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Dr. Russell J. Howard is an Australian-born scientist, CEO and entrepreneur. He was a pioneer in the fields of molecular parasitology, especially malaria   , and in leading the commercialization of one of the most important methods used widely today in molecular biology today called “DNA Shuffling “or “Molecular Breeding” , a form of "Directed Evolution".

His contributions to malaria research over an 18-year period began in Australia at the Walter and Eliza hall Institute, then continued as a tenured Principal Investigator at the NIH in Bethesda, MD, USA, and continued at the biotechnology companies DNAX and Affymax in California. Thirteen years of his group’s malaria research on antigenic variation in malaria                culminated in the first molecular cloning of the malarial antigen PfEMP1, a parasite protein that this human malaria parasite expresses on the surface of malaria-infected red cells. This antigen represents critical biological functions for the parasite including immune evasion and adherence to micro-vascular endothelial cells. During this time Dr Howard served on the World Health Organization's Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases and the USAID program for research and vaccine development in malaria.

While Dr. Howard was President and Scientific Director at Affymax Research Institute, Willem 'Pim' Stemmer conceived and developed DNA Shuffling Technology. This revolutionary technology for improving the expressed phenotype of genes, pathways, plasmids, viruses and genomes gave birth to the creation and spinout of Maxygen Inc. where Dr Howard was CEO for 12 years. He took the company public and led its growth with 10’s of corporate partnerships, technology application programs that led ultimately to the development and commercialization worldwide of 10’s of Life Science products in diverse fields. Maxygen exploited DNA Shuffling technology across the entire Life Sciences spectrum, creating new companies dedicated to Agricultural Products (Verdia ) and Industrial Chemical opportunities (Codexis ) as well as a Protein Pharmaceuticals Business (Perseid ).

In 2008 Dr Howard left Maxygen to found Oakbio Inc. He is currently a founder and the CEO of Oakbio Inc. in Sunnyvale, California, USA, a company designing microbes for production of cost-competitive chemicals using industrial CO2 emissions as carbon source.

Dr. Howard has published over 140 scientific publications in refereed journals and is an inventor on five issued patents.

Education
Dr. Howard graduated from Box Hill High School in Melbourne, Australia and later studied Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Melbourne, culminating in a PhD in 1975 where he studied the carbohydrate and central metabolism of Caulerpa simpliciuscula, a marine green alga.

Employment
He spent his first postdoctoral studies from 1976-1979 at the Immunoparasitology Laboratory at the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, with frequent visits and collaborative work on sialic acids at the Biochemisches Institut at Christian Albrechts Universitat in Kiel, Germany. He started working as a Research Associate in the Malaria Section of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland before earning his tenure in the same institution in 1987. From 1988 to 1992, he worked at the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases of the DNAX Research Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology in Palo Alto, California, USA, with dual roles, studying cytokine genes for Schering Plough, the parent organization of DNAX Research Institute, and leading his Infectious Diseases laboratory there on malaria work funded by DNAX and USAID. In 1994, he was named President and Scientific Director of Affymax, Inc. where he managed teams working on small molecule drug lead discovery using combinatorial chemistry and high throughput target screening. His independent malaria work continued at Affymax with support from USAID and Affymax, leading to cloning of the PfEMP1 gene while at Affymax. After Affymax was purchased by GlaxoWellcome, Dr. Howard led technology transfer and interchange in combinatorial chemistry, drug discovery and optimization between Affymax and GlaxoWellcome worldwide. During this time, Molecular Breeding or DNA Shuffling Technology was conceived and the nascent company Maxygen Inc. incubated for later spun out from Affymax-GlaxoWellcome. From 1997 to 2009, Dr. Howard worked as Maxygen’s CEO, focusing on human therapeutics, including, protein pharmaceutical drugs and vaccine discovery, as core business. Non-core businesses were successively incubated, nurtured and spun-out (Codexis ) or sold (Verdia ). In 2008, he left Maxygen with $200MM in cash, no debt, on-going clinical stage drug development programs and multiple partnerships and licenses with other parties. Following his departure, Dr. Howard started Oakbio, Inc., a seed-stage, privately held Clean Technology company in Sunnyvale, California, USA[www.oakbio.com]. Oakbio captures CO2 from industrial waste gas streams and uses microbial chemosynthetic systems to capture and convert this carbon resource to valuable chemicals, sequestering a Green House Gas from accumulation in the atmosphere.

Financing Leadership
With Dr. Howard as CEO, Maxygen, Inc. completed its Initial Public Offering of $110MM in 1999, just two years after its spinout from Affymax-GlaxoWellcome. In March 2000, Maxygen raised another $150MM in a Secondary Public Offering.

Recognitions and Research
Dr. Howard was awarded two Doctor of Science (honoris causa) degrees, one from the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia in 2004, and from the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia in 2008. Dr Howard’s >140 publications tackle topics ranging from the metabolism of the algae Caulerpa simpliciuscula, to the molecular pathogenesis of human cerebral malaria and the role of parasite antigenic variation and infected cell adherence in disease virulence. His papers reflect successful use of the tools of biochemistry, protein chemistry and structure-function, molecular biology, cell biology, large animal studies, and field studies with humans.

Patents
Dr. Howard is an inventor on five patents. At the NIH he patented discovery, characterization and cloning of a novel gene encoding a soluble malarial antigen, called PfHRP2 that the most lethal human malaria releases into the blood. This discovery led to a rapid, sensitive, inexpensive and reliable diagnostic test for malaria infection that the NIH licensed commercially. This test has been used worldwide for over 15 years. In 1990 and 1995, he and his colleagues at Affymax applied for the patents of antigenic determinants obtained using a pathogenic agent or a derivative that presents a restricted set of antigens, and recombinant DNA clone from Plasmodium falciparum. While working at Maxygen Inc., he and his colleagues developed three patents for the following technologies: antigen library immunization using polynucleotides encoding flavivirus and alphavirus; multivalent antigenic polypeptides; and optimization of immunomodulatory properties of genetic vaccines