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Management
Gianclaudio Antonelli
Managing Director and COO
Gianclaudio is a co-founder of Veterna and is currently serving as Managing Director and COO with responsibilities for administration, finance and legal. In this function he had a key role…
Gianclaudio Antonelli
Managing Director and COO
Gianclaudio is a co-founder of Veterna and is currently serving as Managing Director and COO with responsibilities for administration, finance and legal. In this function he had a key role in securing the research funding from R3 Wellcome Leap.
Prior to Veterna, he served as CFO for the Italian start-up Achilles Vaccines where he was instrumental in the negotiation and implementation its first two rounds of seed financing which, at the time, was the largest ever in Italy.
Before entering the biotechnology arena, Gianclaudio spent almost 25 years in the finance industry covering operative and management roles in both sell side and buy side front office, risk management and compliance. He was Head of Alternative Investments for the C-Quadrat Investment group as well as COO of their UK subsidiary.
Gianclaudio holds a degree in Management of Financial Institutions from the Università Bocconi in Milan, Italy.
Konrad Stadler
CSO
Konrad is a co-founder and CSO of Veterna and currently also serves as CSO of Viroclinics-DDL in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He has over 20 years of international experience in vaccine R&D…
Konrad Sadler
CSO
Konrad is a co-founder and CSO of Veterna and currently also serves as CSO of Viroclinics-DDL in Rotterdam, Netherlands. He has over 20 years of international experience in vaccine R&D.
Randolph Seidler
Randolph is Veterna’s CTO and an entrepreneur at heart with extensive R&D and portfolio leadership experience. As Head of Global R&D and Regulatory Affairs for 10 years at Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health (BIAH)…
Randolph Seidler
CTO and Head of Business Development
Randolph is Veterna’s CTO and an entrepreneur at heart with extensive R&D and portfolio leadership experience. As Head of Global R&D and Regulatory Affairs for 10 years at Boehringer Ingelheim Animal Health (BIAH), he oversaw the global research, development and registration of multiple highly innovative drugs and vaccines. During this time BIAH brought multiple new molecular entities (vaccines and pharmaceuticals) to all major markets. During his career he also held the position of Global Head of Business Development, Licensing and Alliance Management, where he oversaw the successful negotiation of several joint ventures, technology licenses and equity investments. Prior to this he held various international positions of growing responsibility within Boehringer Ingelheim’s human pharma R&D organization, including roles in cardiovascular diseases in the US and in Germany.
In addition to his role in Veterna, Randolph supports several animal health startup companies through supervisory and advisory board positions. Randolph holds a degree in Veterinary Medicine and a Doctorate in physiology from the Ludwig-Maximilians-University in Munich, Germany and an Executive MBA from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France.
Giulietta Saletti
Head of Analytical & Assay Development
Giulietta has more than 25 years of international experience in the field of immunology and assay development. Since 2017 she works as Senior Scientist at the Research Center for Emerging Infections…
Giulietta Saletti
Head of Analytical and Assay Development
Giulietta has more than 25 years of international experience in the field of immunology and assay development. Since 2017 she works as Senior Scientist at the Research Center for Emerging Infections.
Melanie Sno
Senior Project Manager / Head of Clinical
Melanie is senior project manager/ head of clinical at Veterna. Prior to that she was a global senior
project manager at Ceva Santé Animale, located in Hungary, developing new…
Melanie Sno
Senior Project Manager / Head of Clinical
Melanie is senior project manager/ head of clinical at Veterna. Prior to that she was a global senior project manager at Ceva Santé Animale, located in Hungary, developing new veterinary vaccines as well as supporting existing products on a global level with collaborations and/or projects in Europe, the US and Asia. Her career started at MSD Animal Health in the Netherlands where, over a period of 15 years, she worked first as a scientist with increasing responsibilities, before becoming a project leader for swine vaccine development projects after completion of her masters. During her career her focus was on improving animal welfare by developing vaccines and thus
preventing illness.
Strategic Collaboration
Partners At INGM
Renata Grifantini
Renata spent almost all her research activity in industry, with utmost interest for projects at high translational value. She started her research experience at ENI-Ricerche (Milan, Italy) in the biotechnology field, aimed at the optimization of pharmacologically…
Renata Grifantini
Renata is Head of Translational Research at the National Institute of Molecular Genetics (INGM, Milan, Italy). She joined INGM in June 2016 and since then has focused her activity on projects at high translational value, with the intent to push them towards preclinical development phases. She is mainly involved in the identification and validation of novel markers for cancer and autoimmune diseases, as well as novel potential targets for immunotherapy.
Prior to this she was Research Director at Externautics SpA (Siena, Italy), a biotech company focused on the development of novel cancer markers and therapeutic targets, as well as in the generation and preclinical development of marker-specific mAbs with diagnostic or therapeutic properties. The most relevant outcome of this period was the identification and validation of two potential targets for colon, breast and ovary cancer, and related monoclonal antibodies with anti-tumor activity.
In addition, she was Project Leader and Head of microarray Unit at Novartis Vaccines & Diagnostics and at Chiron Vaccines (Siena, Italy), leading research on the identification of vaccine candidates against different bacterial pathogens. Her major activity was dedicated to the identification and characterization of vaccine candidates against Chlamydia trachomatis. She also contributed to the Group A and Group B Streptococcus, and Group B Neisseria meningitidis vaccine projects.
