User:Florianwurm/sandbox

Maria João Wurm

also known as Maria J. Alves Dos Santos De Jesus was born 1965. Maria is a Swiss-Portuguese scientist/engineer and successful serial entrepreneur. Her work in academia and industry focuses on innovative technologies with plant and animal cells in bioreactors and the translation of such into commercial successes. Maria is co-founder of ExcellGene SA (Switzerland), Magellan Biologics and Consulting (Portugal) and Caravella Biopharma (Switzerland) all family-owned, non-venture companies which she started with family members in 2001, 2014, and 2016, respectively.

Education and career

Maria studied Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Lisbon, Portugal) and, receiving financial support by the Portuguese government, executed PhD studies (Dr. es. Sci.,1995) at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL). She joined the laboratory of Cellular Biotechnology of Professor F. M. Wurm and established a bioreactor laboratory applicable to Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cells and other immortalised cell lines. As key member of a Swiss Biotech Priority Program, Maria supervised and guided the generation of recombinant anti-Rhesus D producing CHO cell lines, the product of which was eventually tested in clinical trials as a prophylactic treatment against the hemolytic disease of the newborn. She also generated the first CHO cell line expressing a fluorescent protein (GFP) at a time when it was assumed that such work was not possible.

ExcellGene SA

In 2001 Maria, mother of two, became the first employee and co-founder of ExcellGene SA. She tasked herself with setting up laboratories and to train a young team of technicians and scientists. In 2005 she joined the Board of Directors of the company. While taking on increasing responsibilities and 30 co-workers reporting to her, Maria was promoted to Chief Operating Officer (2008) and CEO in 2017. The company provides clients with a service offer (DNA to manufacturing of pharmaceutical proteins from CHO cells). These clients lack the necessary know-how to develop manufacturing processes that are compliant with Good Manufacturing Practices necessary for clinical products. Many of the resulting innovative therapeutic product candidates, made with ExcellGene’s technology, have entered clinical trials and are being sold as pharmaceutical products. The company is commercially successful, debt-free and known to further manufacturing sciences with animal cells in bioreactors.

Magellan Biologics and Consulting LDA 

In 2014, Maria co-founded with two family members Magellan Biologics and Consulting in her hometown in Portugal (Torres Novas), in recognition for the financial support Maria obtained from her country. The company’s goal is to develop and sell life-science products based on mammalian cell culture technologies. Without any outside financial help and overcoming start-up difficulties the debt-free company has now well-equipped laboratories in a Biotech hub in Cantanhede, with break-even income and 3 full-time employees.

Caravella Biopharma SA

A third company, Caravella Biopharma SA, was co-founded in 2016 by Florian and Maria Wurm, as a spin-off from ExcellGene. The company wishes to develop CHO made pharmaceutical proteins for rare diseases, the first one to treat a genetic disease known as Alpha-1 Anti-Trypsin Deficiency. The corresponding CHO-made Alpha-1 AntiTrypsin is considered a replacement product for patients that do not produce it. It is progressing towards clinical trials with the expectation to find a pharmaceutical partner for its further development and eventual marketing. Upon obtaining a financial investment from a third party, the company remains majority-owned by the Wurm-family.

Research and Inventions

Maria has published more than 50 highly referenced scientific papers (> 2200 citations). One of her most impacting publications provides that small volume (50 mL) cylindrical tube for suspension culture of CHO cells are useful for high-throughput cell culture optimization work (De Jesus et al 2002). This system is now widely used in industry for a large variety of cell culture applications. It proved to be extremely gentle (low shear stress) on cells while allowing high density cultures with oxygen provided just through the surface (no bubbles) when swirling the tube in a shaker. Before, only complex and very expensive bioreactor systems with control over oxygen supply and other parameters could provide for this.