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The Impact of Contract Research Organizations (CRO's) on Biomedical Cluster Development

Thursday, February 22, 2024

The Impact of Contract Research Organizations (CRO's) on Biomedical Cluster Development

Presenter & RFU Panelist

Svetlana Dambaeva, MD, PhD
Director, Clinical Immunology Lab
Chicago Medical School

RFU Panelist

Wren Michaels, PhD ’20
Assistant Professor, Drug Discovery Lab
Center for Genetic Diseases

Industry Panelists

Samir Pandya, MBA
Global Head of Business Development
JRF Global

Cheryle Evans
SVP, Global Clinical & Biometric Operations
Advanced Clinical

Matt Langevin, MS
COO
Sword Bio

Moderator

Michael S. Rosen, MBA
Managing Director, Innovation and Research Park and Helix 51 Incubator

Bio Innovations is a bi-monthly speaker series featuring prominent local bioentrepreneurs, biotech execs and biotech investors presented by Rosalind Franklin University. It brings together entrepreneurs, industry executives, research scientists and the general public to learn more about medical research in a casual setting. Please See available Rosalind Franklin Innovations.

Industry Panelists

Matt Langevin, MS

  • Matt Langevin is COO of Sword Bio. Prior to Sword Bio, Mr. Langevin was a co-founder of Bioagilytix Labs. Mr. Langevin set the culture at Bioagilytix by ensuring there was a science-, client- and patient-first approach. 
  • He has over 25 years of bench top experience involving assay development, qualification, validation and sample analysis in non-regulated and GLP environments.

Cheryle Evans

  • Cheryle Evans is a senior-level executive with extensive, progressive clinical research experience and is responsible for the strategic planning and tactile operations in project management, clinical monitoring, site activation, safety and document management. She has led global teams across multiple disciplines, successfully utilizing automation to improve quality and streamline operations. Prior to joining Advanced Clinical in 2013, Ms. Evans was the VP of Clinical Monitoring, NA, with inVentiv Health Clinical, where she led the optimization of three global strategic units: Global Study Start-Up, Expedited Safety Reporting and Document Management and Publishing. Prior to her tenure with inVentiv Health Clinical, Ms. Evans was part of a strategic team with Essential CRO, where she supported the transition and growth from a site management organization to a top-five, global, full-service CRO. Cheryle has therapeutic expertise in cardiovascular, urologic, dermatologic and women’s/men’s health clinical trials.
  • A lifelong Chicagoan, Ms. Evans attended the University of Illinois at Chicago and is a registered nurse in the state of Illinois with a specialty in critical care nursing. She is a published thought leader on implementing risk-based monitoring for midsize pharma, biotech and device companies and a frequent speaker at industry conferences.

Samir Pandya, MBA

  • Samir Pandya is a strategist and global head of business development at JRF Global, a multinational contract research organization. Mr. Pandya has a track record of creating new opportunities in matured markets, and previously was a key account manager of four of the Top 10 chemical companies in the world.
  • A tech-savvy marketer, Mr. Pandya shares that he is a global citizen and an avid traveler with an understanding of diversified cultures.

Rosalind Franklin University Panelists

Svetlana Dambaeva, MD, PhD

  • Dr. Dambaeva received her medical degree from Siberian State Medical University (Tomsk, Russia) in 1992 and started her career as a clinical laboratory physician in a municipal maternity hospital. In 2002 she obtained her PhD degree in immunology and allergology from the prestigious Institute of Immunology in Moscow, Laboratory of Clinical Immunology studying innate immunity in patients with various immunodeficiencies and working on clinical diagnostic application of flow cytometry for neutrophils analysis. For her postdoctoral training, she joined Dr. Golos’s laboratory at the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center, University of Wisconsin, Madison and studied placental expression of non-classical MHC-E in non-human primates.
  • Dr. Dambaeva later worked as an assistant scientist at the Department of Comparative Biosciences, University of Wisconsin and continued her research on maternal-fetal tolerance; she characterized unique endometrial leukocyte populations in various non-human primates and established herself as a key researcher in the reproductive immunology field. Dr. Dambaeva completed a Medical Laboratory Immunology Fellowship program, accredited by the American Society of Microbiology in the clinical immunology laboratory at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, and in 2014 was board certified as a Diplomate by the American Board of Medical Laboratory Immunology (ABMLI). She currently serves as the Associate Director of Clinical Immunology Laboratory at RFU.
  • In April 2017, Dr. Dambaeva was appointed as research assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Chicago Medical School/Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science.

Wren Michaels, PhD ’20