October Speaker: Giselle Knudsen, Ph.D.

October Topic:  Can We Find Better Clues to Cancer?  Using Enzyme Activity to Improve the Diagnosis of Pancreatic Cysts

Dr. Knudsen , VP, Business & Technologies at Alaunus Biosciences, Inc. in Novato, CA, is a founding scientist at Alaunus Biosciences, Inc., and an inventor of a disease-profiling technology with multiple partnered applications in cancer for diagnostics and therapeutics. 

She earned her Ph.D. at the University of California San Francisco in Pharmaceutical Chemistry, and trained as an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellow in nanotechnology at Purdue University.  She returned to the UCSF Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry in 2008, where she served as an adjunct faculty in the UCSF School of Pharmacy.  Specializing in proteomics / bioinformatics / data modeling for target discovery, assay development, and molecular design,

Dr. Knudsen moved to Alaunus to build and pursue a promising technology platform for enzyme activity profiling that will be the subject of her SIRS presentation.  Their first commercial application is a diagnostic assay designed to assist clinicians in the risk stratification of patients diagnosed with pancreatic cystic lesions (PCL), enabling the management of benign vs. pre-malignant pancreatic cysts and early diagnosis of pancreatic cancer.

Nivember Speaker:  Charlie Vigelheim

November Topic:  Transformation of Transportation

The car is central to American culture, delivering freedom and convenience along with congestion, pollution, accessibility gaps, and the constant risk of injury and death. Emerging auto technologies promise to solve these problems without giving up the benefits. We’ll examine those solutions, how they’re being deployed, and how they’re working in practice.

Charlie Vogelheim is an auto industry veteran whose 40-year career includes Executive/Editorial roles at Kelley Blue Book, J.D. Power, Car&Driver and Motor Trend. He recently hosted “The Flying Car” radio show on KGO, bearing witness to the transformation of transportation.

Charlie attended Gonzaga University, has a commercial pilot’s license, and lives in Mill Valley, where he grew up.