Currus Biologics is a privately held biotechnology company based in Melbourne, Australia.

Dr Michael Bettess
Chair

Michael is an Investment Manager at life science specialist venture capital firm Brandon Capital Partners (BCP). He is also an Executive Director at BCP investee companies Cincera Therapeutics Pty Ltd and is a Non-Executive Director at Wolf Biotherapeutics Pty Ltd and Foray Therapeutics Pty Ltd (also MRCF investee companies). His prior experience in commercialisation and investment includes leading commercialisation in the Faculty of Medicine at Monash University, the largest medical faculty in Australasia, and 5 years as an Investment Manager (Life Sciences) and acting CEO at the Trans-Tasman Commercialisation Fund where he led diligence on seed investments in HMBL Limited (acquired by Heart Metabolics Ltd.) and Nexvet Biopharma (NASDAQ – NVET: acquired by Zoetis in 2017). Michael holds a PhD from the University of Adelaide, a Hoffman La Roche post-doctoral fellowship at the Swiss Cancer Research Institute (ISREC) in Lausanne, Switzerland and has an MBA specialising in technology management from La Trobe University.

Dr Julian Clark
Non-Executive Director

Drawing on many years of international experience Julian has played a key role in the translation of medical and health innovations having their genesis in academic or public research. Working from executive and governance positions in Europe, Asia, North America and Australia, he has commercialised many products and technologies including drugs, vaccines, devices, diagnostics, processes and analytical instruments. Through his consulting company, Julian has assisted more than 100 organisations in Australia with commercialisation. He has been a Director of more than 20 boards, including UniQuest, Cancer Trials Australia, BioGrid Australia, Nexpep, Alchemia, and MediTech. Recently he was Head of Business Development at WEHI, and previously CEO of Cancer Therapeutics CRC (Australia), Faulding Pharmaceuticals (Australia), Pharmacia LKB Biotechnology  (Sweden), Biochrom (UK). Julian has a PhD from the University of Glasgow and was a post-doctoral fellow at the Karolinska Institute.  A Doctor of the University (Uni SA) and Fellow of the Australia Academy of Technology and Engineering are recognition of his contributions to research commercialisation.

Associate Professor Dominic Wall
Non-Executive Director

Dominic is the Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) for Cell Therapies Pty Ltd. As the CSO, he oversees the quality and production nominees for the purposes of licensing by the Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA). At the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, Dominic has a joint appointment as the Executive Director for Business Ventures, leading its enterprises such as the external Pathology services. He also provides executive oversight to the national Centre of Excellence in Cellular Immunotherapy which was established in 2019 with an $80 million contribution from the Commonwealth Government. Dominic’s academic background and interests are primarily in cancer immunotherapy, in vivo cell tracking in human cell therapy (using nuclear medicine and MRI) and regulation of the developing cell and gene therapy field. He has published more than 80 manuscripts, abstracts and presentations in these areas, and has previously been the ANZ regional president of the International Society for Cell & Gene Therapy (ISCT). In 1999 Dominic developed the cell therapy program at Peter Mac and was one of the founders of Cell Therapies in 2003, leading it to becoming the first TGA licensed service in this field in Australia.

Dr John Kurek
Non-Executive Director

John is the Biotechnology Investment Manager at Uniseed, Australia’s longest running venture fund, operating at the Universities of Melbourne, Queensland, Sydney, New South Wales and the CSIRO.  In this role John is responsible for identifying new investment opportunities, and also covers Uniseed’s overall biotechnology and life sciences portfolio. John brings 20+ years of industry experience as a Biotechnology Manager with a focus on the strategic design and implementation of drug development programs. John’s previous roles have included Pharmaceutical Development Manager at BioDiem Ltd., managing the preclinical, clinical and regulatory aspects of BioDiem’s drug development programs, and Preclinical Development Manager at Amrad Corporation Ltd., where he was responsible for the management of preclinical drug development projects. His experience extends from drug discovery to the clinical phase of drug development. John has a PhD in Neuroscience and a Post Graduate Diploma in Drug Evaluation and Pharmaceutical Science, both from the University of Melbourne and is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors.

