Scientists

Yuan Zhao, Ph.D.
Senior Scientist


Yuan Zhao received his BS degree in Biochemistry from Hebei University and his MS degree in Cell and Molecular Biology from the Shanghai Institute of Cell Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences.  He received his Ph.D. degree from the Institute of Biological Chemistry at Washington State University in 1993 and did his post-doctoral research in Purdue University.  

He has extensive experience in the biotechnology industry.   He worked as a project manager and senior scientist for many years in the Biotechnology Department of Mead Westvaco Corporation and ArborGen LLC to develop forest biotechnology products.  Yuan joined Unigen Pharmaceuticals in February 2004 as a Senior Scientist responsible for Unigen’s Genomics research.   

Dr. Zhao has nine research papers published in peer-reviewed journals.

Ji-Fu Zhao, Ph.D.
Natural Product Chemist


Dr. Zhao received his B.S. in Pharmacognosy from Liaoning College of Traditional Chinese Medicine. Then he went to graduate school in Shengyang Pharmaceutical University for his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Analytical and Pharmaceutical Chemistry.
Dr. Zhao studied structures and anti-complements properties of polysaccharides from plants at Dr. H. Yamada’s group in Oriental Medicine Institutes Japan. He also did his dost-doctoral research on chemopreventive effects of green teas and grapes at Columbia University.  Dr. Zhao continued his research on natural products with cancer prevention and therapeutic effects at AMC Cancer Research Center and then Applied Food Science as a R&D scientist.

Dr. Zhao holds 11 issued and pending patents and 27 peer-reviewed publications in the field of natural product research.

Bruce P. Burnett, PhD
Director of Screening and Discovery


Dr. Burnett received his BS degrees in Biology and Chemistry from Eastern Washington University in 1987 and his MS and PhD degrees from Yale University (1989,1992).  His PhD focused on the mechanisms of DNA recombination and repair.  He went on to postdoctoral studies at Yale and the University of Colorado's Health Sciences Center.  His postdoctoral work focused on the genetics of protein folding and HIV replication confirming a key intermediate in the retroviral replication process first proposed by Nobel Prize Recipient Dr. David Baltimore winning an NIH fellowship award for his work in the process.

Dr. Burnett has worked for several different biotech/pharmaceutical companies during his career including Sulzer Biologics, Vitro Diagnostics, Sangamo Biosciences, Cytokine Sciences, and Enzyco, Inc. He has been instrumental in the development of products for immune modulation, gene regulation with targeted transcription factors, development of cell immortalization technology for hormone producing cells, developed processes for the purification of bone growth promoting factors and various other marketable products and technologies. Dr. Burnett has extensive experience in protein chemistry, enzymology, cell biology, molecular biology and genomics, immunology, bacteriology, methods development, and process development.

He is the recipient of several SBIR grants through NIH and has served on the ad hoc study section for review of SBIR awards.  He speaks regularly to a wide variety of audiences on the state of science and biotechnology in Colorado and the nation. Dr. Burnett also has over ten peer-reviewed publications in top-level journals.

Abeysinghe A. Padmapriya, Ph.D.
Vice President of Organic Synthesis and Manufacturing

Dr. Padma joined Unigen Pharmaceuticals in 1996 as the director of organic synthesis where he developed short novel synthesis for natural products. His experience and knowledge in the fields of natural products and pharmaceutical development are quite extensive and directly replicated in his work.

Padmapriya earned his B.Sc. in Chemistry from the University of Sri Lanka. He further studied at Ceylon Institute of Industrial Research and earned his Ph.D. at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada, in Organic Synthesis of Natural Products. Abeysinghe did his post-doctoral research at McGill University in Montreal and further went on to study the synthesis of novel anti-cancer natural product based compounds at the University of Virginia under the direction of Professor Sydney M. Hecht.

Prior to joining Unigen, Padmapriya worked in various research avenues including positions with Hybridon Inc., in Worchester, MA, and Nexagen, Inc, in Boulder, CO. Padmapriya has co-authored multiple publications and many patents.

Qi Jia, Ph.D.
Vice President, Scientific Affairs


Dr. Qi Jia received his B.S. in Medicinal Chemistry from Beijing Medical University in 1985 and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Texas Christian University in 1995.
Dr. Jia has studied ethnomedicinal plants for twenty years. His research projects at Beijing Medical University focused on Traditional Chinese Medicine with anti-tumor, anti-inflammation & immune stimulation activities; and his postgraduate works at TCU focused on discovery of drug leads from Bolivian medicinal plants for the treatment of HIV infection, cancer, tuberculosis and fungal infections.

