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Board of directors
Leadership Team
Wassana Yantasee, PhD, MBA: CEO
Dr. Yantasee earned a doctorate in Chemical Engineering and a Master of Business Administration from Oregon State University. From 2001-2008, she worked as a scientist at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (DoE National Lab). She is currently a professor with tenure in Biomedical Engineering at Oregon Health and Science University, where she is recognized as an Oregon Nanomedicine Signature Researcher. Dr. Yantasee specializes in drug delivery and nanomedicine with 20 years of experience working with mesoporous silica nanoparticles and their biointerfaces. She has served as the principal investigator for several NIH awards and as a scientific reviewer in over 30 panels for the NIH and DoD. She founded PDX Pharmaceuticals in 2010 and has built values to the company by creating new intellectual properties using non-dilutive funding from the NIH (continuously since 2012).
Worapol Ngamcherdtrakul, PhD: Principal Scientist and Chief Operating Officer (COO)
Dr. Ngamcherdtrakul joined PDX Pharmaceuticals in 2015. He received his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Oregon Health & Science University. The focus of his PhD dissertation was to develop a mesoporous silica nanoparticle into a carrier for siRNA delivery to treat breast cancer. At PDX Pharma, he leads the design, development, and optimization of nanoparticle platform to co-deliver drug, siRNA, and immunotherapy for treatment of multiple types of cancer and skin diseases. He is the contact PI of PDX Pharm’s ongoing SBIR grants from the National Institute of Health.
Moataz Reda, PhD: Senior Scientist
Dr. Reda received his doctorate in Biomedical Engineering from Oregon Health and Science University in 2019. His doctoral work led to the development of novel nanoparticle-based targeted therapies to improve radiotherapy and immunotherapy for lung cancer. At PDX Pharma, Dr. Reda focuses on developing animal models of cancer, as well as the large-scale manufacturing of our nanoparticle formulations.
Research Assistants
Husam Zaidan
Research Assistant II
B.S. in Biochemistry from University of Oregon
Molly Nelson
Research Assistant II
B.S. in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry from Oregon State University
Justin Rehwaldt
Research Assistant II
B.S. in Biology from Portland State University
Henry Harrison
Research Assistant
B.S. in Genetics and Cell Biology from Washington State University
Noah Crumrine
Research Assistant
B.A. in Integrative Biology from Rice University
Cole Baker
Research Assistant
B.S. in Biochemistry and Biology from Missouri Southern State University
Administrative Assistant
Sanisa Mahuttanathanee
Administrative Assistant
B.A. in Multimedia from Rangsit University
COLLABORATORS AND CONSULTANTS
PDX Pharmaceuticals has been in close collaboration with the OHSU Center for Spatial Systems Biomedicine and the Knight Cancer Institute for the development of a siRNA-nanoparticle platform for breast cancer therapies under two fast-track phase I/II SBIR awards (total budget of $3M) from the NCI. The OHSU team consists of an internationally renowned cancer systems biology researcher, Prof. Joe Gray, PhD. Dr. Gordon Mills, a leading scientist in precision medicine, serves on our scientific advisory board. Multiple experts serve as consultants to PDX Pharmaceuticals (Table 1).
Table 1. Advisory/Consultant Panel of PDX Pharmaceuticals
| Consultant | Title/Company | Expertise |
| Gordon Mills, MD, Ph.D. | Professor and Director of Precision Oncology for the OHSU Knight Cancer Institute | Clinical precision oncology |
| Matthew Taylor, MD | Lead of Phase I clinical trial/KCI of OHSU | Clinical trial phase I protocols including IRB, enrollment, treatment, and efficacy and safety monitoring procedures |
| Shiuh-Wen Luoh, MD, Ph.D. | Oncologist/OHSU | Standard treatment regimens for HER2+ breast cancer (dosing, efficacy, adverse effects) |
| Sancy Leachman, MD, PhD | Professor and Chair, Department of Dermatology, OHSU | Melanoma and skin diseases |
| Jeremy Heidel | Informulate LLC | CMC, manufacturing, and IND-enabling studies |