Management

Hugo Geerts, Ph.D., Bach.Med., MBA Chief Scientist       Hugo Geerts has almost twenty years experience in drug discovery and development as a Research Fellow at the Janssen Research Foundation laboratoria in Beerse, Belgium. At Janssen he was involved in the successful development, launch and lifecycle management of galantamine (Reminyl, Razadyne) for Alzheimer’s disease.       Dr. Geerts has a bachelor’s degree in theoretical physics, a bachelor’s degree in medicine, a Ph.D. in biophysics from the University of Antwerp and a Pharmaceutical Executive MBA degree from Drexel’s Lebow College of Business in Philadelphia. Dr. Geerts is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania; he has more than sixty-five peer-reviewed publications; and he is inventor/co-inventor on twelve patents.
Athan Spiros, Ph.D. Chief Technologist       Athan Spiros began working in mathematical biology in 1989. He now contributes more than ten years of advanced neuromodeling experience, first in neuroinflammation and later in information processing in complex brain circuits.       Dr. Spiros has a bachelor's of science degree in mathematics from California Polytechnic State University San Luis Obispo, a master’s degree from SUNY at Stony Brook and a doctorate in applied mathematics from the University of British Columbia where he worked under renowned mathematical biologist Leah Edelstein-Keshet.
Robert Carr, MBA Chairman and CEO       Robert Carr is a career entrepreneur focused on better use of human intellectual capital. After identifying computational neuropharmacology as the opportunity for such development in the pharmaceutical industry, Mr. Carr began successfully organizing and developing In Silico Biosciences, Inc. in 1999. Mr. Carr has a BS in mathematics, and an MBA from Harvard.

Scientific Advisory Board

William Honer, MD
      William Honer is Jack Bell Chair in Schizophrenia and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of British Columbia. He is the Scientific Director of the BC Mental Health and Addictions Research Institute, directs the Centre for Complex Disorders, and is a consultant psychiatrist for Vancouver General Hospital and for PHSA Mental Health and Addictions Services (Riverview Hospital). He has contributed extensively on the etiology and pathophysiology of schizophrenia, the brain structure and treatment response in first-episode and treatment refractory patients. Additional interests include brain aging, and substance abuse related to psychosis. He has over 128 peer-reviewed publications in the field of psychiatric disorders. Dr. Honer received a Scientist Award from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and has received both the Young Investigator Award (1997) and the Heinz Lehmann Award (2008) from the Canadian College of Neuropsychopharmacology.

Ludo Kennis
      Ludo Kennis was Senior Research Fellow at J&J and has synthesized oxatomide (Tinset), loperamide (Imodium), Ketanserin (Sufrexal), risperidone (Risperdal), and paliperidone (Invega). These five compounds have earned over 50 billion dollars to J&J during their lifetime. Loperamide is on the WHO list of essential medicines, because this drug has saved thousands of children in the third World from dehydration. Mr. Kennis is a co-inventor on 57 patents and has published 7 papers and has been awarded the 2005 American Chemical Society Heroes Award.

Steven Potkin, MD
      Steven Potkin is a Professor of Psychiatry and the director of research at Univeristy of California Irvine since 1984. Since 1999, he is the Robert R. Sprague Director of the Brain Imaging Center at UC Irvine. He received his MD in 1971 from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri and did his residency in psychiatry at Duke University in North Carolina. In 1975 Dr. Potkin began working at NIMH and by the time he left in 1984 was the head of the Center for Studies of Schizophrenia. He is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed articles. He is an expert in imaging, genotyping and clinical trials in schizophrenia.

Torgny Svensson, MD, Ph.D.
      Torgny Svensson, M.D., is Professor of Pharmacology since 1983 as well as a member of the Nobel Assembly at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He received his M.D./ Ph.D. degrees from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, and subsequently spent several years in the US, working both at Yale University Medical School, Depts. of Pharmacology and Psychiatry, and at The Salk Institute, La Jolla, CA. Dr. Svensson has served as Chairman of the Department of Pharmacology, and is the author of almost 300 scientific publications, among them seminal papers in Science and Neuron and several patent applications, and has been an invited speaker at innumerous international meetings. He has also served as scientific advisor to several academic institutions and drug companies and has received numerous awards and honors, among them the ECNP Lilly Neuroscience, Basic Science Award in 2000. Dr. Svensson served as President of the Scandinavian College of Neuro-Psychopharmacology 2001-2005 and as President of the Collegium Internationale Neuro-Psychopharmacologicum (CINP) 2006-2008. His major scientific contributions concern the regulation and function of brain monoamine systems, the mode of action of antidepressant and antipsychotic drugs and various augmentation strategies, as well as the neurobiological basis of nicotine dependence and its treatment.