Jeff Smisek is President and Founder of Flight Partners Capital, a private investment company. He also serves on the board of directors of Finch Therapeutics Group, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, and Lantha Sensors Inc., a chemical sensor company, and is a member of the Board of Trustees of Rice University.

Mr. Smisek was formerly the Chairman, CEO and President of United Continental Holdings, Inc., a Fortune 100 airline, and has served on numerous for-profit and non-profit boards. Prior to his twenty years in the airline business, Mr. Smisek was a partner at Vinson & Elkins LLP, a Houston based law firm. He started his career as a banker for Morgan Guaranty Trust Company of New York, now JP Morgan.

Mr. Smisek earned an A.B. from Princeton University summa cum laude 1976 and a J.D from Harvard Law School magna cum laude 1982.

Mary Pat Lancelotta is the Vice President of Corporate Marketing and Communications at Adaptive Biotechnologies, a commercial-stage biotechnology company that reads and translates the genetic code of the adaptive immune system to develop personalized clinical products to transform the diagnosis and treatment of disease. She is a seasoned healthcare strategist with a passion for precision medicine, and brings over 20 years of business and strategy experience in Big 5 and boutique consulting firms, Fortune 500 companies and biotech start-ups. Prior to joining Adaptive, Mary Pat led Marketing and Communications for Foundation Medicine, a molecular information company. Before joining Foundation Medicine, Mary Pat led several corporate strategic initiatives and strategic planning at Quest Diagnostics for the company’s largest ($5B) business unit. Mary Pat holds an MBA with honors from Columbia Business School and a BS in Biochemistry from Boston College.

Jack M. Gill, PhD holds the position of Professor in the Practice of Entrepreneurship at Rice University and the Texas Medical Center.  He was formerly a member of the Harvard Medical School faculty, a senior advisor to the Harvard-MIT CIMIT program, a professor at Harvard Medical School and MIT (2000-2010), and previously an adjunct professor at Stanford.  Dr. Gill is a founder and Managing Member (retired) of Vanguard Ventures, a venture capital firm specializing in high technology start-ups, with offices in Palo Alto, California and Houston, Texas. Vanguard managed over $500 million capital and was the lead investor in numerous highly successful companies.  Prior to co-founding Vanguard in 1981, Dr. Gill was Executive V.P. and Group Manager of the Scientific Divisions of Spectra Physics, Inc., a NYSE listed company.  In 1970, Dr. Gill founded Autolab, which pioneered the application of microprocessor-based instruments and computers for chromatography and laboratory applications. Autolab was merged into Spectra Physics in 1972.

Dr. Gill is a native of Lufkin, Texas. He earned a chemistry and engineering degree from Lamar University in 1958 and a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Indiana University in 1963.  He received Distinguished Alumnus Awards from Lufkin High School, Lamar University and Indiana University.  Jack was named a 1999 winner of the Horatio Alger Award for Distinguished Americans.  In May 2001, he received an Honorary Doctorate of Science from Indiana University. In addition, he has received numerous Entrepreneur Awards and Teaching Awards throughout the USA.  Dr. Gill is a Trustee (retired) of Indiana University and a Board member (retired) of the Texas Emerging Technology Fund. He is a Director of the UT MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Horatio Alger Association, Project HOPE and the Presidents Circle of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine.

Dr. Chang currently serves as the CEO/President of Apex Enterprises, Inc., an investment management company focused on investments in healthcare, education and socially responsible ventures. In addition to investing, Apex also participates in active operations of companies including STEAMtrax, LLC., where Dr. Chang is a member of the Board of Managers. Prior to that Dr. Nancy was the Co-Founder, President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of Tanox (1986-2006). Tanox focused its effort on the development of therapeutics to address major unmet medical needs in the areas of asthma, allergy, inflammation, aged macular degeneration and other diseases affecting the human immune system. Dr. Chang’s pharmaceutical development experience stemmed from her tenure at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology from 1979-1980. Dr. Chang graduated from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan and received her Ph. D. from Harvard University, the Division of Medical Sciences at Harvard Medical School in 1979.

In her over 30 year tenure in the biotechnology industry, she has developed and commercialized a number of highly successful diagnostic and therapeutic products. Even today, there are breakthrough drugs are coming to the market due to Dr. Chang’s work. Dr. Chang has served on the boards of a number of companies, including Charles River Laboratory International, Inc., Eddingpharm (Cayman) Inc., Crown Bioscience Inc., Applied Optoelectronics Inc., SciClone Pharmaceuticals Inc. and STEAMtrax, LLC. and many other private companies. In addition, Dr. Chang was a member of the board of directors at BIO (the Biotech Industry Organization in the U.S.) and BioHouston (the biotech industry organization in Houston, Texas) and recently Dr. Chang was elected to be on the board of Asia Society in Texas. Dr. Chang was also a Director at the Federal Reserve Bank in Dallas, Houston Branch from 2005 to 2009 and a Director for Project Hope.

Dr. Scott Kopetz graduated Summa Cum Laude from Vanderbilt University with a bachelor’s degree in Biomedical Engineering/Electrical and received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He obtained his residency training in Internal Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, followed by a medical oncology fellowship at M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Kopetz joined M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in 2006 as an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Department of Gastrointestinal Medical Oncology. He subsequently completed a Ph.D. at M.D. Anderson in cancer biology with thesis focus on mechanisms of chemotherapy resistance in colorectal cancer.

Dr. Kopetz is board-certified in Internal Medicine and in Medical Oncology. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed articles in respected scientific journals such as Journal of Clinical Oncology, Lancet, Cancer Research, Cancer, Clinical Cancer Research, and JAMA, and is a senior editor for Clinical Cancer Research, and editorial board member on Journal of Clinical Oncology and JNCI. He is vice-chair for colon cancer research in the NSABP/RTOG cooperative group, and member of the NIH Gastrointestinal Oncology Steering Committee. In addition, he was a recipient of peer-reviewed grants from American Society of Clinical Oncology and the National Institute of Health, among others. He is the principal investigator several phase I and II clinical trials, including of Assessment of Targeted Therapies Against Colorectal Cancer (ATTACC) study, a novel biomarker enrichment program for colorectal cancer. His research interests include the biology of the refractory colorectal cancer and the development of novel therapeutics for molecularly distinct subsets of colorectal cancer patients.

Dr. David S. Hong is an Associate Professor and Deputy Chair in the Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics (Phase I Program) at The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The approach of the department is unique with an emphasis on molecular characterization of each patient’s tumor and personalized therapy in the Phase I setting. Throughout his career, Dr. Hong has developed an interest in studying the efficacy of novel drug combinations in patients with solid tumors. As a faculty member in the Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics he has an extensive track record of leading successful studies that involve a strong correlative component and collaborating with other investigators both basic and clinical within MD Anderson and outside institutions. Currently, he is the Principal Investigator on twenty research protocols that involve a wide range of sponsors including the Cancer Therapy Evaluation Program (CTEP) at the National Cancer Institute. Dr. Hong has been an author or co-author on over 150 publications. Recently his research endeavors have focused on developing personalized therapies for patients whose tumors bear specific genetic mutations/amplifications. At this time, all patients presented to the Department of Investigational Cancer Therapeutics at MD Anderson Cancer Center are being screened for mutational status through the MD Anderson Department of Pathology using CLIA certified testing. Dr. Hong has demonstrated the ability to successfully place patients on clinical trials, manage toxicities and oversee the correlative studies associated with various phase I research projects.

Dr. Kim is Chairman at the Levine Cancer Institute within the Carolinas HealthCare System. His previous experience includes tenure as an Associate Professor at MD Anderson Cancer Center. He specializes in Lung Cancer, Head and Neck Cancer, and Solid Tumor Oncology. Dr. Kim went to medical school at Northwestern University and completed his residency at Baylor College of Medicine and Fellowship at MD Anderson Cancer Center.