Dr. Egan brings to CastleVax 25+ years of vaccine research and development experience. Prior to joining CastleVax, Dr. Egan served as the Chief Scientific Officer of Auro Vaccines LLC. Previously, Dr. Egan served as a Project Leader at the Bill and Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute and lead a diverse team of scientists in the conception, design and execution of various vaccine discovery programs as a Senior Director at Takeda Vaccines. In addition, Dr. Egan was the Director of Immunology at Profectus BioSciences from 2008-2017 and served in various roles at Wyeth Vaccines Research from 2000 – 2008. Dr. Egan received his Ph.D. in Immunology from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and went on to do his postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Egan has served on numerous NIH scientific review committees and has 40+ publications to his credit in the area of vaccine research and development.

Jori has 10+ years of experience building and investing in early-stage companies. She was first exposed to the startup world in 2011 when she was hired to conduct User Experience (UX) testing and design for a tech-enabled, boutique travel agency based in NYC. After earning her business degree from New York University’s Stern School of Business, Jori joined PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as a strategy & management consultant before transitioning into venture capital where she invested in and advised early-stage tech companies.

In 2021, Jori launched her own business providing fractional Chief Operating Officer (COO) services to startups, venture capital funds, and incubators. In 2022, Jori was engaged by Mount Sinai Innovation Partners (MSIP) to assist with the launch of CastleVax, Inc. before joining the company full time as Director of Operations.

Danny Wood has almost 20 years of combined biotech company and CRO experience with global clinical development programs. He recently managed clinical operations at Vaxxinity where he launched multiple vaccine studies in Infectious Disease, Neurology, and Cardiovascular Disease. Prior to joining Vaxxinity, Danny held management roles within various CRO’s including Covance, Greenlight Clinical, IQVIA, and Worldwide Clinical Trials.

Danny began his career working at Sigma-Aldrich developing various gene arrays, oligonucleotides, and led the Custom Projects group to assist various Biotech companies with research and development. After leaving Sigma-Aldrich, Danny joined Alba Therapeutics, a new Biotech company being formed, as an Operations Director assisting with pre-clinical work, CMC development, drug supply, and clinical operations.

Danny holds a Bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology from Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi, Texas

Robert Small is a clinical project leader with over 25 years of industry experience. Rob has demonstrated success at managing complex clinical research programs in startup to mid-size pharma/biotech organizations. Rob climbed the ranks from a traveling CRA into trial management, and has extensive experience with developing, managing, and fostering high performing relationships with external vendors. He has broad and diverse drug development experience with all phases of clinical research, in a wide range of therapeutic areas including cardiology, respiratory, ophthalmology, oncology, infectious disease, pain, and neurology. Rob has worked primarily for sponsor companies but does have additional experience in the CRO environment.

Dr. Palese is a global leader in the fields of infectious viral diseases and vaccines. Dr. Palese’s research focuses on molecular biology of viruses and host-virus interactions, with particular emphasis on the study of RNA viruses including influenza, paramyxo, and corona (SARS) viruses. His long list of professional accolades include the Inventor of the Year Award from the Icahn School of Mount Sinai and the Lifetime Achievement Award for Scientific Contributions from the Institute of Human Virology. Peter Palese is a Member of the National Academy of Sciences, a Member of the National Academy of Medicine, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

Dr. García-Sastre is a global leader in research on viral pathogens and vaccines. His laboratory focuses on the molecular biology of influenza viruses and other negative strand RNA viruses. In addition to his roles at Mount Sinai, Dr. García-Sastre is the director of the Center for Research on Influenza Pathogenesis and Transmission (CRIPT), one of the NIH’s Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response (CEIRR). He has also served as the President of the International Society for Vaccines, and he is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, among many other honors and accomplishments.

Florian Krammer, PhD, graduated from the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna (Austria) in 2010. He received his postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Dr. Peter Palese at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York working on hemagglutinin stalk-based immunity and universal influenza virus vaccines. In 2014 he became an independent principal investigator and is currently Mount Sinai Professor of Vaccinology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Krammer's work focuses on understanding the mechanisms of interactions between antibodies and viral surface glycoproteins and on translating this work into novel, broadly protective vaccines and therapeutics. The main target is influenza virus but he is also working on coronaviruses, flaviviruses, hantaviruses, filoviruses and arenaviruses. He has published more than 300 papers on these topics. Since 2019, Dr. Krammer has served as principal investigator of the Sinai-Emory Multi-Institutional Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Center (SEM-CIVIC), which develops improved seasonal and universal influenza virus vaccines that induce long-lasting protection against drifted seasonal, zoonotic and future pandemic influenza viruses.

Dr. Sun is a molecular biologist, virologist and vaccinologist by training. Six years of experience working as a Ph.D. student/molecular virologist to investigate the life cycle and antiviral approaches concerning the zoonotic paramyxoviruses including Nipah virus and Hendra virus in the lab of Dr. Anthony Schmitt, where Dr. Sun received solid technical and academic training. For Dr. Sun’s postdoctoral career, she chose to work in a lab where the basic science meets its translational application. She joined the laboratory of Dr. Peter Palese to study influenza viruses, biology and to develop universal influenza virus vaccine candidates. By virtue of her Ph.D. training, Dr. Sun established her ground by significantly improving the reverse genetics systems of influenza viruses generated previously in the department.

Since the pandemic of COVID-19, Dr. Sun’s career circled back to paramyxoviruses with an additional flavor of coronaviruses, where she took the leadership to develop a Newcastle disease virus (NDV)-based SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. She generated NDV vectors expressing a stabilized spike (S) protein to be used as a live vaccine or an inactivated vaccine.

At the beginning of 2022, Dr. Sun was appointed to tenure-track Assistant Professor in the department of microbiology at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. She will lead the preclinical development of multivalent NDV-based variant vaccines for pandemic preparedness.

Dr. Lium is the President of Mount Sinai Innovation Partners (MSIP), the commercialization engine of the Mount Sinai Health System. Dr. Lium participated in and/or led the creation of 29 public and private companies based on Mount Sinai technologies since 2016, current estimated equity value held by Mount Sinai is over $500M. The portfolio includes - but is not limited to - Sema4 (NASDAQ: SMFR), Renalytix (NASDAQ: RNLX), Trellus Health (LSE:TRLS), VericiDx (LON: VRCI), and PreciseDx. Earlier in his career, Dr. Lium held positions at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), including Assistant Vice Chancellor of Innovation, Technology and Alliance.

Dr. Lium earned his PhD in Cellular, Molecular and Biophysical Studies at Columbia University and pursued post-doctoral training at UCSF.

Stephen Harvey, MBA, serves as Chief Financial Officer of the Mount Sinai Health System. He is responsible for all aspects of financial management, accounting, and reporting for the Health System including the annual operating budget, coordination of the capital budget, and debt management. He works closely with the leadership team, providing financial analyses of new programs, acquisitions, and business development initiatives. Mr. Harvey was previously the Chief Financial Officer of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai from 1999 to 2021.

During his 30 years of service to Mount Sinai, Mr. Harvey has contributed to the Health System's growth and financial success. He assisted the Dean of the Medical School with the financial plans that supported two successful 10-year research and clinical strategic plans and prepared the financing plans for the Icahn Medical Institute and Hess Center for Science and Medicine buildings. He also played an important role in aligning the financial policies and procedures of the former Continuum physician practices with the Mount Sinai Doctors Faculty Practice when the Health System was formed.

Prior to joining Mount Sinai, Mr. Harvey was an audit manager at Coopers & Lybrand in Boston, with audit responsibilities principally in the higher education, health care, and investment company industries. Mr. Harvey is a certified public accountant and received a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of Maine.

Matt Rosamond, MBA, is Chief Financial Officer for the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. A results-oriented operational and financial leader, Mr. Rosamond has 20 years of experience in health care, biotechnology, and genomics. In this role Mr. Rosamond is responsible for leading all financial initiatives across the clinical, research and education missions of the School of Medicine

Mr. Rosamond has held a number of previous roles within the Mount Sinai Health System. From 2019 to 2021 Mr. Rosamond served as the Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of the Mount Sinai Doctors Faculty Practice. In 2017, Mr. Rosamond became co-founder and Chief Financial Officer of Sema4, a Mount Sinai spin-out health intelligence company dedicated to advancing the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of disease with a focus on genomic testing. Prior to Sema4, Mr. Rosamond worked as the Director of Finance and Business Development for the Department of Genetics and Genomic Sciences and the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology. Mr. Rosamond began his career at PwC, spending a decade with the firm in their Strategic Advisory and Transaction Services departments.

Mr. Rosamond graduated from New York University’s Stern School of Business with an MBA. He was awarded his CFA Charter by the Chartered Financial Analyst Institute.