Minzhen Xu, as the senior founding experimental scientist of Antigen Express, has been an integral member of Antigen Express, Inc from it’s beginning. Dr. Xu received his MD from the Second Shanghai Medical School in China in 1978 and his PhD in Virology and Immunology from the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in 1991. His research at Antigen Express is focused on generating more potent vaccines and immunotherapies for infectious diseases and tumors. To accomplish this he is working on enhancing T helper cell activation by suppressing the expression of MHC class II-associated invariant chain and by coupling Ii-Key segment to MHC class II epitopes.

Doug Powell earned his PhD. in Genetics at the George Washington University and did his thesis research in the Laboratory of Immunoregulation at the National Institues of Health. He also completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Gladstone Institutes of Virology at the University of California, San Francisco. Following his postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Powell took a job at Dupont Pharmaceutical Company in Wilmington, Delaware in the Virology Laboratory where he worked on the development of antiviral drugs for the treatment of HIV/AIDS. He then joined Millennium Pharmaceuticals where he ran a program identifying cellular targets for therapeutic intervention in the treatment of HIV/AIDS. Dr. Powell recently joined Antigen Express where he is developing vaccine strategies for prevention of HIV infection and will also apply the vaccine technologies employed by Antigen Express for vaccines to prevent infection with other viruses including SARS, smallpox and other viruses that could be used as agents of biological terror.

Dr. John Zinckgraf joined Antigen Express in May 2005 to accelerate development of a pandemic influenza vaccine. He is engaged in the design and immune assessment of potential prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines for both flu and HIV. Dr. Zinckgraf received his Ph.D. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Connecticut where his primary research focus was DNA vaccine development and delivery. He tested novel DNA vaccines for HIV and HBV, using various inducible and constitutive promoters as well as different polyadenlylation sequences. Such genetic elements can regulate antigen synthesis and consequently the magnitude of the immune response to a vaccine. Following his doctoral work, Dr. Zinckgraf was a postdoctoral fellow at Epimmune, Inc. in San Diego, California where he pursued pre-clinical development of several infectious disease vaccines, using the company’s DNA vaccine mini-gene technology. Dr. Zinckgraf returned to the University of Connecticut as a postdoctoral scientist to develop vaccine delivery systems for foot-and-mouth disease virus.

Nikoletta L. Kallinteris became a member of Antigen Express in November of 2000. Prior to that she attended the University of Pennsylvania - East Stroudsburg where she graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor’s degree in Pre-Medicine in 1997 and the University of Connecticut where she acquired a Master’s degree in Immunology in 2000. Nikoletta completed her Thesis in Dr. Robert Clark’s laboratory of autoimmune diseases at UConn Health Center. Her research focused on the autoimmune mediated pathology of Multiple Sclerosis relapse as related to T-cell biology. During the time of her thesis research, she taught biology laboratory courses at the University of Connecticut. Her mission at Antigen Express involves vaccine development applicable to malignant disease via novel characteristics of the MHC class II invariant chain (Ii) chain. She currently leads projects coupling an Ii-key moiety to antigenic epitopes of cancerous proteins enhancing Th1 immunogenicity.

Xueqing Lu joined Antigen Express in October of 2000. His research engages in the design and cloning of expressible antisense gene constructs into DNA vaccine vectors evaluated for Ii-suppression in situ. Dr. Lu also explores the induction of MHC class II(+)/Ii(-) phenotype via RNAi delivery into tumor cell lines. Xueqing received his PhD in Chemistry from Shanghai University of Chinese Traditional Medicine and Pharmacology in 1999.

Margaret Sposato joined Antigen Express in May 2006. She is a valuable member of the research team developing novel T helper cell and DNA vaccine technologies for H5N1 influenza and HIV. Her experience with pre-clinical animal models and immunology makes her a versatile and valuable addition to a number of projects ongoing at Antigen Express. Prior to joining the company, Margaret worked on projects relating to cancer immunotherapies. She has also worked extensively in the area of stem cell research at ViaCell, Inc., being an integral part of a team to successfully bring their first proprietary product into the clinic. Her technical expertise ranges from multiple in-vivo techniques, flow cytometry analysis, rare cell population isolation, cell culture, in-vitro functional assays and animal facility management. Margaret received her Bachelors Degree in Biology from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1999.

Shuzhen Wu functions as versatile member of Antigen Express. Since her start in 2001, she has assisted in the evaluation of Ii-reverse gene constructs (Ii-RGCs) by transient and stable transfection using human and murine tumor cell lines. Her technical expertise in ELISA and FACS analysis along with cell culture maintenance and propagation have contributed tremendously to AE projects. Shuzhen received her Bachelors degree from Jiangxi Agricultural University in 1984.

Veronica Zielinski joined the Antigen Express team as a Research Associate in June 2007. After graduating from Anna Maria College in 2001 with a Bachelors Degree in Biology she became an employee for ViaCell, Inc. Her contributions within the company were on such projects as CB001 Clinical Trials, Phase II processes and USSC’s. In April, 2006 Beckman Coulter presented her with a certificate of achievement on becoming a trained operator of an FC500 Flow Cytometer. Her previous experience will play a strong part in assisting Antigen Express further vaccine technologies for H5N1 influenza.

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