Malcolm Kendall

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Malcolm Kendall has over 28 years of operational management, entrepreneurial, venture capital investment and leadership experience, the majority of which has been focused on company creation and building value in technology and biotechnology companies. Before founding Microbiome Insights, he was the co-founder and CEO of Indel Therapeutics Inc., a Vancouver-based biopharmaceutical company dedicated to developing new drugs to address the global health crisis caused by antibiotic resistance. Prior to this, Malcolm was an investment professional with life science focused venture capital firms MDS Capital (now Lumira Capital), BioVista Capital (now Hatteras Venture Partners) and Intersouth Partners. Before entering business, he served in the U.S. Army where he honed his leadership skills as an Infantry and Special Forces officer. Malcolm has been an advisor and board member to numerous companies and organizations and is currently a member of the board of directors of Semios BIO Technologies, a mentor for the entrepreneurship@UBC program and an adjunct professor at the MBA MOT program at Simon Fraser University. He received his undergraduate degree from Washington and Lee University and an M.B.A. from the Kenan-Flagler Business School at the University of North Carolina.

Brett Finlay

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Dr. B. Brett Finlay is a Professor in the Michael Smith Laboratories, and the Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Microbiology and Immunology at the University of British Columbia. He obtained a B.Sc. (Honors) in Biochemistry at the University of Alberta, where he also did his Ph.D. (1986) in Biochemistry under Dr. William Paranchych, studying F-like plasmid conjugation. His post-doctoral studies were performed with Dr. Stanley Falkow at the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at Stanford University School of Medicine, where he studied Salmonella invasion into host cells.

In 1989, he joined UBC as an Assistant Professor in the Biotechnology Laboratory. Dr. Finlay’s research interests are focused on host-microbe interactions, at the molecular level. By combining cell biology with microbiology, he has been at the forefront of the field called Cellular Microbiology, making several fundamental discoveries in this area, and publishing over 500 papers (h index=127). His laboratory studies several pathogenic bacteria, including Salmonella and pathogenic E. coli, and more recently the microbiota.

He is well recognized internationally for his work and has won several prestigious awards including the E.W.R. Steacie Prize, the CSM Fisher Scientific Award, CSM Roche Award, a MRC Scientist, five Howard Hughes International Research Scholar Awards, a CIHR Distinguished Investigator, BC Biotech Innovation Award, the Michael Smith Health Research Prize, the IDSA Squibb award, the Jacob Biely Prize, the prestigious Canadian Killam Health Sciences Prize, the Flavelle Medal of the Royal Society, the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal, and the Prix Galien. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada and the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, is a Member of the German National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Microbiology, Chair d’État, Collège de France and is the UBC Peter Wall Distinguished Professor. He is an Officer of the Order of Canada and Order of British Columbia, and was inducted into the Canadian Medical Hall of Fame.

He is a cofounder of Inimex Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Microbiome Insights, scientific co-founder of Vedanta Pharmaceuticals and CommenSe, Director of the SARS Accelerated Vaccine Initiative, and Founding Director and Senior Fellow of CIFAR’s Microbes and Humans. He is also the co-author of the book Let Them Eat Dirt.

Examples of latest publications

The hygiene hypothesis, the COVID pandemic, and consequences for the human microbiome. Finlay BB, Amato KR, Azad M, Blaser MJ, Bosch TCG, Chu H, Dominguez-Bello MG, Ehrlich SD, Elinav E, Geva-Zatorsky N, Gros P, Guillemin K, Keck F, Korem T, McFall-Ngai MJ, Melby MK, Nichter M, Pettersson S, Poinar H, Rees T, Tropini C, Zhao L, Giles-Vernick T.Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Feb 9;118(6):e2010217118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2010217118.PMID: 33472859

Are noncommunicable diseases communicable? Finlay BB; CIFAR Humans; Microbiome.Science. 2020 Jan 17;367(6475):250-251. doi: 10.1126/science.aaz3834.PMID: 31949069 No abstract available.

Associations between infant fungal and bacterial dysbiosis and childhood atopic wheeze in a nonindustrialized setting. Arrieta MC, Arévalo A, Stiemsma L, et al. J Allergy Clin Immunol. 2018.

Microbiome-driven allergic lung inflammation is ameliorated by short-chain fatty acids. Cait A, Hughes MR, Antignano F, Cait J, Dimitriu PA, Maas KR, Reynolds LA, Hacker L, Mohr J, Finlay BB, Zaph C, McNagny KM, Mohn WW. Mucosal Immunol. 2017 Oct 25. doi: 10.1038/mi.2017.75. PMID: 29067994

Towards standards for human fecal sample processing in metagenomic studies. Costea PI, Zeller G, Sunagawa S, Pelletier E, Alberti A, Levenez F, Tramontano M, Driessen M, Hercog R, Jung FE, Kultima JR, Hayward MR, Coelho LP, Allen-Vercoe E, Bertrand L, Blaut M, Brown JRM, Carton T, Cools-Portier S, Daigneault M, Derrien M, Druesne A, de Vos WM, Finlay BB, Flint HJ, Guarner F, Hattori M, Heilig H, Luna RA, van Hylckama Vlieg J, Junick J, Klymiuk I, Langella P, Le Chatelier E, Mai V, Manichanh C, Martin JC, Mery C, Morita H, O’Toole PW, Orvain C, Patil KR, Penders J, Persson S, Pons N, Popova M, Salonen A, Saulnier D, Scott KP, Singh B, Slezak K, Veiga P, Versalovic J, Zhao L, Zoetendal EG, Ehrlich SD, Dore J, Bork P. Nat Biotechnol. 2017 Nov;35(11):1069-1076. doi: 10.1038/nbt.3960. PMID: 28967887

