IBB Announces Changes to External Advisory Board

The Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience (IBB) is excited to announce the following updates to its external advisory board.

Chris Gemmiti will serve as the new board chair. Gemmiti was the vice president of technical operations at CRISPR Therapeutics. He has dedicated his 25-year career to cell therapy and regenerative medicine, through both industry and academic roles. Before his last role, Gemmiti was the CMC lead for CASGEVY, the first CRISPR gene-edited therapeutic approved by any health authority (sickle cell anemia and b-thalassemia). He is also credited with establishing TechOps and CMC for the In Vivo delivery franchise, resulting in two programs currently in clinical trials.

Previously, he was the senior vice president of operations at Sentien, where he had broad operational responsibilities for the clinical-stage MSC company. He held a key role in opening and executing Sentien’s IND for Covid-19 patients experiencing multi-organ failure. Gemmiti joined Sentien from Harvard’s Wyss Institute, where he guided translation strategy and technical development of early-stage regenerative medicine technologies. While at Organogenesis Inc., he was the business unit director responsible for the clinical development, FDA approval (2012), and commercial launch of GINTUIT™, the first manufactured allogeneic cell therapy approved by BLA. He holds a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from Georgia Tech, where he was an NSF fellow in entrepreneurship, and a B.S. in biomedical engineering from Johns Hopkins University. Gemmiti has served on advisory boards at Georgia Tech, Johns Hopkins, Duke University, TERMIS, Cell Therapy Bioprocessing, and Alliance for Regenerative Medicine.

Erin Dasher will serve as vice chair of the board. She is the founder and CEO of Glui Inc., a global advertising company that creates engagement experiences in all digital environments. An accomplished entrepreneur, investor, and lawyer, Dasher has more than 25 years of experience in venture capital, private equity, M&A, and investment management. Her diverse career includes serving as principal and general counsel at STW Fixed Income Management, where she helped grow assets under management to more than $12 billion and co-led the firm's sale to Schroders.

Dasher began her career as an attorney at O’Melveny & Myers and Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, managing significant transactions in venture capital, public and private offerings, and M&A. Her passion for innovation and community involvement is evident through her support of the Georgia Tech community and local scientific research. Dasher serves on the advisory boards for the Parker H. Petit Institute for Bioengineering and Bioscience and the Alexander-Tharpe Athletic Fund at Georgia Tech and is a member, past board member, and president-elect of the ARCS Foundation, which supports STEM students at Morehouse, Emory, UGA, and Georgia Tech. She graduated magna cum laude from Cornell Law School and is a member of the Order of the Coif. She also holds an undergraduate degree in European intellectual history, graduating with honors from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Vincent Ling will serve as a new board member. Ling is the senior director of search and evaluation at Takeda Pharmaceuticals. For more than 30 years, Ling led successful research and business innovation groups in diverse biotechnology fields, including cell devices, protein engineering, biosimilars, stem cell differentiation, checkpoint inhibitors, and molecular evolution of antibody scaffolds. He has held leadership positions in large, midsized, and startup environments, creating practical biotherapeutics. His current interests lie in novel drug delivery technologies, which include drug particles, energy guidance, and biomaterial scaffolds. Ling currently serves as senior director within search and evaluation, and business development at Takeda, after directorship roles in external innovation and pharmaceutical sciences.

Before Takeda, Ling was head of biological sciences developing cell therapies for wet AMD at Neurotech. He has held positions including vice president at Dragonfly Sciences, managing all scientific operations and marketing functions, director of molecular genetics at Adnexus (Compound Therapeutics), and other scientific roles in discovery research at Genetics Institute and Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. Ling earned a B.A. in molecular biology at the University of California, Berkeley, followed by an M.S. and Ph.D. at the University of Illinois, and postdoctoral training at the Harvard Biological Laboratories.

IBB extends its gratitude to Anjali Kumar for her service as the board chair. Kumar will remain on the board as a member. Additionally, we would like to thank Bruce Rowan and Randy Schiestl for their service on the board.