Our team
David Imagawa
Dr. Imagawa is the Chief of the Division of Hepatobiliary and Pancreas Surgery at the University of California, Irvine Medical Center.
His major clinical interest is in the multidisciplinary approach to the treatment of liver and pancreas cancer. He chairs the Multidisciplinary Liver and Pancreas Tumor Board at UCIMC. He also has major clinical experience in the treatment of benign Hepatobiliary and pancreas diseases such as common bile duct injuries and acute and chronic pancreatitis. He oversees a number of clinical trials as well as the Hepatobiliary and Pancreas Tumor Board. He was named the first Suzanne Dykema Chair in Pancreas Cancer Research with a donation from the grateful family of one of his patients.
His research interests include the role of raf and ras kinase pathways in liver cancer. With IRB approval he has developed a tissue library for both liver and pancreas cancer. His laboratory also conducts basic science and small animal model studies investigating the role of novel immunosuppressive agents. He has also recently been issued a patent for a new drug delivery system by which non water soluble molecules can be delivered to a target organ
Nadine Abi-Jaoudeh
MD., a fellow of the Society of Interventional Radiology (less than 10% of members qualify), a Royal Canadian College of Radiology member, a deputy editor of the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology.
Nadine has considerable expertise in international oncology. She has collaborated in many pre-clinical and clinical research projects and published regularly on preclinical and clinical studies pertaining to biopsies, ablation and embolization procedures in conjunction with advanced imaging. She is a fellow of the Society of Interventional Radiology, a Royal Canadian College of Radiology member, and several other radiological societies. She is a deputy editor of the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Radiology (highest IF in IR) and a member of the scientific committee of the Society of Interventional Radiology annual meeting.
Former physician-scientist in the Department of Radiology and Imaging Sciences at the National Institute of Health (NIH) from July 2008 to 2015, before she joined UCI. At the NIH, her research focused on the integration of quantitative functional imaging in interventional oncology. Has two patents related to X-ray-based thermometry, and high-intensity focused ultrasound fused with cone beam CT.
She started to build a translation research program at UCI to improve patient outcomes with her interventional oncology expertise in 2015. She has conducted clinical trials combining a hypoxia agent with embolization with promising hepatocellular carcinoma and colorectal carcinoma results. She obtained a seed grant where we performed embolization of VX2 rabbit hepatic tumors using a novel formulation to load any drug on embolic beads.
Fabio C. Tucci
Ph.D., Chief Operating Officer and co-founder
As the Director of Chemistry at Tanabe Research Laboratories, he led the Medicinal Chemistry Department and advanced several programs on inflammation and metabolic diseases to the pipeline of Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma Corporation in Japan. While at Neurocrine Biosciences, Dr. Tucci served as Principal Scientist in the Medicinal Chemistry Department where he was part of the team that designed and optimized Elagolix (Orilissa), a potent small-molecule GnRH antagonist that has recently gained FDA approval. Dr. Tucci received a Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry from the Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil, and conducted postdoctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla. He authored/co-authored 65 peer-reviewed publications and is an inventor in more than 20 patents and patent applications.
Jim Na
Dr. Na is the co-founder and COO of Bruin Biosciences
Dr. Na has spent 25 years in pharmaceutical research and development. His career was spent mostly at Pfizer as a computational chemist working on oncology and anti-viral projects, as well as various cheminformatics projects. His experience also included stints at biotech companies, and is currently the director of computational chemistry and cheminformatics at Cullgen, Inc. He has advised several startups and is the co-founder and COO of Bruin Biosciences.
Satheesh B. Ravula
Ph.D., Chief Business officer at Epigen Biosciences
Dr. Ravula is highly motivated to be part of a start-up pharmaceutical company with a mission to discover treatments for unmet medical needs. Dr. Ravula serves as a Chief Business officer at Epigen Biosciences where primary focus is neuroscience and fibrosis. He started his industrial career as a medicinal chemist at Neurocrine Biosciences for lead generation and lead optimization in various therapeutic areas. Dr. Ravula held a postdoctoral position at West Virginia University where he was involved in development of a palladium catalyzed glycosylation reaction for the de novo synthesis of oligosaccharides from achiral starting materials. He received his doctoral degree from Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT) on stereoselective total synthesis of artemisinin and development of novel synthetic methodologies. During his research career, he is an inventor in patents/patent applications and authored/co-authored for 20+ publications in peer-reviewed journals. Dr. Ravula participates in NIH study sections, and a serial entrepreneur with business formation/management experience [Epigen Biosciences Inc., Curtana Pharmaceuticals Inc., MD2 Biosciences Inc., and Bruin Biosciences Inc.]
Graham Beaton
Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer
Senior professional in the Life Sciences with over twenty years of experience in Research and Development. Eighteen years industrial experience in biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. A leader with a successful record in the identification and optimization of small molecules for pre-clinical and clinical development in a variety of therapeutic areas including CNS diseases, endocrinology and oncology. Experienced in compound development through to early clinical trials. Well-versed with exploratory INDs. Expert in establishing new projects, program and resource management and all aspects of small molecule discovery.
Knowledgeable in peptide, nucleic acids and small molecule research for applications in biotechnology.
Specialties:
- Strong Research background
- Program leadership
- Complex data analysis and priority setting
- Experienced in target selection, hit-to-lead identification, lead optimization & pre-clinical development
- Strategic planning for industrial sponsored programs and grant applications
- Management of external collaborations [Research and contract]
- GPCR and enzyme targets
- Structure based design from computational models and X-ray data
- Organic and medicinal chemistry