Ascenta's scientific founders are internationally renowned experts in cancer research and well versed in the disciplines of drug discovery and development.
Dr. Lippman is one of the world's leading authorities in the field of breast cancer. Until May of 2007, he was the John G. Searle Professor and Chair, Department of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan. He was previously the Director of the Lombardi Cancer Research Center, Professor and Chairman of the Department of Oncology, and Professor of Medicine at Georgetown University Medical School. He was also Chief of the Division of Hematology-Oncology. Prior to his appointment at Georgetown, he was Head of the Medical Breast Cancer Section of the Medicine Branch of the National Cancer Institute. He received his B.A., magna cum laude from Cornell (1964) and his M.D. from Yale where he was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha (1968). He completed internship and residency in internal medicine at Johns Hopkins Hospital on the Osler Service and further fellowship training at the National Cancer Institute where he remained until 1988 when he went to Georgetown University.
Dr. Lippman has attempted to bridge the gap between basic tumor biology and clinical application in the field of breast cancer. His work established the critical role of growth factors in human breast cancer and in an extensive series of studies has characterized and purified these factors and designed antitumor therapies based on these insights. He has received the Clinical Investigator Prize of the American Federation for Clinical Research, the Rosenthal Award of the AACR, the American Cancer Society Lectureship awarded by ASCO, the Astwood Prize of the Endocrine Society, and the Brinker International Prize for Basic Research in Breast Cancer. He has authored over 500 publications and one of the standard texts on breast cancer, and has successfully pursued clinical trials for every stage of breast cancer.
Dr. Lippman has extensive experience in business development in biotechnology. With sponsorship from Health Care Ventures, he was a cofounder of Oncologix, a diagnostics company successfully sold to Aronex. Subsequently, he co-founded Peregrine Biotechnology which was successfully sold to Techniclone. He is a senior managing director for Perseus, LLC.
Dr Wang is a co-founder of Ascenta and is currently the Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor in Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School and professor of medicinal chemistry, internal medicine and pharmacology at the University of Michigan. Dr. Wang received his B.S. in Chemistry from Peking University in 1986 and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Case Western Reserve University in 1992. Dr. Wang did his postdoctoral training in drug design at the National Cancer Institute, NIH between 1992 1996. Dr. Wang was Assistant Professor at Georgetown University from 1996-2000 and Associate Professor from 2000-2001. Dr. Wang joined the faculty at the University of Michigan Medical School as a tenured Associate Professor in 2001 and was promoted to Professor in 2006. Dr. Wang was named the Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis Professor in Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School in 2007.
Dr. Wang serves as the director of the Cancer Drug Discovery program and co-director of the Molecular Therapeutics Program at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Wang is the Principal Investigator of a National Cooperative Drug Discovery Group grant from the National Cancer Institute, NIH. Dr. Wang has published more than 170 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals and 100 meeting abstracts, and is an inventor on 30 international and US patents and patent applications. Dr. Wang is an innovative leader in structure-based design of target-specific small-molecule therapeutics.
Dajun Yang, MD, PhD, heads up Research at Ascenta. Dr. Yang co-founded of Ascenta Therapeutics in 2003. In 2005, he established Ascenta Shanghai, the company’s wholly-owned R&D Facility in the Pudong High-Tech Park in Shanghai, China. Dr. Yang is also a Managing Director for biotechnology and healthcare in the Morningside Ventures Group. Prior to Ascenta, Dr. Yang was an associate professor of internal medicine and member of Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Michigan; an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology; and associate professor in the Department of Oncology and a senior investigator of the Lombardi Cancer Center at the Georgetown University Medical Center.
Dr. Yang has more than 20 years of experience in cancer research and drug development. He is author and co-author of more than 60 papers, book chapters, patents and abstracts. Dr. Yang is the inventor of over ten national and international patents (issued/pending). He built the biology and pharmacology team for S*BIO Ltd Pte, a Singapore-Chiron Joint venture biopharmaceutical company where he served as the first VP of Biology. Dr. Yang also holds an appointment currently as an Adjunct Professor in Department of Medicine at the University of Michigan, and a visiting professor at the Cancer Center of the Sun Yat-sen University in China. Dr. Yang obtained his M.D. in 1983 from Sun Yat-sen University of Medical Sciences (SUMS), and his Master of Medicine degree in Oncology in 1986 from the SUMS Cancer Center. He received his Ph.D. in genetics from Michigan State University. Dr. Yang served as president of the Chinese Biopharmaceutical Association (CBA) from 2003-2004.