Dr. Weintraub has more than 30 years experience in a biomedical research career that has focused on molecular, cellular, clinical and therapeutic aspects of glycoprotein hormones, related growth factors, thyroid hormone and their receptors. He is the author of over 300 scientific papers, reviews and book chapters. In addition has several issued and pending patents related to the cloning of the human TSH beta subunit, development of recombinant TSH, and development of superactive analogs of TSH, gonadotropins and related cystine knot growth factors. He is well known for his basic science work related to pituitary and recombinant TSH synthesis, glycosylation and action, affinity chromatography as well as clinical aspects of syndromes of inappropriate TSH secretion. In addition he was among the first to recognize and define the clinical and molecular aspects of thyroid hormone resistance, TSH- producing pituitary tumors and ectopic production of placental hormones and free subunits by various tumors. He is particularly recognized for his role as coinventor, codeveloper and a leading investigator in the international clinical trials of recombinant TSH, approved by the FDA in 1998 for the diagnosis of thyroid cancer, which has revolutionized the approach world -wide to that disease.

Dr. Weintraub obtained his BA from Princeton University magna cum laude where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa and his MD from Harvard University cum laude where he was elected to Alpha Omega Alpha. His postdoctoral clinical and basic science training were at Harvard and the National Insitutes of Health and he later served as Assistant Professor at Harvard. In 1972 he became the first Director of the NIH Endocrinology Training Program and later Chief of its Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology Branch, positions he held until 1995. In both these positions he helped train a generation of leading international academic and clinical endocrinologists. From 1996- 2001 he was Professor of Medicine at the University of Maryland at Baltimore, Chief of the Laboratory of Molecular Endocrinology of the Institute of Human Virology of the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute and Director of the Thyroid Cancer Program of the Greenebaum Cancer Center. He has received numerous international awards and lectureships, is a member of many scientific research organizations, served on several journal editorial boards as well as on several advisory committees to NIH and various universities. He has also served on the Council of the Endocrine Society and the American Thyroid Association as well as President of the Maryland Endocrine Society.

 

 

Mariusz W. Szkudlinski, MD, PhD
Executive Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer & Co-Founder

Dr. Szkudlinski has more than twenty years of experience in biomedical research. He is an author or co-author of more than 70 scientific papers, reviews, book chapters, patents and patent applications. His work includes a landmark paper entitled "Engineering human glycoprotein hormone superactive analogs" that has been recognized as "the advent of super hormone drugs" and an important achievement in protein engineering (Analysis Research News, Nature Biotechnology 14, 1224, 1996; Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, 4th Edition, The Royal Society of Chemistry, London 2000). In addition to his design of the first superactive analogs of glycoprotein hormones and VEGF, Dr. Szkudlinski contributed to better understanding of changes in the bioactivity of glycoprotein hormones during evolution and the development of novel strategies in the design of therapeutically useful cystine-knot growth factor superactive analogs. His previous work also includes studies on prostaglandins, local renin-angiotensin system, production and characterization of recombinant TSH isoforms, development of various bioassays as well as elucidation of the role of carbohydrate chains in TSH activity, metabolic clearance and organ distribution. Dr. Szkudlinski and his colleagues have identified novel domains in TSH and gonadotropins important in hormone-receptor interaction, designed long-acting analogs based on site-specific pegylation, glycosylation or subunit linking,, and more recently provided new important insights into the mechanism of hormone dependent and independent receptor activation.

Dr. Szkudlinski obtained his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Medical University of Lodz in Poland. His postdoctoral training included the Institute of Hormone and Fertility Research in Hamburg (Germany) and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda. Prior to co-founding Trophogen, Inc., Dr. Szkudlinski was an Assistant Professor and Chief of Protein Engineering Section in the Laboratory of Molecular Endocrinology in the University of Maryland. In that capacity, he was responsible for several structure-function and protein engineering projects within the Laboratory of Molecular Endocrinology and the Division of Basic Science of the Institute of Human Virology (UMBI). He has received numerous awards for excellence in research, presented his work at many national and international meetings, lectured at various universities, including Harvard Reproductive Science Center. He has trained numerous students and postdoctoral fellows. He serves as a reviewer in several leading journals and was invited to several national and international scientific panels. He was a member of the American Thyroid Association Research Committee and a member of Editorial Board of Molecular and Structural Endocrinology at Frontiers in Endocrinology.

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Staff

Dr. Avijit Majumdar, PhD
Scientist, Research & Development

Dr. Avijit Majumdar, Ph.D., received his doctoral degree specializing in Cell & Molecular Biology from the School of Biomedical Sciences at Kent State University, Ohio on 2008. During his doctoral research, he made two key discoveries which include determining the mechanism of action of anti-angiogenic drug fumagillin at the cellular level and identifying novel tumor suppressor function of MetAP2/P67 which is a known regulator of protein synthesis machinery. He was the recipient of the ‘Excellence in Research’ and Research Grant Award’ at Kent State University. Following his doctoral degree, he joined as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Pharmacology at Case Western Reserve University, Ohio, where he worked on the posttranslational modification of retinoic acid transporter protein, cellular retinoic acid binding protein – II (CRABP-II). Following this he joined as a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology & Nutrition at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and was later promoted to the Senior Research Scientist position. His research was focused on understanding the mechanistic role of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA), a widely used marker for determining the recurrence of colorectal cancer (CRC), in promoting CRC metastasis and identification of novel prognostic markers for early detection of aggressively proliferating CRC. He received the ‘Poster of Distinction’ award in the ‘Digestive Disease Week’ annual conference on 2013. He is currently working on identification of novel therapeutic strategies for metastatic thyroid cancer patients.

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