Dr. Brake serves as the NEAH’s CEO. Dave was formerly a R&D manager at Pfizer Animal Health (now Zoetis) and is currently President, BioQuest Associates, LLC. BioQuest provides R&D, regulatory and transboundary animal diseases subject matter expertise to the US Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology, Plum Island Animal Disease Center. BioQuest also consultants to the veterinary biotech industry, and to human biotech companies interested in expanded into the veterinary biologics space.
Dr. Bill Golde, Chief Science Officer of New England Animal Health (NEAH), is a senior scientist and principal investigator at the Moredun Research Institute (MRI) in Edinburgh Scotland. Dr. Golde has over 40 years experience in multiple aspects of cellular immunology in particular studying the immune response to viral and bacterial pathogens. In his early career at University of Colorado, Centers for Disease Control and Stony Brook University, Dr. Golde worked in mouse models and analysing human immune responses, both research areas served by a comprehensive collection of immune reagents to facilitate the work. In 1999, he joined the USDA to study immune responses to infection in cattle and swine. The limited and variable quality of immune reagents was a clear problem limiting progress of research in livestock infections. After leaving USDA for his present position at Moredun, he started New England Animal Health in partnership with the present NEAH CEO, D. Brake and Board chair, J. Ransom. The focus of NEAH is to make critical immune reagents readily available to the livestock vaccine research community in order to accelerate vaccine development and deployment.
NEAH Board of Directors
Dr. Ransom NEAH Board Chairman, is the former VP of R&D and Head of Emerging Technologies at BioLegend, Inc., a top tier antibody reagent manufacturing organization. He is currently the Chief Scientific Officer and Co-founder at Vivreon Biosciences, LLC and a Board Member with Stabilux Biosciences. John has deep experience in business and strategic planning, and in recruiting, motivating and managing innovative and productive teams to solve technology development, and drug and therapeutic discovery problems.
Michael J. Golde is an experienced financial and operational executive who has served in various executive roles with many institutions, including Embry Riddle Aeronautical University, National Waste Services, Multiple Intelligence, Corporate Resource Services, Integra Realty Resources, Wimba, Accretive Solutions, Randstad, AccuStaff, and Career Horizons. Mike began his career in public accounting at PWC. He received his Bachelor of Business Administration and Master of Business Administration degrees from Pace University. He is a Certified Public Accountant and a winner of the Long Island Business News CFO of the Year Award in 2011.
Dr. Naomi Urbina, Board member and a practicing small animal clinical veterinarian and scientific researcher. Her interest is in the application of clinical diagnostics for animal diseases. She has 12 years of experience in immunoassay product development as a Senior Scientist/Product Manager at various biotech companies including BioLegend, Zoetis, Cue Health, and nanoComposix. Naomi has developed products from feasibility through transfer to manufacturing, overseeing the coordination of Development, Manufacturing, Facilities, Quality, Regulatory, and Marketing. She is more recently the co-founder and owner of her own veterinary clinic, Escaya Veterinarians, in San Diego.
Dr. Vish Nene, Board member and former co-leader of the Animal and Human Health program at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) in Nairobi, Kenya. Recently retired from ILRI, Vish has experience working on neglected livestock diseases that affect the livelihood of small-scale farmers in low-middle-income countries. He has a broad range of research interests that converge on developing improved or novel methods to underpin vaccine research. A major area of focus is on ticks and tick-borne diseases that affect livestock in sub-Saharan Africa.
NEAH Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Church founded the successful private company Green Mountain Antibodies in 1995 after a successful research career at the Scripps Research Institute, the Mayo Clinic, and the University of Vermont. The mission of Green Mountain Antibodies is to provide unique and high quality antibody solutions to researchers in industry and academia. Dr. Church recognizes the significant need for quality antibody reagents in the development of successful vaccines in animal health.
Dr. Sean Wattegedera is currently a Senior Research Scientist at Moredun Research Institute and has over 23 years of research experience on bacterial and viral diseases of livestock. He has worked on a number of core, research grant and commercially-funded projects to develop and characterize immunological reagents to investigate cytokine biology in small and large ruminants. Some of this work has led to commercialization of reagents and assays for use as research tools.