4IMMUNE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Director of the Center for Cellular Immunotherapy
Job Titles:
- Scientific Advisor
- Professor of Medicine
Jay S. Skyler, is a Professor of Medicine, Pediatrics, & Psychology, in the Division of Endocrinology Diabetes & Metabolism, Department of Medicine, University of Miami Leonard M. Miller School of Medicine, and is the Deputy Director for Clinical Research and Academic Programs at the University's Diabetes Research Institute. He also is an Adjunct Professor of Pediatrics at the Barbara Davis Center for Childhood Diabetes, University of Colorado at Denver. From 1993 until 2015, he was Chairman of the NIH (NIDDK)-sponsored Diabetes Prevention Trial - Type 1 (DPT-1) and its successor Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet, a nationwide (and global) network conducting clinical trials to interdict type 1 diabetes. During his tenure, 14 clinical intervention trials were initiated. Currently, he is Chair of the Strategy Advisory Group for INNODIA, a European consortium of academic and industry groups developing innovative approaches towards understanding and arresting type 1 diabetes.
Dr. Skyler is a graduate of Pennsylvania State University and Jefferson Medical College and did his postgraduate training in Internal Medicine and in Endocrinology & Metabolism at Duke University Medical Center where he was also on the faculty. After two years at the Hypertension-Endocrine Branch of the National Heart and Lung Institute, National Institutes of Health, he joined the University of Miami in 1976.
Dr. Skyler has been the recipient of multiple honors, including Banting Medal for Service from the American Diabetes Association, First George Eisenbarth Memorial Lecturer for the Immunology of Diabetes Society, Distinction in Endocrinology Award from the American College of Endocrinology, Mary Tyler Moore/S. Robert Levine Award for Distinction in Clinical Research from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation, Alumni Achievement Award from Jefferson Medical College, Josiah K. Lilly Award from the American Diabetes Association, Distinguished Faculty Scholar Award from the Faculty Senate of the University of Miami, Master of the American College of Physicians, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians (FRCP) of the United Kingdom.
Dr. Skyler served as 50 th national President of the American Diabetes Association, Chair of the Council of Subspecialty Societies (of the American College of Physicians), President of the Southern Society for Clinical Investigation, Vice-President of the International Diabetes Federation, and President of the International Diabetes Immunotherapy Group.
Dr. Skyler is a scientific advisor to the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and medical equipment industries, advising over 250 companies. He chaired the Scientific Advisory Board and served on the Board of Directors of MiniMed Inc. (NASDAQ - MNMD), developer of a novel insulin pump and the first continuous glucose monitoring system (company acquired by Medtronic in 2001 for $3.4 billion). He was on the Board of Directors of Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ - AMLN) from 1999 until that company was acquired by Bristol-Myers-Squibb and AstraZeneca in 2012 (for $7 billion), and during his tenure Amylin had three first-in-class products approved. From 2002 to 2023, he was on the Board of Directors of Dexcom, Inc., which had a successful IPO in April 2005 had its first continuous glucose sensor approved in 2006, and its seventh-generation sensor approved in 2022, and at the time he stepped off the Board in May 2023, Dexcom had a market cap of $46 billion. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Applied Therapeutics, which had a successful IPO in May 2019. He has also served on the Board of Directors of several private companies.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor With Tenure
- Scientific Advisory Board Member
Dr. Brehm has over 30 years of experience in biomedical research and his laboratory is focused on the study of autoimmunity and immunological responses to cancers and to transplantation with allogeneic tissues. He received his Ph.D. in 1999 from the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine. During Dr. Brehm's post-doctoral training at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School (UMCMS), he investigated how sequential viral infections impact the ability of a host to generated protective immunity and how viral infections influence transplantation tolerance that is induced by co-stimulation blockade. In 2008, he joined the Diabetes Division at the UMCMS to develop cutting edge mouse models to study human biology.
