Dr. Osvaldo Podhajcer
Scientific Projects Director

“Despite the huge amount of money and efforts devoted to research, cancer remains a lethal disease. We, at Gentron feel the need for a change in paradigms. We want to tackle the disease right from the beginning and we believe that our target must be the CNS. By looking for changes in gene activity at CNS level, we believe that we will be able to detect the appearance of the disease before the development of clinical symptoms.”

Osvaldo L. Podhajcer received his B.Sc. and M.Sc. at the Ben Gurion University in Israel and his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires in 1987. His M.Sc. and Ph.D. theses
covered different aspects of cancer cell biology.

1989 - 1992: Osvaldo conducted postdoctoral research at the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics of Eukaryotes in Strasbourg, France working on molecular genetics of cancer.
1992: He returned to Buenos Aires to hold a position as a Researcher
of the National Council for Scientific and Technological Research.
1996: He became professor of cell and molecular biology at the School of Sciences of the University of Buenos Aires.
1997: He became the Head of the Gene Therapy Laboratory at Fundacion Instituto Leloir. In this same year, he was awarded with the “Silver Laurel to the Personality of the year”, by The Rotary Club of Buenos Aires, in recognition to human merits and scientific achievements.
1999: He became a member of the Administration Board of the Fundacion Instituto Leloir. In 1999 he was awarded with the John Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship.
2002: He began supervising the research projects of Gentron.
2003: He was elected as one of the five outstanding Argentinean scientists of the last decade in the area of research in fundamental biomedicine.

Osvaldo authored almost 50 articles in top peer-reviewed journals such as Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Reviews in Immunology, Journal of Immunology, PNAS, Cancer Research, Cancer Cell, Gene Therapy and others. He has contributed with more than 70 presentations to national and international meetings and has given more than 80 conferences in national meetings including 8 plenary lectures and close to 20 in international meetings. His industrial activities included technological transfer agreements with Zymed Lab, USA, MedisEl Ltd, Israel , Laboratorio Rontag, and Laboratorio CRAVERI , Argentina . He holds many patents as an inventor. His research interests include the identification of genes involved in cancer progression by high performance technologies and gene therapy.

Dr. Fernando Pitossi
Scientific Projects Director

“Every scientist dreams of directing a revolutionary project such as Gentron. I believe that the knowledge obtained in Gentron will dramatically change the present vision on early diagnosis and preventive medicine. Our research also emphasizes the importance
of seeing the body as single functional unit, in which every part influences the other, where the brain is the main sensing and response-coordinating organ. We have successfully combined cutting-edge technology with a revolutionary knowledge that can be translated into early diagnosis of chronic diseases. I am very proud
of the achievements of our scientists as well as of the successful coordination with the Management team.”

Education/Training

1988: Faculty of Pharmacy and Biochemistry, University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina. M.S. Biochemistry.

1989 - 1990 / 1991-1993: Institute of Immunology, Zurich, Switzerland. Institute for Medical Microbiology, Freiburg, Germany. Ph.D. Molecular Virology.

1993 - 1997: Institute of Physiology, Marburg, Germany.
Post-doc Neuroimmunology.

Research and professional experience

1988 - 1989: Training in Molecular Biology. Friedrich Miescher Institute. Ciba-Geigy. Basel . Switzerland.

1989 - 1993: Ph.D. thesis in Molecular Biology. 4.1989- 1. 1991. Institut für Immunologie und Virologie der Universität Zürich. Zürich.Switzerland. 1. 1991- 2. 1993. Institut für Medizinische Mikrobiologie und Hygiene. Albert-Ludwigs Universität. Freiburg . Germany.

1993 - 1997: Research Scientist in Charge of the Molecular Biology Section at the Department of Immunophysiology, Institut für Normale und Pathologische Physiologie, University of Marburg , Germany.

1996: Visiting scientist. Laboratoire de Génétique Moléculaire de la Neurotransmission et des Processus Neurodégénératifs, C.N.R.S. Hospital Pitié Salpêtrière. París. France.

1997: Visiting scientist. Department of Pharmacology. University of Oxford, England.

1997 - 2000: Associate Researcher, Institute for Biochemical Research. Institute Leloir, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

2000: Visiting scientist, Salk institute, San Diego, USA .

2000 - on: Head of Laboratory, Institute Leloir, Buenos Aires, Argentina . Research subject: neuro-regenerative strategies in the CNS.

2004 - on: Professor at the University of Buenos Aires .

Memberships

• Member of the advisory committee of the A.N.M.A.T. (Argentinean Food and Drug Administration) on clinical trials using recombinant DNA.
• Reviewer of grants and scholarships for the Irish medical Council, CONICET, the Agencia Nacional para la Promoción Científica y Tecnológica and YPF/Repsol Foundation
• Reviewer of Journals “Neurobiology of Disease” and “European Journal of Neuroscience”.
• Grant recipient from the Wellcome Trust (UK), Michael J. Fox Foundation (USA), Volkswagen Foundation ( Germany ), among others.
• Member of the Board of the Institute Leloir.
• Member of the Society for Neuroscience, International Cytokine Society, Society for Interferon and Cytokine Research and European Cytokine Society. Member of the Executive Committee of the Argentinean Society for Neurochemistry.

Mariano Alvarez, PhD
Senior Scientist: Bioinformatics

Mariano C. Salibe
Senior Scientist

"When I look back, I realize that joining Gentron was a great decision. What drew me to Gentron was the possibility of being in a very stimulating environment while doing my Ph.D. in a fascinating field like the Body and Mind Interaction. I have been with Gentron since the very beginning and have been involved in the set up of the microarray platform. Currently, I actively participate and oversee many of the research and development projects of Gentron.

1990 - 1997: University of Buenos Aires, M.S. Biology.

1998 - 1999: Cornell University, Medical School, Research Fellow.

2000 - 2001: Gene Therapy lab, Fundación Instituto Leloir,
Buenos Aires Argentina, Research Fellow.

2001 - present: Gentron, Ph.D. Candidate.