ATLANTA--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Georgia Bio each year recognizes individuals, companies and organizations for significant contributions to Georgia’s life sciences industry with its Georgia Bio Community Awards. The recipients will be honored at the Annual Awards Dinner January 22, 6 pm to 9 pm, at Atlanta’s Fox Theater. Details available at www.gabio.org/awards.
The 2015 recipients are Robert E. Guldberg, Ph.D., Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering & Bioscience, Georgia Institute of Technology; Jamie L. Graham, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP; Lynn Hood, Crackerjack Marketing; Tiffany Wilson Karp, Global Center for Medical Innovation; and Robert E. Powers, M.Div., Ph.D., Gwinnett Technical College.
Prof. Robert E. Guldberg
The Petit Director's Chair in Bioengineering and Bioscience
Executive Director, Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience
Professor, George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
Dr. Robert E. Guldberg holds the Parker H. Petit Chair in Bioengineering and Bioscience. He is a Professor in the Georgia Institute of Technology's Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering and Georgia Tech/Emory Department of Biomedical Engineering. Dr. Guldberg received all of his degrees from the University of Michigan in mechanical engineering and bioengineering. His research has been published in over 180 journal articles and book chapters and is focused on musculoskeletal growth and development, regeneration of limb function following traumatic injury, and degenerative diseases such as skeletal fragility and osteoarthritis.
In 2009, he was appointed Executive Director of the Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB). Under his leadership, the Petit Institute has expanded to support the research of over 160 faculty members from a broad range of science, engineering, and clinical disciplines, 17 interdisciplinary research centers, and two graduate programs in bioengineering and bioinformatics. Dr. Guldberg also co-directs the GT/Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta Center for Pediatric Innovation (CPI), co-chairs the Extremity Trauma Focus Area of the Armed Forces Institute for Regenerative Medicine (AFIRM) and is a past director of the GT/Emory/UGA Center for Regenerative Engineering and Medicine (REM).
Dr. Guldberg is a Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering (AIMBE) and holds several national leadership positions. He currently serves as President of the Americas Chapter of the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine International Society (TERMIS-AM). He was conference chair of the 2013 TERMIS-AM conference and co-chairs the annual Regenerative Medicine Workshop at Hilton Head. Dr. Guldberg sits on numerous local and national advisory boards, including the National Academies Roundtable on Biomedical Engineering Materials and Applications (BEMA), the Metro Atlanta Chamber Bioscience Leadership Council, the Children's Healthcare of Atlanta (CHOA) Research Advisory Council, the MiMedx, Inc. Medical Advisory Board, the SciStem Therapeutics, Inc. Scientific Advisory Board, the Georgia Bio Board of Directors, the Tissue Engineering Executive Editorial Board, the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research (ASBMR)/Orthopaedic Research Society (ORS) Taskforce on Cell-Based Therapies, and several academic external advisory boards.
Jamie L. Graham
Partner, Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP
Jamie Graham focuses her practice on intellectual property issues involving biological and chemical technologies. Ms. Graham conducts domestic and foreign biological and chemical patent prosecution, particularly in the areas of biotechnology, diagnostics, isolation and purification methodology, immunology and pharmaceuticals. She renders patentability, patent validity and freedom-to-operate opinions; performs intellectual property due diligence; and provides advice to clients regarding various aspects of intellectual property, including inventorship determinations, licensing, transactions, pre-litigation and litigation strategies. Ms. Graham has provided intellectual property advice and services to universities, large corporations, small start-up companies and government entities and has been awarded federal and state contracts for patent legal services. Ms. Graham is the Co-Chair of the firm's Health and Life Sciences team.
Ms. Graham has been a registered U.S. Patent Attorney since 1986. Prior to joining the firm, she served as in-house patent counsel for a pharmaceutical company. She has conducted enzyme isolation and characterization research at Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research and cardiac and allergy drug dispositon/metabolism research at Boehringer Ingelheim Ltd. Ms. Graham also performed graduate research in neuroimmunology and virology (HIV research conducted at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention). She has been an adjunct professor of Intellectual Property Law at Emory University.
Lynn Hood
President, Crackerjack Marketing
Lynn Hood runs Crackerjack Marketing, an integrated marketing and communications firm focused on helping medical device, bioscience, high tech and business‐to‐business companies strategically position themselves and increase awareness and sales. She began her career as a reporter for a daily newspaper and, her experience ranges from writing about best practices at nuclear power plants, to advertising campaigns for mobile phones, to creating internal communications programs that empower and motivate employees. She holds an ABJ from the University of Georgia.
An Atlanta native, Lynn is passionate about supporting the growth of the city, the state and the region, particularly in bioscience and health IT. She was an advisory board member of the Atlanta Biotech Network and helped with its transition to the Emerging Leaders Network; was a founding sponsor and 10-year board member of the Southeastern Medical Device Association (SEMDA); and is a member of the Board of Directors for the Technology Association of Georgia/Health. As a member of the Board of Advisors for the Metro Atlanta Chamber, she has chaired and/or co-chaired marketing committees for both health IT and medical devices, helping formulate the messaging and proof points positioning Atlanta as the nation’s health IT capital. She has led or supported the marketing for eight SEMDA Conferences and five Health IT Leadership Summits, and provides marketing and public relations services for a number of bioscience and health IT companies. While she regularly works with global companies, Lynn has a soft spot for start-ups and enjoys helping them leverage limited resources to achieve outstanding results.
Tiffany Wilson Karp
Executive Director, Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI)
Tiffany Wilson Karp has spent over 12 years bringing innovative medical technology from benchtop to bedside. She joined the Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI) in 2011 to direct business development activities, build strategic relationships and bring together core members of the medical device ecosystem. She is working with universities, clinicians, industry, investors and startups focused on innovation, patient care and economic growth. She currently leads all day-to-day operations of the Center.
Ms. Karp joined GCMI from Scientific Intake, where she served as the Vice President of Business Development & Strategy, evaluating marketing and distribution opportunities and driving product development projects for the global obesity market. Prior to Scientific Intake, she was Vice President of Corporate Strategy & Finance at ACell, Inc., a regenerative medicine & tissue engineering company based in Columbia, Maryland. At ACell, Ms. Karp led a broad range of initiatives including corporate finance, investor relations, strategic & operational planning, business development, regulatory, and reimbursement. She began her career in management consulting and investment banking, and brings considerable US and international experience in strategic planning, business development, financial analysis, and market evaluation in technology related industries.
Ms. Karp currently serves as President of the Southeast Medical Device Association (SEMDA) and is the Chair of the T3 Labs Advisory Board. She is a Member of the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE) at the US Department of Commerce. She led the Sponsorship Committee of the 2013 SEMDA Conference and has served as the Co-Chair of the Medical Device Subcommittee of the Metro Atlanta Chamber Bioscience Leadership Council. Ms. Karp earned a BBA in International Business from Loyola University and an MBA from Georgetown University McDonough School of Business.
Robert E. Powers, M.Div., Ph.D.
Program Director for Bioscience and Clinical Research, Gwinnett Technical College
After growing up in north Florida, Dr. Powers attended Wofford College in Spartanburg, South Carolina, majoring in Chemistry. He earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, studying prostaglandins and male reproduction in human and animal models. After postdoctoral work at Harvard Medical School in Boston, he stayed on faculty at Harvard and Beth Israel Hospital researching the role of intracellular calcium in pancreatic acinar cell function.
Moving to the University of South Carolina School Of Medicine in Columbia, he was awarded a five year National Institutes of Health grant to continue study on experimental models of acute pancreatitis. At this time he also served as director of a number of human clinical research trials. Moving to Yale College of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut, Dr. Powers continued his work on acute pancreatitis and was involved in studies of genotoxicity in gastric cancer.
Dr. Powers has served on faculty at Gwinnett Technical College since 2002. He started the Clinical Research Professional Certificate and Bioscience Associate Degree programs at Gwinnett Tech in 2005. In his career, he has served on numerous human Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) and Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees (IACUCs), including the Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Northeast Georgia Medical Center IRBs. He served as subject area consultant to several pharmaceutical companies including Glaxo, Merck, and Astra.
Dr. Powers worked with Georgia Bio for years. He assisted the Governor’s Office on recruitment efforts for bioscience companies to Georgia with Projects Aardvark, Bamboo and Cactus. He served on the Life Sciences team of the Governor’s Commission for a New Georgia. He has presented to the State Legislature in favor of greater involvement of the State in Bioscience economic development. He has worked with the Metro Atlanta Chamber of Commerce in a number of capacities, including serving as Program Chair and Logistics Chair for the first two Clinical Research in Georgia Conferences in 2012 and 2013.
In 1993, Dr. Powers moved to Georgia to attend seminary at the Candler School of Theology at Emory University and is ordained in the United Methodist Church. He served as pastor for several churches in North Georgia, and is now retired from the Church. He holds the rank of Major and is an active chaplain for Georgia Wing of the Civil Air Patrol, United States Air Force Auxiliary. He is a golfer, Harley-Davidson rider, sometime bass player, and lover of barbecue. He and his family live in Lawrenceville.
For a list of past Georgia Bio Award recipients, click here. All 2015 Award Recipients are listed at www.gabio.org/awards.
Georgia Bio (www.gabio.org) is the private, non-profit association whose members include pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies, medical centers, universities and research institutes, government groups and other business organizations involved in the development of life sciences related products and services.
Note to Editors: Credentialed members of the news media are invited to attend. Registration is complimentary. Please contact Maria Thacker (404-920-2042; maria.thacker@gabio.org).
