Board of Directors

Spearheading Cell Treatment Globally

Dr. Xu has served on the Board of Directors since March 2016. In November 2016, the board of directors elected Dr. Xu as president and chief executive officer. He brings over 15 years of leadership experience in the biopharmaceutical industry and has contributed to numerous successful product launches. In 2009, Dr. Xu founded Boyalife Group, a global diversified life sciences holding company and is currently the principal shareholder of ThermoGenesis Holdings, Inc. Prior to founding Boyalife, Dr. Xu served as a project leader at Pfizer, as a director of research at two publicly traded companies and as a vice president at Founder Group. Dr. Xu’s expertise spans several diverse therapeutic areas, including arthritis & inflammation, cardiovascular disease, autoimmunity, oncology, and diabetes. He has authored over forty publications and has been recognized by numerous professional societies for his contributions to biomedical research. Dr. Xu received his Ph.D. in immunology from Washington University School of Medicine (St. Louis, USA) and an executive MBA from Emory University (Atlanta, USA).

Dr. Thomis was appointed to the Board of Directors in January 2017. He brings more than 40 years of experience in drug discovery, clinical development and commercialization. After a short period in academia, Dr. Thomis played a major role in the development and registration of eight commercially successful cardiovascular and infectious disease products while at Bristol-Myers Squibb. He has also held senior clinical development roles at Quintiles, a global provider of pharmaceutical services, where he was instrumental in the growth of clinical research in Europe. He also specialized in designing and implementing effective regional and global clinical strategies as well as repositioning and restructuring organizations. Dr. Thomis is currently Chairman of the Board of Glasgow Memory Clinic Holdings, a private company involved in the conduct of clinical studies in Alzheimer and other neurodegenerative diseases.  He is also a member of the Board of Venous Stent BV, a Dutch private company developing a new venous stent. He previously served on the EMEA and American management boards of Quintiles as well as on the board of PDP Courier Services, Idis Group Holdings, Quotient Sciences, WEP Clinical and NovaQuest LLC. Dr. Thomis is one of our independent directors pursuant to applicable NASDAQ rules and is qualified as an Audit Committee Financial Expert as defined in Regulation S-K Item 407(d)(5)(ii).

Dr. Medford was appointed to the Board in February 2017. He is chairman and CEO of Covanos, Inc, an Atlanta-based development stage medical device company, developing advanced computational technologies for the non-invasive diagnosis of cardiovascular disease. He is a senior executive with over 25 years private and public company experience as Chief Executive Officer and Board member of multiple public and private biotechnology, medical technology, digital health and other health related companies, organizations and research institutes. Until December, 2022, Dr. Medford served as Chairman of Board of Directors of the Center for Global Health Innovation (CGHI, 501c3) and its operating division, the Global Health Crisis Coordination Center.  Previously, he was Chairman of Global Health ATL, Founding Vice-Chairman of the Georgia Global Health Alliance and a past Chairman of Georgia BIO.  He is a board-certified physician, serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Global Center for Medical Innovation (GCMI, 501c3) at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT), External Advisory Board for GIT’s Petit Institute of Bioscience and Bioengineering, Chairman of Oncospherix, Inc, a development stage oncology therapeutics company, Inaugural Fellow of the Council on Basic Cardiovascular Sciences of the American Heart Association, and a past member of Biotechnology Innovation Organization’s (BIO) Board of Directors (2002-2014), Co-Chairman of BIO’s Bioethics Committee, Chairman of the BIO’s 2009 International Convention Steering Committee (held for the first time in Atlanta, Georgia) and a member of the Advisory Council of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute.  From 1995 to 2009, Dr. Medford served as co-founder, President, CEO and Director of publicly-held AtheroGenics, Inc (Nasdaq: AGIX) and was a founding Board Director of publicly-held Inhibitex, Inc. (Nasdaq: INHX).  Dr. Medford is one of our independent directors pursuant to applicable NASDAQ rules.

Dr. Biao Xi has served as Chief Scientific Officer, Co-founder, and member of the Board of Miracure Biotechnology since March 2022. Miracure is an early-stage drug discovery company based in San Diego developing new drug candidates for oncology and immunology applications. Previously, Dr. Xi has served as CEO at ImmunePoint Inc (2018-2021), VP of Translational Study at Theragene Pharmaceuticals, Chief Scientist for China at ACEA Biosciences, an Agilent company (2006-2018), and Research Asst. Professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (1999-2006). Dr. Xi received a master’s degree from  the Chinese Academy of Sciences and a Ph.D. from Zhejiang University in China.  Dr. Xi is one of our independent directors pursuant to applicable NASDAQ rules.

Dr. James Xu is a practicing attorney and licensed CPA in the State of Illinois. Dr. Xu is also a Patent Lawyer licensed by U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Dr. Xu has been practicing patent laws, corporate laws and tax laws for over 25 years. Dr. Xu previously has served as a member of the Board of Directors of ThermoGenesis Holdings Inc between November 2016 to December 2019. Dr. Xu received his Master of Science in Electrical Engineering and MBA from the University of Mississippi, J.D. and LLM degrees in Taxation from DePaul Law School, an LLM in Intellectual Properties and LLM in Information Technologies from John Marshall Law School, PsyD from California Southern University, and DBA from University of Missouri-St. Louis.  Dr. Xu is one of our independent directors pursuant to applicable NASDAQ rules.

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