Scientific Advisory Board

Michael Adang received his BS in microbiology from Indiana University in 1974 and his MSc and Phd in bacteriology from Washington State University in 1978 and 1981. He is a professor of entomology, biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Georgia with ninety-five journal articles and book chapters and fifteen U.S. patents to his credit. As a senior research scientist at Agrigenetics Corp. in Madison, Wisconsin 1982-1988. Dr. Adang developed transgenic plants expressing proteins from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). These technologies have been used worldwide with significant impact on pest control in agriculture. Since 1988, his research has focused on receptors that determine Bt toxicity to insects. His laboratory was the first to discover that aminopeptidase and alkaline phosphatase function as Bt toxin receptors, with basic implications for Bt-plant development and usage. Adang has consulted for the government, Mycogen Corporation and DOW Agrosciences. Adang is on the scientific advisory board of ParaTechs. His global activities in the intellectual property area include patent preparation and prosecution activities with approximately twelve law firms over a 25-year period. In 2003, he co-founded InsectiGen, a start-up company focused on development of his invention, BtBooster, for insect control. Dr. Adang is the Chief Scientific Officer of InsectiGen.

Glenn King is a is a Group Leader & Deputy Head of the Division of Chemistry & Structural Biology at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland and a Principal Research Fellow of the Australian National Health & Medical Research Council. Glenn graduated PhD from the University of Sydney before undertaking postdoctoral studies at the University of Oxford. He was a faculty member in the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Sydney from 1989–1998 before joining the University of Connecticut Health Center as Professor of Biochemistry & Microbiology in 1999. He returned to Australia in 2007 to take up his current position. Glenn’s research is focussed on the development of bioinsecticides and biologic drugs that target ion channels, which are now the third largest class of human drug targets after G-protein-coupled receptors and kinases. He  is an inventor on 12 patents (9 licensed), sole founder of the U.S.-based biotech company Vestaron Corporation (www.vestaron.com), and he has served on the Scientific Advisory Board of several biotech companies in Europe and the USA. Glenn is former President of the Australian Society for Biophysics, former Chair of the Australian & NZ Society for Magnetic Resonance, and he has served on the Executive Council of the International Society on Toxinology since 2012.

Dr. Carlisle Landel is the former Senior Director, Custom Animal Model Division at Applied Stemcell Inc. in Milpitas California. Dr. Landel’s previous positions include Director of the Custom Animal Model Division at Transposagen Biopharmaceuticals Inc. in Lexington Kentucky, Director of the Transgenic and Gene Targeting Facility at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, and Co-Director of the Cryopreservation Program at the Jackson Laboratories.  He has also held faculty positions at the A.I. DuPont Hospital for Children and the University of California at San Diego.  He currently is based in Santa Cruz, California where he does consulting on custom rodent model production.

Brett Spear is Professor in the Department of Microbiology, Immunology and Molecular Genetics at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Spear received his PhD from the University of Pennsylvania and carried out postdoctoral work at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia and Princeton University. Dr. Spear’s research is focused on transcriptional regulation during liver development and disease, with an emphasis on mouse models to investigate changes in gene expression in high fat diet-induced fatty liver disease and hepatocellular carcinoma. Dr. Spear is co-developer of the NSET device that is being developed further by ParaTechs. In addition to his research, Dr. Spear provides training in the areas of grant writing and student mentoring for faculty at minority-serving institutions throughout the United States.  Web site: https://microbiology.med.uky.edu/users/bspear