T.H. Seldon Memorial Lecture
James
D. Marks, MD, PhD
Professor, Anesthesia and Pharmaceutical Chemistry
Univerisity of California, San Francisco
"Beauty and the
Beast: From Botox to Botulism, Pharmaceutical to Bioweapon"
Sunday, March 26, 2006
1:00-2:30 p.m.
James (Jim) Marks, MD, PhD is Professor of Anesthesia and Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He received his undergraduate degree at UC Berkely (Biochemistry) and his MD from UCSF, followed by residencies in internal medicine and anesthesiology, as well as a fellowship in critical care medicine; he is board certified in all three specialties. Additional research training included a Medical Research Council (UK) funded PhD in molecular biology at Cambridge University under the supervision of Dr. Greg Winter. In addition to being a practicing anesthesiologist, in recent years Dr. Marks has been medical director of the medical-surgical intensive care unit (ICU) at San Francisco General Hospital; he continues to attend in the ICU and operating rooms while he focuses increasingly on research. Because of his long term interest in ICU medicine, Dr. Marks has explored the molecular basis of infectious diseases; his original interest in botulinum neurotoxin predated 9/11 by almost a decade. Jim is a world-recognized pioneer in the field of antibody engineering, having developed widely used technologies for generating and optimizing human theraputic antibodies (and recently, an antibody targeted nanoparticle drug) to treat infection and cancer. He is well funded by both the NIH and Department of Defense and has 125 relevant publications in antibody therapeutics. Dr. Marks is a translational scientist of the highest caliber, passionately working toward solutions for patients he treats directly in the clinic.