Dr. Brehm is currently an Associate Professor with Tenure in the Program in Molecular Medicine at the UMCMS and a member of the Diabetes Center of Excellence. Dr. Brehm's research program is focused on understanding how human effector T cells are regulated in the context of auto-immune disease, allo-immunity, tumor immunity.
His laboratory is developing "humanized" mice to more effectively study human T cell biology, and he is the Co-Director of the UMCMS Humanized Mouse Core. He is a standing member of the Hypersensitivity, Autoimmune, and Immune-mediated (HAI) Diseases Study Section for NIH and is a member of the review panel for Charles A. King Post-Doctoral fellowships. Dr. Brehm has published over 125 manuscripts and reviews and is supported by funding from the JDRF and NIH.
Pamela Layton, CEO and one of the founders of 4immune Therapeutics, started her career in finance at Bankers Trust Company and Chemical Bank in New York and went on to found multiple companies based on leading-edge technologies. She founded and led the TriGuard Group with its interactive software architecture from conception to market with a patented server-based security notification platform that was partnered with a subsidiary company of ADT for national distribution.
She then went on to form Parcell Laboratories around a novel adult stem cell discovered at Harvard and the Brigham. The cell was brought through the development process and into the clinic for use as a pure-cellular allograft for spinal fusion surgeries. Mrs. Layton was the president of Bioarray Genetics that developed a predictive diagnostic test for breast cancer treatments, followed by her position as CEO of Xenotherapeutics Foundation dedicated to the use of genetically modified swine skin as acute coverage for burn injuries, a technology that was recently recognized by an award from the American Burn Association.
She was awarded the distinction of Certified Tissue Bank Specialist by the American Association of Tissue Banks in 2013 and holds multiple U.S. and European patents on the ELA stem cell (one of only three stem cells to be patented worldwide) and its therapeutic applications, as well as the patent for the Interactive Information Management Network that allows security system notifications to be routed per database configurations for information flow optimization.
Pamela sits on the board of The Pioneer Institute, the Advisory Board of Mass Innovation Network and multiple emerging companies.
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Chairman of the Board
- Founding Partner
- Founding Partner and Chairman of 4immune Therapeutics
- Managing Director for the Northeast for Equity Residential
Paul L. Barrett is the founding partner and Chairman of 4immune Therapeutics and is the Director of Government Relations and Operations.
Over his professional career Mr. Barrett has spent considerable time in both public service through city government in the City of Boston and in state government in Rhode Island and in the private sector. In his private business career, he's been a principal in real estate development, finance, the energy sector, government advisory work, and other related businesses.
Mr. Barrett was formerly the Director of the Boston Redevelopment Authority the sole planning and development agency for the City of Boston and served in that capacity until he was appointed by Rhode Island Governor Bruce Sundlun, to Rhode Island State Secretary of Economic Development as well as Executive Director of the Rhode Island Port Authority. He also served as served as Executive Director of several business loan programs as well as two state bond-financing agencies that issued state bond financing as well as state guarantees for economic development projects.
After he left government service, Mr. Barrett was co-founder of National Energy Choice, the first company licensed in Massachusetts and New England to sell retail electricity upon the deregulation of the electricity markets. He later became the Northeast Director for the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust, a $5 Billion fixed income fund that invests union funds and public pension funds in multi-family housing developments across the country.
Mr. Barrett became the Managing Director for the Northeast for Equity Residential (EQR: NYSE) a residential Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) and responsible for the permitting and development of over $700 MM in development in Boston and Cambridge, He was the founding Chairman of the Xenotherapeutics Foundation dedicated to the use of genetically modified swine skin as coverage for acute burn injuries.
In 2013 Barrett authored the Walsh for Mayor Economic Development Plan and was co-author of Massachusetts Republican Governor Charlie Baker's Economic Development Plan when Governor Baker was elected to the governor's office in 2014.
Mr. Barrett, is a graduate of Boston College and earned a Master's Degree in Education from Harvard University Graduate School of Education and is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Business - Greater Boston Executive Program.