBride also co-directs theUW Hospital and Clinics' Preventive Cardiology program, with more than 30 professional staff, an inpatient and outpatient cardiac rehabilitation
program, a preventive cardiology/cholesterol clinic and other clinical initiatives
for people at risk for cardiovascular disease.
Dr. McBride has served on several national guideline panels including the National
Cholesterol Education Program's (NCEP) Children and Adolescent Treatment Panel, the
AAMC Obesity Panel, the AHRQ Cardiac Rehabilitation Expert Panel, and the NIH-NCEP's
Adult Treatment Panel III and IV.
With his primary research focus in preventive cardiology, cholesterol treatment and
the quality of cardiovascular disease prevention in practice, Dr. McBride has authored
or co-authored more than 150 publications. Dr. McBride is a leader in developing
and implementing statewide teaching programs for health care professionals on heart
disease prevention, cholesterol, and quality.
Ian Crozier, M.D., gave a compelling presentation about his experiences as both a
physician for ebola patients and an ebola survivor himself.
About Dr. Ian Crozier
Dr. Ian Crozier is a Vanderbilt-trained infectious diseases specialist originally
from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Over the past six years, primarily at the Infectious Diseases
Institute (Kampala, Uganda), his work has focused on developing clinical reasoning
skills in African clinicians providing complex care at African bedsides.
In August 2014, he was deployed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to the Kenema
Government Hospital Ebola Treatment Unit in eastern Sierra Leone, a ground-zero setting
for the Sierra Leone outbreak. After becoming infected, he was evacuated to Emory
University Hospital, becoming critically ill, but emerging after a six-week hospitalization.
Two months after clearing the virus from his blood he developed sight-threatening
ocular inflammation with high amounts of viable Ebola virus detected in the eye, this
in addition to a long list of other post-Ebola virus disease sequelae. He has been
called one of the sickest Ebola survivors ever, and provides a unique perspective
from a dual citizenship as Ebola doctor and Ebola survivor.
Currently, he serves a three-country technical role at WHO, focused on characterizing
and understanding the sequelae of Ebola virus disease in West African survivors, targeting
their clinical care needs, the management of residual risk and the scientific questions
newly emerging at survivors’ bedsides.
Stephen Dreskin, M.D., Ph.D., was the inaugural speaker for the Dreskin Distinguished
Lectureship at the USC School of Medicine Greenville.
Dr. Dreskin’s lecture addressed food allergies, their epidemiology and immune system pathophysiology as
well as current approaches to diagnosis and management.
About Stephen Dreskin, M.D., Ph.D
Stephen C. Dreskin, M.D., Ph.D. is a professor of Medicine and Immunology at the University
of Colorado School of Medicine-Denver and medical director of the University of Colorado
Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology Practice at the University of Colorado School of Medicine-Denver.
In addition, he is active in many national organizations. Currently, he is the chair
of the Practice, Diagnostics, and Therapeutics (PDT) Committee of the American Academy
of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (AAAAI) and chair of the Plenary Workgroup for the
2016 AAAAI annual meeting. He also serves on the board of directors of the American
Board of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.
Dr. Dreskin grew up in Greenville, South Carolina, earned a B.A. degree from the University
of Pennsylvania and received his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Emory University. This
was followed by a residency in Internal Medicine at the University of California Davis,
Sacramento Medical Center and a fellowship in Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases of the National Institutes of
Health.
His primary research interest is the study of functional IgE-allergen interactions
as they pertain to food allergies. In work funded by the National Institutes of Health
and other sources, his laboratory has established that 2 small allergens, Ara h 2
and Ara h 6 are the major peanut allergens. Current efforts are directed at how these
proteins cross-link IgE on mast cells to initiate the allergic response.
Dr. Dreskin’s primary clinical interest is the treatment of chronic urticaria and
angioedema. He has written numerous clinical reviews on this topic and is the current
author of the chapter on Chronic Urticaria and Angioedema for Goldman’s Cecil Medicine Textbook
(24th ed).
Challenge the conventional. Create the exceptional. No Limits.
Upinder Singh, MD, FIDSA is Professor in the Departments of Internal Medicine and
Microbiology and Immunology and Division Chief of Infectious Diseases and Geographic
Medicine at the Stanford University School of Medicine. Dr. Singh is an international
expert in infectious diseases. She is both a basic and a clinical scientist. Her basic
science research focuses on the molecular and genomic applications of parasitic diseases,
including Entamoeba histolytica and free-living amebae, and she has made many significant
contributions to this field. Her clinical research has focused on COVID-19 and Long-COVID.
Dr. Matthew (Matt) Gevaert is the Chief Executive Officer, a Co-Founder and a Board
Member of Kiyatec, Inc. Under Matt’s leadership Kiyatec is disrupting cancer therapy
selection with patient-specific prediction of response to drug therapies, prior to
treatment. Kiyatec achieves this by measuring the response of individual patient live
cancer cells with its innovative 3D cell culture technology platform, with success
demonstrated in peer-reviewed publications for multiple tumor types that score >95th
percentile in on-line impact. Through a dedicated focus on direct relevance to cancer
patients, Kiyatec has successfully attracted multiple rounds of private sector investment,
developed its 3D PredictTM and KIYA-PredictTM ex vivo 3D cell culture platforms, and
published the first functional precision oncology assay with clinically-correlated
prospective predictive therapeutic response evidence in multiple tumor types. To-date,
Kiyatec has been awarded more than $5M of competitively awarded federal funding including
contracts from the National Cancer Institute, cultivated clinical collaborations at
leading national cancer institutions and built productive relationships with premier
biopharmaceutical companies developing the cancer therapies of the future. 
Dr. Chiriva Internati has been an Associate Professor at the MD Anderson Cancer Center
in Houston, Texas since August 2019. Prior to that, he served as an Associate Professor
at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center from September 2013 to June 2017.
His research has led to the identification of novel cancer-testis antigens for the
development of immunotherapeutic strategies against solid and non-solid tumors. This
led to the development of the bioinformatic software Diamond CancerSplice, which is
a key core platform of our company, leading to the discovery and prioritization of
isoform antigens via insilico system.
Sarah Hallberg, DO, MS is the Medical Director at Virta Health, the first clinically-proven
treatment to safely and sustainably reverse type 2 diabetes without medications or
surgery.
Dr. Ian Crozier is a Vanderbilt-trained infectious diseases specialist originally
from Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. Over the past six years, primarily at the Infectious Diseases
Institute (Kampala, Uganda), his work has focused on developing clinical reasoning
skills in African clinicians providing complex care at African bedsides.
Stephen C. Dreskin, M.D., Ph.D. is a professor of Medicine and Immunology at the University
of Colorado School of Medicine-Denver and medical director of the University of Colorado
Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology Practice at the University of Colorado School of Medicine-Denver.