Since joining Unigen in 1995, Dr. Jia has established collaborations with six organizations around the world to collect indigenous medicinal plants and has built up a proprietary natural product library with thousands of collections. He has been instrumental in drug discovery technology platform development especially in the area of high throughput fractionation & purification, online data collection, structure dereplication, lead discovery, chemo-informatic and product development. Dr. Jia has developed, patented and commercialized ACI test as a high throughput and sensitive quantification method to quantify 17-ketosteroids in urine specimens.

Dr. Jia holds 15 issued and pending patents and has co-authored 26 presentations at international science conferences and 24 peer-reviewed publications in the field of natural product chemistry.

CURRICULUM VITAE: Sung-Sick Woo, Ph.D

Chief Operating Officer/Chief Scientific Officer
Office Ph: +82-41-529-1500
UniGen, Inc.
Fax: +82-41-529-1599
#200-1 Songjung-Ri, Byeongcheon-Myeon
E-Mail:  sswoo@unigen.net
Cheonan-Si, Chungnam 330-863, S. Korea       

Education History:
Ph.D.       Genetics, Texas A&M University, USA, 1991-1996.
M.S.        Agronomy, Seoul National University, S. Korea, 1986-1988.
B.S.        Agronomy, Seoul National University, S. Korea, 1982-1986.

Professional Experience:
2004-current    Chief Operating Officer/Chief Scientific Officer, UniGen, Inc.
2000-2003    Chief Scientific Officer, UniGen, Inc., S. Korea.
2000-2001    Adjunct Assistant Professor, Clemson University Genomics Institute (CUGI), USA.
1999-2000    Assistant Professor, Dept. of Agronomy, Konkuk University, S. Korea.
1998-1999    Research Associate/Assistant Professor & DNA Sequencing Center Group Leader, Clemson University Genomics Institute (CUGI), USA.
1996-1998    Postdoctoral Researcher, Dept. of Vegetable Crops, University of California, Davis, USA.

Honors & Awards:
    1996        Elected Member of The Honor Society of Phi Kappa Phi.
    1995        J. Roy Quinby Graduate Fellowship, Texas A&M university.
    1992        Elected Member of Gamma Sigma Delta, The Honor Society of Agriculture.
    1992 Summer    Research Fellowship, The Program for Plant Genetics &  Plant Breeding, Texas A&M university.

CURRICULUM VITAE: Dong-Seon Kim, Ph.D

Senior Researcher/Team Leader
Office Ph: +82-41-529-1531
UniGen, Inc.
Fax: +82-41-529-1599
#200-1 Songjung-Ri, Byeongcheon-Myeon
E-Mail: dskim@unigen.net
Cheonan-Si, Chungnam 330-863, S. Korea        

Education History:
Ph.D.       Biochemistry, Chungnam National University, Korea, 1991-1996.
M.S.        Chemistry, Chungnam National University, Korea, 1989-1991.
B.S.         Chemistry, Chungnam National University, Korea, 1982-1989.

Professional Experience:
2003-current
Senior Researcher/Team Leader, Natural Product Research Team, UniGen Inc., S. Korea.
2000-2003
Chief Researcher, Dept. of Natural Product & Drug Formulation, DongKook Pharmaceutical Research Institute, USA.
1997-1999
Postdoctoral Researcher, Dept. of Medicinal Chemistry & Pharmacognosy, University of Illinois, Chicago, USA.
1996-1997
Postdoctoral Researcher, Dept. of Natural Product Research, Korea Research Institute of Bioscience & Biotechnology, Daejeon, Korea
1990-1996
Research Associate, Dept. of Natural Product Research, Korea Ginseng Research Institute, Daejeon, Korea

Honors & Awards:
2002
New Prouduct Development Award, Dongkook Pharmaceutical Co.
1996-1997
Research Fellowship, The Program for Korea Science and Engineering Foundation.

CURRICULUM VITAE: Kang-Woo Lee, Ph.D

Senior Researcher
Office Ph: +82-41-529-1541
UniGen, Inc.
Fax: +82-41-529-1599
#200-1 Songjung-Ri, Byeongcheon-Myeon
E-Mail: kwlee@unigen.net
Cheonan-Si, Chungnam 330-863, S. Korea       

Education History:
Ph.D        Analytical Chemistry, Chungbuk National University, S. Korea,
1990-1995.
M.S.        Analytical Chemistry, Chungbuk National University, S. Korea,
1988-1990.
B.S.        Chemistry, Chungbuk National University, S. Korea,
1984-1988.

