Board members
Prof. Francesco Bertoni
Scientific Advisory Board
Francesco Bertoni graduated in Medicine and post-graduated in Medical Oncology at the State University of Milan (Italy). He first moved to Switzerland, working with Prof. Emanuele Zucca in the team of Prof. Franco Cavalli in 1995. He then spent periods in London at the Molecular Haematology Unit of the Institute of Child Health in London, in the Department of Oncology of the “Mario Negri” Institute of Pharmacological Research in Milan, Italy, and in the Department of Experimental Haematology of The Barts and The London – Queen Mary’s School of Medicine and Dentistry.
Since 2003, he has been a group leader and deputy director at the Institute of Oncology Research in Bellinzona, Switzerland. He is an Adjunct Professor at USI (Universita’ della Svizzera italiana), and the current president of the Lymphoma Project Group of the Swiss Group for Clinical Cancer Research (SAKK). He is also the president of the Local Organizing Committee of the International Conference on Malignant Lymphoma (ICML) and a research consultant for the Bellinzona Oncology Institute of Southern Switzerland (IOSI).
His interests are anti-lymphoma compounds and lymphoma genomics. Bertoni is the author/co-author of over 200 original papers, over 50 editorials/invited reviews, 20 book sections, and several abstracts at meetings.
Prof. Derya Unutmaz
Scientific Advisory Board
Derya Unutmaz, M.D. from Marmara University, held postdoctoral positions at Novartis and NYU before joining Vanderbilt as Assistant Professor. In 2006, he became a tenured professor at NYU. Since 2015, he has been Professor at the Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine and an affiliated professor at UConn.
With more than 150 publications, multiple patents, nearly 30,000 citations, and an h-index of 74, he has pioneered genetic and functional assays of human immune cells, including early lentiviral vector systems. His laboratory discovered several T-cell subsets, advanced cancer immunotherapies, explored precision medicine for ME/CFS and investigated COVID-19 immunity. Now focuses on immuno-oncology and reversing immune aging.
Dr. Brian Kennedy
Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Brian Kennedy is an internationally recognized leader in aging research, widely known for uncovering the molecular pathways that drive the aging process and for advancing strategies to extend healthspan. He is Distinguished Professor of Biochemistry & Physiology at the National University of Singapore and Director of the Centre for Healthy Longevity at the National University Health System (NUHS), the Healthy Longevity Translational Research Programme, and the Asian Centre for Reproductive Longevity and Equality at NUS Medicine. His research at NUS focuses on demonstrating that targeted interventions can slow aging and help preserve human health and function.
Previously, Dr. Kennedy was President and CEO of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging (2010–2016), the leading U.S. institute dedicated to aging research, where he remained a faculty member until 2020. He also holds academic appointments at the University of Washington and USC’s Leonard Davis School of Gerontology. In addition to his academic roles, he works closely with biotechnology companies and serves as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Aging Cell. Earlier in his career, he trained at MIT in Leonard Guarente’s lab, where he co-authored the landmark discovery connecting sirtuins to aging.
Dr. Brian Kennedy will be supervising the development of Floratek's recently patented new molecules with anti-aging properties.