Leadership
Peter de Keizer, PhDManaging Director
Peter de Keizer, PhD
Managing director
Peter de Keizer is the founder and managing director of Cleara Biotech B.V. He has 10+ years experience in valorization, intellectual property and preclinical research and development. He is and associate professor “Senescence in Cancer and Aging” at the University Medical Center Utrecht, the Netherlands. Peter was trained as a molecular biologist at Utrecht University and Harvard Medical School / Mass General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA (2004). He performed is PhD in 2009 in the field of FOXO signaling, knowledge he employed during his postdoctoral work at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, CA, USA (2012) to develop the first compounds to eliminate senescent cells: FOXO4-based peptides. In 2017, he showed the translational power eliminating at least some types of senescent cells in mice, which resulted in a restoration of tissue homeostasis in models for aging and chemotoxicity (Cell, 2017; cited >700 times). In 2018, he joined the UMC Utrecht, the Netherlands, to investigate subtypes of senescence, where he became associate professor in 2020. Peter has been awarded several awards for his work on targeting senescence, including “talent extraordinary”(2013), ambassadorship of the Dutch Cancer Society (2017). He is a recurring guest in mainstream media on topics of aging and/or senescence and is regularly approached by policy markers for advice. He is an active member of the European Association for Cancer Research and the International Cell Senescence Association. Through Cleara Biotech B.V. he is dedicated to merge academic knowledge on senescence subtypes to develop new compounds and bring these to the clinic against late state cancer and chronic diseases.
Michael Teifel, PhDHead of preclinical development
Michael Teifel, PhD
Head of preclinical development
Dr. Teifel is a leading industry executive with a career spanning over 20 years in various therapeutic areas, including endocrinology and oncology. He has deep experience in translating research into clinical development. Over the course of his career, he has gained particular expertise in the design and implementation of non-clinical development programs for small molecule drugs, peptides, targeted therapies, and biologics, as well as in the continued non-clinical evaluation of drug candidates for global registration.
Dr. Teifel held various positions in industry with increasing responsibilities in pharmacology, pharmacokinetics, toxicology and translational sciences. He began his career in industry at Roche Diagnostics in the area of delivery systems / non-viral gene therapy. In 1999, Dr. Teifel joined the biotech start-up, Munich Biotech in Martinsried, Germany as a co-founder. As head of pharmacology & toxicology, he was responsible for the evaluation and non-clinical development of a novel vascular targeting technology for the development of anti-tumor diagnostics and therapeutics. In 2004, Dr. Teifel started his first term at Aeterna Zentaris where he held several positions in the field of preclinical development and translational research. In his capacity he was, among others, responsible for preparation of the non-clinical dossier for registration of macimorelin in the U.S. and EU in the indication AGHD. In 2019, Dr. Teifel left Aeterna Zentaris to pursue his career in non-clinical research and development at Cleara Biotech in Utrecht, The Netherlands. As head of translational sciences at Cleara Biotech, he was responsible for translating research on anti-senescent drugs into pre-clinical development in age-related diseases and late-stage cancer and returned to Aeterna Zentaris in 2021 and has been a consultant to Cleara since then.
Kaushik Dave, PhD, MBAHead of Technical Operations
Kaushik Dave, PhD, MBA
Head of Technical Operations
Kaushik J. Dave, PhD, MBA is a Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology executive with 25 years at both Big Pharma and small entrepreneurial start-ups. He has strong corporate strategy / business development, technical, and commercialization experience with complicated supply chain products including personalized just-in-time dosing and chemistry, manufacturing and controls
Kaushik started his career in the pharmaceutical industry at Merck & Co. in 1991. He was a Chief Executive Officer of Actinium Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NYSE MKT: ATNM), a New York-based publicly listed biopharmaceutical company developing innovative targeted payload immunotherapeutics for the treatment of advanced cancers, where he built the company into a late phase company. Prior to that role, he spent 6 years in Senior leadership as Executive Vice President at Antares Pharma where he led the team to approval and launch of several combination products. He was a Board Member at both Antares and Actinium. He also held senior positions at Palatin Technologies Inc. and Schering-Plough. At Palatin, he was instrumental in obtaining the approval of the company’s biologic product.
Dr. Dave received a Pharmacy degree from the University of Bath, UK, a Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from University of Kansas, and a M.B.A. with concentration in Finance and Marketing from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Gerd Hummel, PhDPreclinical research and peptides
Gerd Hummel, PhD
Gerd has over 20 years of experience in the pharma- and biotech industry (R&D), including 11 years at Jerini AG (Berlin), directing medicinal chemistry and preclinical research activities, and 6 years at Oryzon Genomics (Barcelona) leading drug development in the field of epigenetic-based therapeutics. He has supported the discovery and development of several medicinal products from early research up to late stage clinical. He has broad experience in R&D of small molecules, peptides and peptidomimetics for a wide range of therapeutic areas. Additionally, he was leading several pharma collaborations and consulting for international biotech companies. He received his PhD in Organic Chemistry from the University of Konstanz with R. R. Schmidt on the total synthesis of complex carbohydrates, awarded with the “Byk-Preis”, and performed his postdoctoral studies at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in La Jolla and the University of Alberta in Edmonton. He has over 40 scientific publications and patent applications.
Yvonne Angell, PhDPeptide development
Yvonne Angell, PhD
Dr. Angell is a leader in the field of peptide therapeutics. She is President of the Boulder Peptide Foundation, as well as playing an active role on the scientific advisory boards for several conferences in the field. She has 20 years experience leading research teams in big pharma as well as small startup biotech companies, including Eli Lilly, Wyeth, Ipsen Biosciences, Affymax, ChemPartner and GenEdit. She has advanced R&D programs from early research up to late stage clinical, including one product to the market. She is an expert in hit-to-lead optimization, CMC and manufacturing of peptides, peptide conjugates, and targeted therapies. Dr. Angell is an expert in manufacturing and CMC of novel polymers to enable non-viral, non-lipid nanoparticle delivery and aids Cleara with peptide synthesis, hit-to-lead optimization, CMC and manufacturing. She received her PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and carried out postdoctoral research as an NIH Fellow at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. She is an author on many patents and has numerous scientific publications.
Edo BrinksmaProject control and finance
Edo Brinksma
Project control and Finance
Edo Brinksma has over 20 years of experience in finance and (project) control. Edo started his career at the Big-4 audit firm Deloitte. Edo has been working as a freelance (finance) consultant since the beginning of 2007. As a freelance consultant Edo was engaged in (senior) financial positions of public and private entitiessuch as UMC Utrecht, Princess Maxima Center, the municipality of Zwolle, Rijksdienst voor het Cultureel Erfgoed (RCE, Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands) etc
Clementine NichollsExecutive Assistant
Clementine Nicholls
Clementine Nicholls-Dohmen is the Cleara Biotech Executive Assistant with a very broad experience in many areas. Clementine studied at the Higher Institute for Interpreters and Translators in Brussels, Belgium and is consequently perfectly bilingual (Dutch, English) and can express herself in Spanish, French and German.
Furthermore Clementine gathered a lot of experience by assisting executive and sales officers in different international companies such as, Koninklijke Nederlandse Papierfabrieken, Conticommodity Services, Protein Technologies, Watt Global Media and Ariëns Schoonderbeek Advocaten, as well as management of the family firm as an independent entrepreneur. This makes Clementine a very efficient multitasker, well organized, able to meet deadlines and work well under pressure, show leadership in getting the job done and working successfully as a team player.
Research
Tobias Madl, PhD (Prof.)Head of structural biology, scientific co-founder
Tobias Madl, PhD (Prof.)
Tobias Madl is Full Professor for Integrative Structural Biology and Metabolomics at Medical University of Graz and has more than 15 years experience in structural biology and more than 140 publications in this field, including high-ranking journals. He works at the interface between structural biology, biophysics, cell biology and medicine. NMR spectroscopy and biophysical methods are the most important tools in his laboratory. In Graz, Tobias is Head of the inter-University Integrative Metabolism Research Center and Speaker of the International PhD program Biomolecular Structures and Interaction (BioMolStruct). Prior to joining Medical University of Graz in 2015, he was Research Group Leader at Technical University and Helmholtz Center Munich, Germany, and PostDoc at Utrecht University, The Netherlands, and Technical University Munich. Tobias obtained his PhD degree with distinction in Chemistry from the University of Graz, and conducted his PostDoc research focusing on Integrative Structural Biology of RNA-binding proteins at Technical University Munich. His research has been honored with several awards and fellowships. Tobias research passion is to reveal the mechanisms of how disordered proteins mediate signal transfer via an intricate network of protein interactions and post-translational modifications and to discover and develop novel strategies to target these interactions in ageing and age-related diseases.
Marjolein Baar, PhDResearch Management
Marjolein Baar, PhD
Marjolein Baar is a senior scientist at Cleara Biotech with 10+ years of experience in cellular senescence in cancer and aging. Her main interest is to study cellular processes that underlie organismal aging and she aims to provide starting points for the development of potential treatments. At Cleara she focuses on translation of Cleara’s lead compounds, employing both cell and in vivo models. She plans projects and oversees experiments regarding compound screening, efficacy in multiple model systems, and pharmacokinetics. Before joining Cleara, Marjolein obtained her Ph.D. degree at the Erasmus University medical center in Rotterdam. Here, she drove multiple projects all aimed to unravel the mechanisms and functions of age-related DNA damage responses. A major part of this research focused on characterizing senescent cells and their effect on tissue homeostasis during aging and cancer. Her work resulted in a publication in Cell and aided in the foundation of Cleara.
Esmée Bouma, BScLaboratory management
Esmée Bouma, BSc
Esmée Bouma is a fully certified in vivo research technician with 10+ years experience in cell biology, translational models and laboratory management. She maintains the professional laboratory environment where Cleara Biotech executes its Utrecht-based experiments. She graduated from the “Life Sciences” program of the Utrecht University of Applied Sciences. Prior to joining Cleara in 2019, Esmée developed herself as an experienced technician at Imperial College London and the University Medical Center Utrecht. Now she is a key player in management of the lab: maintaining laboratory supplies, equipment and proper storage and shipment of samples. With her broad practical experience in the lab, she is also responsible for conducting peptide efficacy studies, inventory, logistics and quality control experiments.
Diana Putavet, MScResearch and innovation
Diana Putavet, MSc
Diana has over 7+ of research experience into senescence and its role in aging and cancer. She is an expert on in vitro drugs screens, (mutant) p53 signaling and advanced in vivo cancer models. She has extensive experience with molecular and cellular techniques and translational research. She is co-inventor on two patents. Following her undergraduate work on how tumor-derived inflammatory factors affect chemotherapy response, she pursued a Ph.D. on the role of anti-senescence therapy in cancer and aging. As she moves forward in her career within Cleara, she wants to pursue meaningful research which can impact human health directly.