During her academic research, she was scientist at ENI-Research conducting research in the biotechnology field, applied to the optimization of pharmacologically active proteins by molecular engineering and structural proteomics approaches.
Renata earned a Doctoral degree in Biology, a PhD in Molecular and cellular biology, and Professional certification as Biologist. During her university degree and afterwards, she was visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute, Berlin.
Mariangela Lorenzo
Mariangela is a post-doctoral fellow at INGM, currently working on the optimization of RNA-based replicon vaccine systems and coordinating day-to-day operations in the lab. Prior to this task, she was involved in research projects focused on coding RNA…
Mariangela Lorenzo
Mariangela is Post-doctoral fellow at INGM and working on the optimization of RNA-based replicon vaccine systems and leading the day-to-day operations in the lab. Prior to this she performed research on lncRNA differentially expressed in Treg cells.
Mariangela holds a PhD in Biomedical Science from the University of Milan, Italy, where she studied the interaction among transcription factors through ChiP assays, EMSA and crystallographic approaches. She holds a degree in molecular and cellular biology from the Università degli Studi di Bari, Italy.
Scientific Advisory Board
Michael Houghton
Dr. Michael Houghton was the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Virology from 2010-2018 and is the Li Ka Shing Professor of Virology at the University of Alberta where he is also the Director of the Li Ka Shing Applied Virology Institute…
Michael Houghton
Dr. Michael Houghton was the Canada Excellence Research Chair in Virology from 2010-2018 and is the Li Ka Shing Professor of Virology at the University of Alberta where he is also the Director of the Li Ka Shing Applied Virology Institute. He was jointly named the 2020 Nobel Prize winner in Physiology or Medicine along with Harvey J. Alter and Charles M. Rice in recognition of the discovery of the hepatitis C (HCV) virus. He was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2020 for services to medicine.
His research in the field of viral hepatitis has led to protection of the world’s blood supplies, and hepatitis C treatment to the point where the viral infection can now be cured in virtually all patients. He and colleagues have been working on a HCV vaccine first at Chiron/Novartis & subsequently at the University of Alberta, along with the US NIH, and have developed the only HCV vaccine candidate shown to be protective in animal models and which can neutralize the in vitro infectivity of most global strains of HCV.
Born in the United Kingdom, Houghton graduated from the University of East Anglia with a BSc in biological sciences in 1972, and subsequently completed his PhD in biochemistry at King’s College, University of London in 1977. Houghton joined G. D. Searle & Company in the UK studying human interferon gene regulation before moving to Chiron Corporation in California, USA in 1982 where together with Chiron colleagues Qui-Lim Choo and George Kuo, and Daniel W. Bradley from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, first discovered HCV in 1989. Houghton was co-author of a series of seminal studies published in 1989 and 1990 that identified hepatitis C antibodies in blood, particularly among patients at higher risk of contracting the disease, including those who had received blood transfusions. This work led to the development of a blood screening test in 1990, and widespread blood screening that began in 1992 with the development of more sensitive tests which has eliminated hepatitis C contamination of donated blood supplies in Canada and around the world. His group also identified key enzymes in the viral replication cycle that have been the target of successful drug development by international Pharma companies.
Albert Osterhaus
Professor Osterhaus has been Head of the Department of Viroscience at Erasmus MC Rotterdam until 2014, is currently Director of the Center of Infection Medicine and Zoonosis Research and Guest-Professor at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover…
Albert Osterhaus
Professor Osterhaus has been Head of the Department of Viroscience at Erasmus MC Rotterdam until 2014, is currently Director of the Center of Infection Medicine and Zoonosis Research and Guest-Professor at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover. He has a long track record as a scientific researcher and Principal Investigator of numerous major scientific projects.
At Erasmus MC, Professor Osterhaus has run a diagnostic virology lab with more than 40 staff and a research virology lab with over 150 personnel. His research program follows a novel integrated “viroscience” concept, bringing together world-leading scientists in molecular virology, immunology, epidemiology, pathogenesis, and intervention studies on human and animal virus infections. Among the major accomplishments are the discovery of more than 70 new viruses of humans and animals (e.g., human metapneumovirus, coronaviruses, influenza viruses), elucidation of the pathogenesis of major human and animal virus infections, and development of novel intervention strategies. This has enabled health authorities like the WHO to effectively combat disease outbreaks like SARS and avian influenza. The spin-offs, Viroclinics -DDL, Vironovative and CR2O, together employing more than 450 people, allow effective testing and refining of diagnostic tools and other intervention strategies and illustrate additional societally relevant successes. The international recognition of Professor Osterhaus is further highlighted by major prizes, guest lecture invitations, (co-)organizerships of international meetings and editorships of scientific journals. Professor Osterhaus has acted as mentor for more than 80 PhD students and holds several key patents. He is also the author of more than 1300 papers in peer-reviewed journals, together cited > 85,000 times, with an H index > 124. Currently he also is Chair of the European Working Group on Influenza (ESWI). He organized numerous international scientific conferences on influenza and other emerging infections and received numerous prestigious awards. He holds several senior editorships and is Chief Editor of One Health Outlook, a newly established journal of the Springer-Nature group. He is member of the Dutch and German National Academies of Sciences, member of the Belgium Academia of Medicine, and Commander of the Order of the Dutch Lion.