| George Poste, PhD
CEO, Health Technology Networks; Chair, Defense Science Board, "Technologies for Biodefense"; Former Chief Scientist, SmithKline Beecham Advances in Biotechnology: Promise and Peril Raw transcript Next speaker Professional Biography George Poste, Ph.D. Dr. Poste is Chief Executive Officer of Health Technology Networks, a healthcare consulting group based in Scottsdale, Arizona and suburban Philadelphia specializing in the impact of genetics, computing and other advanced technologies on healthcare R&D and internet-based systems for healthcare delivery. From 1992 to 1999 he was President, R&D and Chief Science and Technology Officer at SmithKline Beecham (SB) and a member of the Board of Directors. During his tenure in the pharmaceutical industry he was associated with 29 successful drug and vaccine registrations in the USA and internationally. He is non-executive Chairman of diaDexus, the joint venture in molecular diagnostics between SmithKline Beecham and Incyte Pharmaceuticals located in Santa Clara and non-Executive Chairman of Structural GenomiX in San Diego. He serves on the Board of Directors of Maxygen in Palo Alto, Orchid BioSciences in Princeton and Illumina in San Diego. He was educated in England, receiving a doctoral degree in Veterinary Medicine (1966) and a Ph.D. (1969) in Experimental Pathology from the University of Bristol. He was awarded a Doctor of Science degree (D.Sc.) for meritorious contributions to research by the University of Bristol in 1987. He was elected Fellow, Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, London, in 1987, Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists, London in 1989, honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, London, in 1993, a Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts in 1995, Fellow, Royal Geographic Society in 1996, a Fellow of The Royal Society in 1997 and a Founder Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences in the UK in 1998. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws (LL.D.) by the University of Bristol in 1995 and by the University of Dundee in 1998 and honorary doctorates of the Universities of London and Sussex in 2000 for his contributions to international health. Dr. Poste was awarded the honor of Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) by Queen Elizabeth in 1999 for services to the development of biosciences. After several university appointments in England, he moved to the USA in 1972 to work at Roswell Park Memorial Institute, the Comprehensive Cancer Center of the State University of New York, Buffalo, where he was Professor of Pathology. He joined Smith Kline & French Laboratories in October, 1980, as Vice President, Research. After a series of senior R&D positions he was appointed President and Chairman, Research and Development in January 1992. From 1997 he was promoted to Chief Science and Technology Officer in which he had responsibility to integrate science and technology across all of SB's businesses in therapeutics, vaccines, diagnostics, disease management services and healthcare information. Dr. Poste also serves as Research Professor in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and the Department of Cell Biology, at the University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. He is the William Pitt Fellow at Pembroke College, University of Cambridge and a Fellow of University College, London. He has served on Government committees for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) and the Departments of State, Commerce and Defense in the USA and on the Prime Minister's Senior Advisory Panel on Science and Technology in the United Kingdom. He has served on governance boards for the Gordon Research Conferences, the National Association for Biomedical Research, the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary School, the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science, the Institute of Scientific Information and the Governor's Advisory Committee on Science and Technology for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the Alliance for Aging Research in Washington, DC, the Keystone Center in Colorado and the Royal Society of Medicine, Life Sciences Research Foundation; the Advisory Council of the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine, Stanford University; the U.S. National Center for Genome Resources; the Board of Directors, EuropaBio; the UK Government' s Human Genetics Commission; and the Advisory Committee on Global R&D, Council on Competitiveness, Washington, DC. His own research has focused on the problem of cancer metastasis and the development of advanced drug delivery systems for targeting drugs to specific cell types. He has published over 300 scientific papers and book chapters and was listed as one of 250 most cited authors in the life sciences during the period 1970 to 1985. He is the co-editor of 15 books and co-founder of the journals Cancer and Metastasis Reviews and Advanced Drug Delivery Reviews, a previous Chairman of the Editorial Board of the journal, Nature Bio/Technology, serves on the Editorial Boards of several journals and writes a regular column for the Financial Times. Dr. Poste is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the New York Academy of Sciences, the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, the American Association for Cancer Research, the American Society of Microbiology, the American Society for Cell Biology, the Metastasis Research Society and the American Society for Law, Medicine and Ethics. Dr. Poste is a naturalized U.S. Citizen and is married with three children. His personal interests are in automobile racing, military history, photography and exploring the deserts of the American Southwest. |