Sam Cobb
Chief Executive Officer

Sam is the founding CEO of Currus Biologics. Sam has over 25 years’ experience in business development and commercialisation with a focus on biologics. Prior to Currus Biologics, Sam was the founding CEO of AdAlta (ASX: 1AD), where Sam saw AdAlta through several transitions over a 12-year period including listing the company on the ASX. Sam led the development of AdAlta’s novel biologics platform from idea to a Phase I-ready lead candidate and secured multiple big pharma and biotech deals with its platform. Sam has worked for several biotech companies and technology transfer companies, focused on the commercialisation of life-science opportunities. Sam worked at the lab bench at Agen Biomedical as a research scientist, developing a diagnostic test for point of care application, taking the test from research through development and to production. Sam has a Bachelor of Science and a Masters of Intellectual Property Law and has completed the Australian Institute of Company Directors course.

Dr Ebony Fietz
Drug Development Manager

Ebony has significant experience in the management of preclinical drug development programs. She has previously worked with ASX-listed biotechnology company AdAlta and early-stage startup Gertrude Biomedical, coordinating their internal and external preclinical research activities. In addition to project management capabilities, Ebony has experience in technical market appraisal including opportunity analysis and reimbursement strategy. Ebony completed a PhD in Cancer Pharmacology at The University of Melbourne concurrently with a Graduate Certificate in Commercialisation at Melbourne Business School.

Associate Professor Michael Kershaw
Group Leader and Head of the Immune Innovation Laboratory at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

Michael received a PhD from the University of Melbourne in 1997 for his studies into the genetic redirection of immunity against cancer. He performed Postdoctoral studies in cancer immunotherapy in the laboratories of Dr Steven Rosenberg at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland from 1998 to 2001. He returned to Australia in 2002 and took up a position in the Cancer Immunology Program at Peter Mac. Michael’s laboratory is involved in the development of effective immunotherapies for cancer. The approaches involve novel in-house derived strategies and new ways of using existing immunomodulatory reagents. Using these approaches in mouse tumour models, he seeks to determine the cellular and molecular mechanisms of immune-mediated anti-tumour effects. The principal research interests of the lab lie in understanding the tumour microenvironment and in the use of adoptive immunotherapy and vaccines for cancer treatment. Michael is a key inventor of the Currus Biologics technology and has previously developed a CAR-T that is currently in clinical development and licensed to Bristol Myers Squib. 

Dr Clare Slaney
Senior Research Fellow at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre

Clare’s current research interests are in understanding the interaction between the immune system and cancer, and in the use of immunotherapy to treat cancer. These interests include the use of genetically modified T cells (CAR T cells) to treat solid cancers. Clare has published over 30 papers in high-impact journals including first and last authorships in Nature Medicine, PNAS, Cancer Research, Clinical Cancer Research and Cancer Discovery. She has obtained over $2M research funding, including 3 fellowships and 5 CIA project grants. Her accomplishments have been acknowledged with a number of awards including the Seymour and Vivian Milstein Young Investigator Award for notable contributions to basic and clinical research in Switzerland (2012), a Joseph Sambrook Award in Research Excellence (2014), and the respected Mavis Robertson Award (2018) that is given each year to a female principal investigator considered to exhibit the greatest promise as a leader in breast cancer research in Australia. Clare is a key inventor of the Currus Biologics technology.

Bianca von Scheidt
Senior Scientist

Bianca is a Senior Scientist at Currus Biologics with over 15 years of experience. Bianca received a Diplom in Biologie (equivalent to Master’s degree in biology) at the University in Hamburg, Germany. She worked in the field of Immunology at The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at The National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, USA. Since coming to Australia, she worked in the Cancer Immunology Program at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre and also in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Doherty Institute. Bianca has substantial expertise working on novel immunotherapies for cancer, with a primary focus on chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells therapies. She is an inventor of the Currus Biologics technology.