Newswise — PHILADELPHIA – (Jan. 28, 2015) – The Wistar Institute is pleased to announce the appointment of Dustin Shilling, Ph.D., as Senior Associate, Licensing and Business Development. His appointment completes Wistar’s forward looking and progressive business development and commercialization team.
The team is taking a fresh and proactive approach to academic technology transfer in order to catalyze Wistar’s technology development and commercialization activities. By working closely and collaboratively with scientists very early on in their research, the team can connect with industry experts and bring the two together, ultimately turning discoveries into products.
“We can do business in an accelerated way at Wistar—we have no red tape which enables us to focus all of our efforts on the end goal, not the bureaucratic process. Our team steps in early in the research process to create new supportive industry relationships for our researchers to facilitate discovery translation and technology development,” said Heather A. Steinman, Ph.D., M.B.A, who leads the team and was named Vice President for Business Development and Executive Director, Technology Transfer, in Oct. 2014. “Dustin completes our team. We’re open for business.”
Their focus is on leveraging meaningful and productive collaborations with the start-up community, biotech and pharma, non-profit and local academic institutions to advance Wistar’s growing pipeline of biomedical research in areas of cancer treatments, diagnostics, vaccines, and discovery platforms.
“We are pleased to welcome Dustin Shilling to help tackle the increasing challenges in the tech transfer industry,” said Russel E. Kaufman, M.D., Wistar President and CEO. “I am confident that we have an exceptional team in place to take our special brand of biomedical research to the next level with creative solutions that will benefit society, while generating income to support further research and education at Wistar.”
An international leader in basic biomedical research, the Institute provides a collaborative, team science environment for researchers at the forefront of cancer research, genetics and vaccine development. This approach allows researchers with varying backgrounds and expertise to more effectively tackle the scientific challenges of tomorrow.
“I’m honored for this opportunity to play an important role in Wistar’s research innovation cycle and look forward to connecting scientists with partners that will help advance Wistar science and move groundbreaking scientific discoveries from the laboratory to the marketplace,” said Shilling.
Shilling joins Wistar from the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Center for Innovation, where he most recently served as a Life Science Licensing Officer for the Perelman School of Medicine, handling a diverse portfolio of biomedical intellectual property. He was recently named a Howard Bremer Scholar for his passionate, creative and innovative approach to fostering technology development.
He is a 2005 graduate of the University of Washington, with dual degrees in biochemistry and neurobiology. He holds a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of Pennsylvania.
The Wistar Institute is an international leader in biomedical research with special expertise in cancer research and vaccine development. Founded in 1892 as the first independent nonprofit biomedical research institute in the country, Wistar has long held the prestigious Cancer Center designation from the National Cancer Institute. The Institute works actively to ensure that research advances move from the laboratory to the clinic as quickly as possible. The Wistar Institute: Today’s Discoveries – Tomorrow’s Cures. On the Web at www.wistar.org.
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