Scarab Genomics LLC was founded in 2002 by Professor F. Blattner, a serial entrepreneur and founder of DNASTAR Inc. and Nimblegen Inc. and a world-renowned scientist and leader in the genomics revolution.
The Company was established to commercialize the Clean Genome® Multiple Deletion Series (MDS) E. coli resulting from Dr. Blattner’s research at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Clean Genome® E. coli enable the high efficiency production of proteins and nucleic acids.
The Company has since expanded its product offering to include Vaccine Carrier Proteins CRM197 and Protein D for research purposes. In addition, it has developed C-FLOW™, a fermentation system that enables continuous culture of Clean Genome® E. coli, to facilitate large scale efficient production of biopharmaceuticals.
The Company is headquartered in Madison, WI, USA and sells or licenses its products internationally via its online store.
William A. Blattner, MD
Dr. William Blattner received his BS and MD degrees from Washington University. He served many years as Chief of the Viral Epidemiology Branch at the NIH. In 1995 he co-founded the Institute of Human Virology (IHV) at the University of Maryland where he served as Professor of Medicine and Associate Director of IHV until 2016. In 2004 he founded IHV Nigeria which has provided diagnosis and treatment to 6.6 million African people through the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. He is currently CEO of Salt Run Global Health and Research LLC.
Richard Lesniewski, PhD
Richard is currently President and CEO of Madison Vaccines Incorporated, a venture-funded biotech developing DNA vaccine immunotherapy approaches for men with prostate cancer. Dr. Lesniewski served in multiple leadership positions at Abbott Laboratories and GlaxoSmithKline. As Vice President of Oncology Biopharmaceuticals at GSK, Richard led the Biopharmaceutical Drug Performance Unit (DPU) within GSK’s Global Oncology Business Unit. He established GSK’s relationship with Seattle Genetics for antibody drug conjugates and was instrumental in the preclinical development of GSK2857916, a novel BSMA monoclonal therapeutic, incorporating both ADC and enhanced ADCC killing properties. This agent was awarded Breakthrough Therapy designation by the US FDA and received approval for use in advanced multiple myeloma in 2020. Prior to joining GSK, Richard completed a 25-year tenure with Abbott Laboratories (1983-2009) where he held multiple positions within the Global Pharmaceuticals Cancer Research Organization, leading the discovery and optimization of biopharmaceutical agents, and later founding new research programs in tumor genomics, cancer biomarkers, and therapeutic antibody discovery. As Director of Cancer Research, Dr. Lesniewski also led their Biomarker Discovery Research group, and integrated personalized medicine strategies across the Abbott Oncology drug development portfolio. Prior to these roles, Dr. Lesniewski held a Technology Assessment and Licensing position within Abbott’s Global Pharmaceutical Division. There he helped establish the Division’s first oncology therapeutic area, driving successful partnering initiatives with Northwestern University, Idun Pharmaceuticals (ABT-263, Navitoclax) and Yale University. During his first 12 years with Abbott, Richard led teams in discovery of novel viral diagnostic tests and helped Abbott Diagnostics Division develop and launch their franchise leadership in hepatitis C virus blood screening assays. Dr. Lesniewski’s experience covers novel biopharmaceutical drug and companion diagnostics discovery research, translational drug development, creating and managing strategic alliances, and leading drug development partnerships from early discovery to the clinic. Dr. Lesniewski currently sits on the Board of Directors of DNASTAR, Invenra, and Scarab Genomics. He is Board Chairman of AIQ Global. Dr. Lesniewski holds a Ph.D. in Chemistry from North Dakota State University and BS degrees in Biology and Chemistry from Carroll University.
Martin Rosenberg, PhD
Dr. Rosenberg served as Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer, Research and Development, at Promega Corporation until he retired in 2015. He also served as a Director on the Promega Board for 18 years. He was formerly Senior Vice President and Director of Research and Development for GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceutical Company. His responsibilities over the 19 years he spent at GSK included Biopharmaceutical R&D, Vaccines R&D (including the research and development of Engerix B, GSK’s recombinant Hep B vaccine), and Anti-Infectives and Host Defense R&D.
He served on the NIH Directors Council of Councils and twice on the NIAID Council. He has served as a Scientific Advisor and/or Board Director on more than a dozen different companies including Cubist (sold to Merck for $9.8B) and Anacor (sold to Pfizer for $5.2B). He is currently on the Board of the International Biomedical Research Alliance.
Andria Blattner, PhD
Dr. Andria Blattner received her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University and gained postdoctoral research experience in developmental biology at Harvard Medical School and the University of Wisconsin. She was instrumental in building the successful DNASTAR business with Dr. Frederick Blattner and provides input on business, scientific, product development and sales strategies.
David W. Clough, JD, PhD
Dr. Clough is an attorney with Much Shelist P.C. As a lawyer, litigator and scientist, he focuses his practice on protecting worldwide intellectual property rights on behalf of biotechnology, pharmaceutical and chemical companies. He also collaborates with clients on designing and implementing global IP strategies. Businesses frequently turn to David for IP due diligence analysis in multibillion-dollar acquisitions. He represents clients before courts and administrative agencies and in private mediation and arbitration. He also guides clients through re-examination proceedings and European oppositions.
Jaymie Sawyer, PhD
Dr Sawyer’s career, beginning with her PhD in Genetics from the University of Wisconsin, has focused on antibody engineering and immunoassay development, particularly via new technologies and automation. After completing a fellowship in the Laboratory of Tumor Immunology at NCI, improving soluble expression of anti-tumor antibody fragments in E.coli, Dr Sawyer took a role in Antibody Engineering at Boehringer Mannheim Diagnostics. There, she trained in phage display and carried out projects in the labs of Jim Marks (UCSF) and Greg Winter (MRC). As a founding member of Motorola Biochip systems, Dr Sawyer was responsible for the inception and development of protein arrays on the Codelink platform as well as developing applications for microfluidics and label-less detection technologies. She later moved to BD Biosciences, where as Director of Reagent and Assay Development, she set up a high throughput screening lab for phage libraries in collaboration with Dyax Corp. identifying and commercializing affinity reagents for use in Immunology research. Along with immunogen and antibody development, she was also responsible for the Cytometric Bead Assay bringing multiplexed immuno-assays to market. Dr Sawyer then moved on to SQI Diagnostics, where, as VP of R&D she led development of fully automated, dual-level multiplex protein microarrays for quantitation of isotype responses to multiple antigens in a single well. Along with gaining regulatory approvals for autoimmune diagnostics, she extended the platform to address high value bioanalytics (ADA and PK) for drug development. After consulting on new technology assessment for Illumina Ventures, Dr Sawyer took a role as VP of Product Develop at Serimmune, whose platform applies bacterial display peptide libraries, next generation sequencing and custom bioinformatics to gain a broad view of immune repertoires. Dr Sawyer continues to consult, relying on her deep reagent and assay development expertise.
Haley Tucker, PhD
Dr. Tucker received her PhD in Chemistry and Structural Biology from MIT. She did postdoctoral work with Dr. Sidney Pestka (Roche Institute of Molecular Biology), Dr. Max Perutz (MRC Cambridge) and Dr. Frederick Blattner (University of Wisconsin – Madison). After 15 years as a professor at Southwestern Medical School, Dr. Tucker moved to her current position in as the Marie Betzner Morrow Centennial Chair in Molecular Biosciences, Institute of Cellular Biology at the University of Texas. Her current interests focus on hematopoiesis, stem cell biology, and immunology.