Guriq S. Basi

Dr. Basi currently consults with KALGENE INC on research and pre-clinical development of KG207. Of direct relevance to his role with KALGENE INC, Dr. Basi was directly responsible for the humanization of bapineuzumab as a member of the Alzheimer's Immunotherapy team at Elan. As the prototype antibody advanced in clinical development for Alzheimer's disease, the learnings from Bapineuzmab by the team at Elan paved a path for the successful development of subsequent anti-Abeta targeted therapies. Dr. Basi also led Elan’s research effort to discover a small molecule for arresting amyloid production in the brain, which culminated with the clinical development a selective gamma-secretase inhibitor for the treatment of Alzheimer’s disease. During his career at Elan Pharmaceuticals Inc., Dr. Basi held positions of increasing responsibility in pre-clinical R&D, culminating as Chief Science & Technology Officer. His management responsibilities at Elan included head of pre-clinical development at Neotope Biosciences (an Elan business unit focussed in the discovery and development of biologics for the treatment of diseases associated with protein misfolding), vice-president of extramural research, senior director of discovery research and head of molecular biology. As CS&TO at Elan, Dr Basi was charged with expanding the company’s scientific focus beyond neurologic disease, and leveraging advances in technology across indications to identify novel therapeutic opportunities. In the interim Dr. Basi has served as CSO at a number of early stage as well as commercial biotech companies, including Sarepta Therapeutics Inc., Circuit Therapeutics, Symic Biomedical, as well as SVP Research at Adverum Biotechnologies.

Prior to joining Elan, Dr. Basi was a staff scientist at Protein Design Labs/PDL Biopharma. Dr. Basi undertook postdoctoral research in neurobiology at Stanford University, received his PhD in Biological Chemistry from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and his BA in Biochemistry from The Ohio State University.