Professional Experience:
2002-current   Senior Researcher, Natural Product Research Team, UniGen, Inc.
2000-2001      Full-time Researcher, Research Institute for Development of Pharmaceutical Resources, Chungbuk National University,
S. Korea.
1998-1999      Part-time Lecturer, Dept. of Chemistry, Chungbuk National University, S. Korea.
1995-1998     Senior Researcher, Institute of Korea Drug Co., S. Korea.
1993-1995     Full-time Assistant, Dept. of Chemistry, Chungbuk National University, S. Korea.

CURRICULUM VITAE: Seon-Gil Do, Ph.D

Senior Researcher/Team Leader
Office Ph: +82-41-529-1552
UniGen, Inc.
Fax: +82-41-529-1599
#200-1 Songjung-Ri, Byeongcheon-Myeon
E-Mail: sgildo@unigen.net
Cheonan-Si, Chungnam 330-863, S. Korea       

Education History:
Ph.D.    Vet. Biochemistry, Seoul National University, S. Korea, 1998-2002.
M.S.     Vet. Biochemistry, Seoul National University, S. Korea, 1990-1994.
B.S.      College of Vet. Medicine, Seoul National University, S. Korea, 1986-1990.

Professional and Other Experience:
2003-current    Senior Researcher/Team Leader, Bioassay and Discovery Team, UniGen, Inc.
2001-2003       Senior Researcher, Sungae-Biotech Co., S. Korea.
1997-2001       Research and Teaching Assistant, Experimental Animal Center and  Dept. of Medical Genetics, College of Medicine, Hallym University, S. Korea.
1994-1997       Researcher, Toxicology Lab, Central Research Institute, Kyung-Nong Co., S. Korea.
1993-1994       Research Assistant, Experimental Animal Center, College of Medicine, Hallym Univ., S. Korea.
1990-1992       Military Service (First Lieutenant)
1990 Spring     Licensed DVM by Korean government

CURRICULUM VITAE: Sun-Young Sung, Ph.D

Senior Researcher/Team Leader
Office Ph: +82-41-529-1571
UniGen, Inc.
Fax: +82-41-529-1502
#200-1 Songjung-Ri, Byeongcheon-Myeon
E-Mail: sysung@unigen.net
Cheonan-Si, Chungnam 330-863, S. Korea       

Education History:
Ph.D            Pharmaceutical chemistry, Albert-Ludwigs University Frieburg, Germany, 1991-1995.
M.S.            Pharmaceutical chemistry, Gangwon National University, S. Korea, 1988-1990.
B.S.            Pharmacy, Gangwon National University, S. Korea, 1984-1987.

Professional Experience:
2001-current     Senior Researcher/Team Leader, NCE Development Team, UniGen, Inc.
2000-2001        Researcher, Basic Research Center, Gangwon National Univ., S. Korea.
1998-1999        Senior Researcher, Central Research Institute, Boryung Pharm. Inc. S. Korea.
1996-1998        Postdoctoral Researcher, Dept. of Pharmacy, Gangwon  National University, S. Korea.

Research & Other Experience:
1996-1997        Lecturer, Dept. of Pharmacy, Gangwon National University.
1994 Spring      Teaching Assistance, Dept. of Pharmacy, Albert-Ludwigs University Freiburg, Germany
1991 Summer    Language course of Goethe Institute Freiburg, Germany
1990-1991         Research and Teaching Assistant, Dep. of Pharmacy, Gangwon National University.
1988-1990         Research Assistant, Dep. of Pharmacy, Gangwon National University.


CURRICULUM VITAE: Young-Chul Lee, Ph.D.

Senior Researcher
Office Ph: +82-41-529-1500
UniGen, Inc.
Fax: +82-41-529-1599
#200-1 Songjung-Ri, Byeongcheon-Myeon
E-Mail: yclee@unigen.net
Cheonan-Si, Chungnam 330-863, S. Korea       

Education History:
Ph.D.       Department of Biochemistry, College of Medicine, Chungnam
               National University, S. Korea, 2000-2003.
M.S.        Department of Biochemistry, College of Medicine, Chungnam
              National University, S. Korea, 1998-2000.
B.S.        Department of Biochemistry, College of Natural Science,
              Chungnam National University, S. Korea, 1992-1998.

Research & Professional Experience:
2003-current    Senior Researcher, Bioassay & Discovery team, UniGen Inc., S. Korea.
2000-2003       Research Assistant, Department of Biochemistry, College of Medicine, Chungnam University
1998-2000       Research Assistant, Department of Isotope, College of Medicine,
Chungnam University



 
 
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© 2004