Early infancy microbial and metabolic alterations affect risk of childhood asthma. Arrieta MC, Stiemsma LT, Dimitriu PA, Thorson L, Russell S, Yurist-Doutsch S, Kuzeljevic B, Gold MJ, Britton HM, Lefebvre DL, Subbarao P, Mandhane P, Becker A, McNagny KM, Sears MR, Kollmann T; CHILD Study Investigators, Mohn WW, Turvey SE, Finlay BB. Sci Transl Med. 2015 Sep 30;7(307):307ra152. doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aab2271. PMID: 26424567

Diet and specific microbial exposure trigger features of environmental enteropathy in a novel murine model. Brown EM, Wlodarska M, Willing BP, Vonaesch P, Han J, Reynolds LA, Arrieta MC, Uhrig M, Scholz R, Partida O, Borchers CH, Sansonetti PJ, Finlay BB. Nat Commun. 2015 Aug 4;6:7806. doi: 10.1038/ncomms8806. PMID: 26241678

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Bill Mohn

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Dr. William (Bill) Mohn is a Professor in the Department of Microbiology & Immunology in the Life Sciences Institute at the University of British Columbia. Bill earned his B.A. from Colgate University and his Ph.D. from Michigan State. He was a Research Associate at the National Research Council of Canada in Ottawa prior to moving to UBC as an Assistant professor in 1993.

Bill has done pioneering research on bacterial metabolism of chlorinated compounds, terpenoids, lignocellulose and steroids. He is a leader in microbial ecology and the development of methods to investigate highly complex microbial communities and is internationally recognized for his research.

Bill’s current research employs classical, molecular, genomic, and metagenomic approaches to study interactions between the host microbiome and immune system as well as bacterial metabolism of lignocellulose and steroids. He was awarded the UBC Killam Research Prize and the Canadian Society of Microbiologists Murray Award for career achievement. He was elected to both The American Academy of Microbiology and the Board of Directors of the International Society for Microbial Ecology. Pseudomonas mohnii was named in recognition of his pioneering contributions.

Bill has over 150 peer-reviewed publications and has led or co-led several interdisciplinary collaborative research projects. He served on the Editorial Boards of Applied & Environmental Microbiology and Microbial Ecology as well as on advisory boards for several major research initiatives, including the Earth and Biological Sciences Directorate Advisory Committee at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

Bill teaches microbial ecophysiology and has supervised 19 postdocs, 34 graduate students and 55 undergraduate researchers.

Examples of recent publications

Career publications

Levy-Booth DJ, Hashimi A, Roccor R, Liu L, Renneckar S, Eltis LD, Mohn WW. 2020. Genomics and metatranscriptomics of biogeochemical cycling and degradation of lignin-derived aromatic compounds in thermal swamp sediment. ISME J 15:879–893, doi.org/10.1038/s41396-020-00820-x

Amenyogbe N, Dimitriu P, Smolen KK, Brown EM, Shannon CP, Tebbutt SK, Cooper PJ, Marchant A, Ghoetghebuer T, Esser M, Finlay BB, Kollmann TR, Mohn WW. 2020. Biogeography of the relationship between the child gut microbiome and innate immune system. mBio 12:e03079-20, doi.org/10.1128/mBio.03079-20

Cait A, Cardenas E, Dimitriu P, Amenyogbe N, Dai D, Cait J, Sbihi H, Stiemsma L, Subbarao P, Mandhane PJ, Becker AB, Moraes TJ, Sears MR, Lefebvre DL, Azad MB, Kollmann T, Turvey SE, Mohn WW. 2019. Reduced genetic potential for butyrate fermentation in the gut microbiome of infants who develop allergic sensitization. J Allergy Clin Immunol, 144:1638-1647

Levy-Booth DJ, Giesbrecht IJW, Kellogg CTE, Heger TJ, D’Amore DV, Keeling PJ, Hallam SJ, Mohn WW. 2018. Seasonal and ecohydrological regulation of active microbial populations involved in DOC, CO2 and CH4 fluxes in temperate rainforest soil. ISME J 13:950-963, doi.org/10.1038/s41396-018-0334-3

Holert J, Cardenas E, Bergstrand L, Zaikova E, Hahn A, Hallam SJ, Mohn WW. 2018. Metagenomes reveal global distribution of bacterial steroid catabolism in natural, engineered and host environments. mBio 9:e02345-17, doi.org/10.1128/mBio.02345-17

 

 

Mike Fannon

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Mike Fannon is the Founder and CEO of BioIT Solutions, a company specializing in advanced computational, workflow and data management systems for biotechnology research, clinical diagnostics and drug development. Mike advises emerging biotechnology companies in business strategy, customer relationship management, laboratory automation and IT management. He is the chief architect of BioIT’s 1Platform4 software that captures, presents, and analyzes information along the full biotech product lifecycle. Previously, Mike was Vice President and Chief Information Officer of Human Genome Sciences, where he and his team designed computerized systems to manage HGS’s high-volume labs, R&D functions, product development and clinical trials. Mike earned an MBA in Operations Analysis from The American University, and a Bachelors degree in Physics from Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida.