Brian P. Phillips has been involved in the startup of five separate technology companies, each of which had a successful exit (2 went public, 2 were acquired by public companies, and one was an MBO). In addition, he has been involved in the founding of new divisions in two large global organizations:  Tivoli Systems (now part of IBM) and a consulting division at Arthur Young & Company (now Ernst & Young & Cap Gemini).   Mr. Phillips has raised over $33 million in venture capital as a CEO, has closed over $30 million in direct sales, and has established partnerships/channels in over 20 countries on 5 continents.  Since 2001 he has run Zurich Ventures, a firm whose investment involves a direct operational role in early stage startups in the technology and life sciences sectors.  Mr. Phillips holds a B.S. in Computer Science from OSU and a Masters degree from Denver Seminary.

Full Biography

Bruce Applegate, PhD  is a tenured faculty member and Associate Professor of Food Science at Purdue University and brings over 20 years of microbiology experience to this project with nearly 40 related publications and 2 related patents (6 pending). Prior to joining Purdue University, he held a faculty appointment at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and previously co-founded another biotechnology company, Critical Point Technologies, focused on developing instrumentation and biosensors for diagnostics and remote sensing.  As an inventor of this novel phage technology, Dr. Applegate will advise and direct key research and development efforts related to the company’s food diagnostic platform.  He has a PhD in Microbiology from the University of Tennessee.

Vivek R. Shinde Patil, PhD  Presently serves as a Technical Applications Specialist/Liaison for a leading imaging biotechnology company since April 2006. During his time in industry and academia, he has developed strategic relationships with numerous academic, government & commercial researchers that have helped shape and impact his startup and operations experience. Trained as a chemical engineer and then as a biologist, Dr. Patil brings key interdisciplinary scientific experience in molecular biology (experimental design and troubleshooting) as well as scale-up and commercialization (operation and optimization) to Intelliphage Inc. He has a PhD in Chemical Engineering from Ohio University (2002) and post-doctoral experience from the Harvard Medical School (MGH and BWH) in Boston.

ETH: Who's who

Martin Loessner, PhD is a full professor of Food Microbiology at the renowned Institute of Food Science and Nutrition at the Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) Zürich since April 2003. Dr. Loessner studied Biology at the Albert-Ludwigs-University of Freiburg, Germany. After receiving a Master’s degree in Biology in the USA, he obtained his PhD in 1991 from the Technical University of Munich. The research work in Dr. Loessner’s group is focused on food borne pathogens and their specific bacteriophages. Basic molecular biology research is used to derive novel and innovative applications for the detection and control of unwanted bacteria such as Listeria monocytogenes.

Kshitij Modi  is currently employed as a Product Manager of in vivo imaging reagents at a leading imaging biotechnology company.  Mr. Modi is responsible for the product management and marketing of over 100 in vivo reagents that the company offers. Under Mr. Modi’s stewardship the reagents business has seen tremendous growth and still remains one of the fastest growing businesses within the organization. He has been with the company since April 2004 and in his present role as their product manager since 2006. Prior to 2006, Mr. Modi had more than six years of experience in infectious disease research while working at Xenogen, GeneSoft, and Microcide Pharmaceuticals, and co-authored five publications in peer reviewed journals.  He holds an MBA in finance from Santa Clara University’s Leavey School of Business. He also has a Masters degree in Microbiology and Molecular genetics from Rutgers University.

George Sadler, PhD  has 20 years of academic experience dealing with technical and regulatory issues related to food packaging.  He has specialized in technical and regulatory issues involving polymer recycling, irradiation of food contact polymers, and the use of migration models for assessing dietary exposure for indirect food additive submissions to the FDA.  His research interests include active and intelligent packaging, experimental approaches for assessing migration, and the impact of novel food processing technologies on packaging performance.   Dr. Sadler received his PhD from Purdue University and has held faculty positions at University of Florida and Illinois Institute of Technology.  He is founder of PROVE IT, LLC (Packaging Regulation, Optimization, Validation and Education for Innovative Technologies), which develops and achieves FDA validation for innovative packaging and processing technologies.