Dario Neri, Ph.D
Chief Executive Officer & Chief Scientific Officer
Co-founder
Dario Neri is Co-founder, CEO, CSO and President of the Scientific Advisory Board of Philogen. He graduated in Chemistry at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry from ETH Zurich, under the supervision of Prof. Kurt Wüthrich, winner of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2002. For his dissertation, he was awarded the Silver Medal of ETH. After a 5 years post-doctoral research position in the lab of 2018 Chemistry Nobel Price Winner Sir Gregory Winter at the Cambridge Centre of Protein Engineering in Cambridge, UK, he returned to ETH Zurich in 1996 as Assistant Professor in Molecular Structure Biology. From 1999 he has been a Professor of Biomacromolecules in the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences at ETH Zurich. He permanently joined Philogen in 2020, while retaining the Professor title of ETH Zürich. He is also a Honorary Senior Visiting Fellow of the University of Cambridge.
Prof. Neri is recipient of numerous awards, including the ISOBM Abbott Prize 2000, of the Amgen-Dompe’ Biotec Award 2000, the Prous Award 2006 of the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry, of the Phoenix Prize 2014 and of the Paul Harris Award 2022. He is author of more than 400 publications in international scientific journals.
Guido Guidi, MD
Guido Guidi has 35 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. He received his medical training at the University of Milan, where he obtained his MD in 1979. He continued his specialized training in Immunology and Allergology, as well as in Rheumatology in Milan until 1989. In parallel, he served as a medical advisor for Smith Kline and Roussel UCLAF and was medical director at Sharper Italia (Roussel UCLAF Group) from 1986 to 1989.
Dr. Guidi was previously Head of Pharma Europe and Head of Oncology Europe at Novartis, where he was responsible for bringing various drugs from clinical development to market including Cosentryx, Entresto, Lucentis, Gilenya, Xolair, Ultibro, Sandostatin, Femara, Glivec and Jiakavi. While at Novartis, Guido originated and chaired the first edition of Bioupper, the Novartis accelerator for early-stage projects in Italy. He was also Chairman of the Novartis European Executive Committee and a member of the Innovation Management Board responsible for the Pharma division’s R&D program. He has also held different medical positions within Novartis, Sandoz, Roussel-UCLAF and GSK.
Dr. Guidi is currently Chairman, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of the technology transfer company AurorA-TT and he is teaching professor for the master program in Pharmaceutical Medicine organized by the University of Milan and Mario Negri Institute. In addition, he is board member of the Zambon Group, Genenta and Tethis, as well as scientific advisory board member of Italfarmaco.
Wolfgang Berdel, MD
Wolfgang Berdel received his medical training at the Universities of Hamburg, Munich and Freiburg, where he obtained his MD in 1979. He was trained in cell biology and immunology at the Max Planck Institute for Immunobiology in Freiburg, received training in Internal Medicine, Hematology and Oncology at the Technische Universitaet of Munich, was Visiting Professor in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, USA (1986-1988) and Assoc. Professor at the Benjamin Franklin Hospital of the Free University Berlin until 1997. From 1997 – 2017 Dr. Berdel served as Professor of Medicine and Chairman of the Department for Medicine/Hematology and Oncology, Hemostaseology and Pneumology at the University of Muenster (WWU), Germany. He served as Vice-President for Research of the University between 2002 and 2006. Upon other academic functions Dr. Berdel served as chairman of the Phase I/II Study Group of the German Cancer Society, as a member and section chairman of a Fachkollegium in the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), and for 5 years as a member of the National Drug Approval Board in the Bundesamt für Arzneimittel und Medizinprodukte (BfArM). He is currently chairman of the joined Ethical Board of the Physicians Chamber of Westfalia-Lippe and the WWU.
Dr. Berdel is author of more than 600 scientific publications. He has received several awards including the Farmitalia Carlo Erba Award of the Association for Medical Oncology (AIO, 1985), a Heisenberg fellowship by the DFG (1987), the German Cancer Award of the German Cancer Society (1996), the Hippocrates Oath Award, 2nd World Congr. on Adv. in Oncol., Athens (1997), and the Science Award of the AIO (2002), the Phoenix Pharmazie Wissenschaftspreis (2014). Dr. Berdel held the Raisa Gorbacheva Memorial Lecture, St. Petersburg (2011).
Cornelia Halin Winter
Cornelia Halin Winter studied biochemistry at ETH Zurich (1993 – 1998). After obtaining her diploma, she spent 6 months working as an intern in the Department of Molecular Oncology at Genentech Inc., San Francisco, USA. From 1999 – 2002 she performed her PhD thesis in the laboratory of Prof. Dr. Dario Neri at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences of ETH Zurich, working on immunocytokines and targeted tumor therapy. Her dissertation was awarded the ETH Zurich Silver Medal. From 2002 -2005, Cornelia Halin Winter performed post-doctoral research in the laboratory of Prof. Dr. Ulrich von Andrian at Harvard Medical School, Boston, working in the field of leukocyte trafficking. In 2005 she returned to the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences of ETH Zurich for a second post-doc and subsequent group leader position in the laboratory of Prof. Dr. Michael Detmar in the field of lymphatic vessel biology. From 2008 – 2014 she worked as an Assistant Professor at the same Institute.
At present, Cornelia Halin Winter holds the position of Associate Professor in the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences of ETH Zurich. Her research focuses on leukocyte migration and vascular biology in the context of inflammation and tumor growth. An important goal of her research is to identify and validate new (adhesion) molecules, which could serve as therapeutic targets to modulate immune responses.