Authors

Henry Hebel, Chief Operating Officer, Vice President

Mr. Hebel joined VGXI (Advisys) in 2001. He was previously employed by Qiagen Inc., where he served as Key Account Manager for a strategic joint venture known as the “pAlliance.” Mr. Hebel worked on the team that launched this venture and was responsible for sales, marketing, and project management activities. For six years prior to his work at Qiagen, Mr. Hebel worked for GeneMedicine Inc., which eventually merged to become Valentis, Inc. During this period, Mr. Hebel served as Senior Manager of Bioprocessing. The Bioprocessing team designed, built and operated a cGMP manufacturing facility that was responsible for human clinical batches through Phase II trials, as well as developed novel manufacturing techniques to allow for the scale up of plasmid processes.

Mr. Hebel has additional development and manufacturing experience from Tanox Biosystems, Inc. In his position at Tanox, Mr. Hebel worked on antibody product development.Mr. Hebel holds a Bachelor of Science degree in zoology from Texas A&M University.

 

Jerry Brandewie, Director of Manufacturing

Mr. Brandewie came to VGXI, Inc. with 26 years experience in product manufacturing. He joins VGXI from Vivante GMP Solutions (formerly Introgen Therapeutics) where he held the position of Vice President of Production. At Vivante he set up the systems and procedures for the production of live viral products for the treatment of cancer. He has extensive experience in start-up and scale-up of production facilities. Specifically, developing manufacturing procedures and strategies to increase production, improve productivity, product quality and efficiency.Mr. Brandewie holds a Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from the University of Texas – Austin. He is also a member of the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering. 

 

Dorothy Peterson, Sr. Director of Quality

Mrs. Peterson comes to VGXI with over 20 years experience in the medical device industry, complying with FDA regulations in both start up and established organizations. Ms. Peterson recently relocated to Houston, TX from San Diego, CA where she was VP of Operations at Qualigen, Inc. which included the responsibility for quality and regulatory. While at Qualigen, she successfully submitted several 510(k) applications and led the company through multiple regulatory agency audits including ISO 13485 to gain the CE mark. Prior to Qualigen, Ms. Peterson was at Hybritech, Inc. (a subsidiary of Beckman-Coulter) for 14 years where she held multiple positions in both the quality and manufacturing organizations.

Ms. Peterson received her Bachelor of Science in Biology from Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas. She is also a member of the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society.

 

Ying Cai, Sr. Product Development Engineer

Dr. Cai joined VGXI in 2006 as Sr. Product Development Engineer, leading process development activities at VGXI. Dr. Cai moved to Houston, TX from West Lafayette, IN where she was a post doctoral research associate in the areas of virology and nanotechnology at the Biomedical Engineering Department of Purdue University. She also worked as a research engineer in the production of monoclonal antibodies for two companies located in China, JiuYuan Gene Engineering Co., and YST Natural Drug Research Institute.

Dr. Cai received a B.S. in Biochemical Engineering from Zhejiang University, China, a M.S. in Biochemical Engineering and a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering in 2004 from the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville.