SUWON, Republic of Korea, April 17, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- OliX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (KOSDAQ: 226950), a key player in the development of RNAi therapeutics, today announced the appointment of Dr. Gordon Jiang, Dr. Aaron Hakim and Dr. Yury V. Popov to its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). The SAB will work with OliX Pharmaceuticals executive team to refine the emerging pipeline as well as clinical strategy for the company’s assets.
“We are pleased to welcome Dr. Jiang, Dr. Hakim and Dr. Popov, renowned liver disease experts, to OliX Pharmaceuticals’ Scientific Advisory Board,” said Dong-Ki Lee, Ph.D., founder and Chief Executive Officer of OliX Pharmaceuticals. “Their depth of scientific expertise will be critical as we enter a pivotal phase in advancing the Company’s liver fibrosis pipeline.”
Backgrounds of Newly Appointed Scientific Advisory Board Members
- Yury V. Popov, MD, PhD, is the founder of the Popov Laboratory and an assistant professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Popov’s lab focuses on liver fibrosis/cirrhosis and its life-threatening sequelae. He leads the investigation of basic mechanisms of progression and regression of liver scarring. Popov’s laboratory is also actively working on the development, validation and optimization of small animal models of cirrhosis and liver cancer for novel drug target discovery and efficacy testing. Dr. Popov is an associate editor of the American journal of Physiology-Gastrointestinal and Liver Physiology and editorial board member for over 30 scientific journals including Hepatology, Gastroenterology, Journal of Clinical Investigation and Science Translational Medicine. Dr. Popov received an MD from Grodno Medical School, Belarus and PhD in biochemistry from the Institute of Biochemistry of National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.
- Aaron Hakim, MD, is a resident physician in internal medicine at BIDMC and a clinical fellow at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Hakim served as a vice president at Great Point Partners, a biotechnology-focused investment fund. His research has appeared in peer reviewed journals including the Journal of Hepatology, The Journal of the American Medical Association and the Journal of Biological Chemistry. Dr. Hakim earned his medical degree with honors at Yale School of Medicine and graduated summa cum laude from Yale University with an M.S. in Molecular Biology and a B.S. in Economics and Molecular Biology.
- Gordon Jiang, MD, is a transplant hepatologist and physician-scientist at BIDMC. He is the associate director of the Physician-Scientist program at BIDMC that supports careers of clinicians committed to clinical translations and basic science investigation. He has over 20 years of research experience in lipid metabolism and fatty liver diseases, primarily focusing on both alcoholic and non-alcoholic fatty liver diseases. His current research focuses on cholesterol toxicity, liver inflammation and liver fibrosis. Dr. Jiang is a recipient of industry awards from the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, the American College of Gastroenterology and Gilead Sciences.
OliX Pharmaceuticals
OliX Pharmaceuticals is a clinical stage pharmaceutical company developing therapeutics against a variety of disorders by down-regulating expression of disease-causing genes, based on its own proprietary RNAi technology. The Company’s core RNAi platform, asymmetric siRNA (asiRNA), is a unique gene silencing technology based on RNA interference (RNAi), which is considered as the most efficient gene silencing technology. Based on asiRNA technology, OliX has developed cell penetrating asiRNA (cp-asiRNA), a therapeutic RNAi platform to effectively target locally administrable diseases, such as hypertrophic scar, dry and wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD), subretinal fibrosis, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), and neuropathic pain. OliX has also developed another therapeutic RNAi platform, GalNAc-asiRNA, to target a variety of liver diseases.
To learn more about the company, visit https://www.olixpharma.com/eng/main/main.php.
To learn more about RNAi technology, visit https://www.olixpharma.com/eng/sub2/2_2.php.
Media Contact:
Sean Leous
Westwicke/ICR PR
Phone: +1.646.677.1839
sean.leous@icrinc.com