Scientific Advisory Board

D. Montgomery Bissell, M.D. is a Professor of Medicine and Director of the Division of Gastroenterology at the University of California, San Francisco. He is also the Director of the UCSF Liver Center and Attending Physician at UCSF and San Francisco General Hospital. Dr. Bissell is a world leader in research on liver fibrosis and he has served as a past Council Member and a past President of the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases. His research efforts have involved both clinical and pre-clinical research, which have led to over 100 publications. Currently, Dr. Bissell is the Editor for the journal Hepatology and serves on the National Institute for Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases Advisory Council of the National Institutes of Health.

Alan Cherrington, Ph.D. is Professor and Chair of the Department of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN. He is also the Associate Director of the Vanderbilt Diabetes Research and Training Center and the Charles H. Best Professor of Diabetes Research. Dr. Cherrington has carried out research into the regulation of carbohydrate metabolism in vivo for over thirty years and has authored over 260 scientific articles. In particular, he has studied the regulation of glycogenolysis and gluconeogenesis by both the endocrine and nervous systems. He has also studied the regulation of post-prandial fuel disposition. Dr. Cherrington has won both the Lilly and Banting Awards for Research from the American Diabetes Association. He currently serves as Vice-Chair of the American Diabetes Association Research Foundation Board and is a member of a number of editorial boards for a variety of scientific journals.

Anna Mae Diehl, M.D. is Chief of Gastroenterology at Duke University. Dr. Diehl serves on numerous Committees for the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases, the American College of Physicians, the International Associate for the Study of Liver Diseases, the American Federation of Clinical Research, the American Society for Clinical Investigation, and the National Institute for Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Diseases, as well as others. Dr. Diehl has served as a liver disease consultant for various pharmaceutical companies and serves on Editorial Boards for a number of journals including Hepatology, Practical Reviews in Gastroenterology, the American Journal of Physiology, and the American Journal of Medicine. Her research activities have focused on both clinical and pre-clinical studies of chronic liver diseases including alcohol and non-alcoholic liver steatohepatitis, liver regeneration and the role of cytokines in liver disease. Dr. Diehl has authored over 100 publications in the field of liver- and gastroenterology-related diseases.

Jules Dienstag, M.D. is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a Physician at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is recognized worldwide as a leader in pre-clinical and clinic hepatitis research. Dr. Dienstag serves or has served on Advisory Boards for most of the companies involved in development of antiviral drugs for hepatitis B and C. Also, he is one of the Principle Investigators of the NIH-NIDDK-supported Hepatitis C Antiviral Long-term Treatment against Cirrhosis ("HALT-C") Trial. Dr. Dienstag has authored well over 250 publications on viral hepatitis. He served two terms as Associate Editor of Gastroenterology, was the Medical Director for Liver Transplantation and founder of the Liver Clinic at the Massachusetts General Hospital, where he is currently the Executive Director of the Liver-Biliary-Pancreas Center and Editor of its Newsletter.

Gerald I. Shulman, M.D., Ph.D. is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and Professor of Medicine and Cellular & Molecular Physiology at Yale University School of Medicine. He is also Program Director of the Yale-General Clinical Research Center, Associate Chief for the Section of Endocrinology/Metabolism, Associate Director of the Yale Diabetes-Endocrinology Research Center, and Associate Director of the Yale Medical Scientist (M.D.-Ph.D.) Training Program. Dr. Shulman completed his undergraduate studies in Biophysics at the University of Michigan, and received both M.D., Ph.D. degrees from Wayne State University. Following internship and residency at Duke University Medical Center, he completed an endocrine fellowship at the Massachusetts General Hospital Harvard Medical School, and did additional postdoctoral work in molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University before joining the faculty at Harvard Medical School. Upon returning to Yale Dr. Shulman's research has focused on the mechanism of insulin resistance in patients with type II diabetes. Over the past 20 years Dr. Shulman has published over 180 articles and has received numerous awards for his scholarly work including the Outstanding Investigator Award of the American Federation for Clinical Research, the Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award (Lilly Lecture) of the American Diabetes Association, and the Diabetes Care Research Award from the Boehringer Mannheim/Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Dr. Shulman has served on multiple scientific review committees including the NIH metabolism study section, the Juvenile Diabetes Foundation Scientific Review Board and the American Diabetes Association Grant Review Panel. Dr. Shulman is a fellow of the American College of Physicians, the International Society of Magnetic Resonance in Medicine and he has been elected to a number of honorary societies including the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the Association of American Physicians.

Elizabeth Stoner, M.D. is a managing member of MPM Capital, a venture capital firm focusing on global healthcare investments. From 1985 to 2007, Dr. Stoner held various key executive roles while at Merck Research Laboratories, most recently as Senior Vice President for Global Clinical Development Operations. In that role, she was responsible for the Merck's clinical development activity in over 40 countries, as well as the clinical development activities for Merck's Japanese partner Banyu and the Merck/Schering-Plough Joint Venture for Zetia/Vytorin. Dr. Stoner's other roles at Merck included Endocrine Therapeutic Head, Senior Vice President of Clinical Sciences and Product Development, Chair of the Cholesterol Development Committee, and Vice President of Clinical Research for the Endocrine/Metabolism clinical research programs. In addition to her work in clinical research and development at Merck, Dr. Stoner maintained a medical practice from 1985 to 2006 as an Assistant Attending Physician of Pediatrics at New York Hospital. Prior to 1985, she was an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Cornell University Medical College. Dr. Stoner serves on the board of directors of publicly-held Momenta Pharmaceuticals, a biotechnology company specializing in the characterization and engineering of complex drugs. She is the recipient of numerous distinguished honors. Dr. Stoner has also authored over 50 publications as well as 13 U.S. patents. Dr. Stoner received a B.S. in Chemistry from Ottawa University, KS, an M.S. in Chemistry from the State University of New York at Stony Brook, and an M.D. from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Stoner is a member of Metabasis' Board of Directors.

Alan P. Venook, M.D. is Professor of Clinical Medicine, Director of the Clinical Research Office in the UCSF Cancer Center and the Clinical Leader of the Gastrointestinal Oncology program at UCSF. His academic focus and clinical interests are in the treatment of GI malignancies and liver tumors, and in the application of new biologic agents. He has conducted clinical trials to evaluate the activity of various chemical compounds in treating cancers of the liver, colon, and kidney. Dr. Venook graduated from Rutgers College in 1976 and from the University of California, San Francisco, School of Medicine in 1976. He completed an internship in Internal Medicine at UCSF, and served in the National Health Service Corps at an Urban Indian clinic in Sacramento. He completed an Internal Residency at UC Davis in 1985, then moved to UC San Francisco to serve a Fellowship in Hematology / Oncology, and has served on the faculty at UC San Francisco since 1987.

David J. Waxman, Ph.D. is Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology at Boston University and Professor of Medicine at Boston University School of Medicine. He is an internationally recognized authority on cytochrome P450 enzymes and genes, with emphasis on their importance in drug development and on their role in metabolism leading to bioactivation of anti-cancer drugs. He has made major contributions to the development of P450-based prodrug activation strategies for cancer therapy. Dr. Waxman has authored over 170 publications and 36 book chapters in his field.