Eduardo Marbán, M.D., Ph.D.,
Founder and Scientific Advisor Board
Dr. Marbán is principle founder of the Company and serves as Chairman of Capricor’s Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Marbán’s professional career has been dedicated to understanding disorders of cardiac rhythm and heart function, and to developing novel treatments based upon fundamental insights into molecular and cellular mechanisms of acute coronary syndromes and chronic heart failure. Dr. Marbán is Director of the Heart Institute at Cedars Sinai Medical Center. He served as Chief of Cardiology at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, the Michel Mirowski professor of Cardiology and was the director of the Donald W. Reynolds Cardiovascular Clinical Research Center at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, a $24 million, four-year program focused on regenerative therapy. Dr. Marbán’s honors include the 2001 Basic Research Prize of the American Heart Association (AHA), the 2001 Research Achievement Award of the International Society for Heart Research, and the 2004 Distinguished Scientist Award of the AHA. Dr. Marbán serves as Editor-in-Chief of Circulation Research, the world’s leading journal of cardiovascular investigation. Dr. Marbán’s inventions have formed the basis for two other companies, Paralex, subsequently acquired by Cardiome Pharma, and Excigen, Inc.
Linda Marbán, Ph.D., Founder and Acting CEO
Co-founder of Capricor, Dr. Marbán has been the key negotiator in the licensing agreements, which have provided to Capricor its intellectual property estate, as well as spearheading Capricor’s fundraising efforts. Dr. Marbán’s scientific background is in cardiac physiology, an area in which she earned a Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University in 2001. She worked for two years as a postdoctoral fellow in Cardiology at the Johns Hopkins University, studying novel treatments for Myocardial Infarction (MI) in animal models. After a year on the faculty in the Department of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins, Dr. Marbán joined the biotech start up company Excigen, Inc. as its Vice President for Business Development. In 2005, she was promoted to Vice President for Operations, in which she was responsible for raising capital from Medtronic Corporation through a Series A-2 Preferred Stock financing round.
Roberto Bolli, M.D., FAHA,
Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Bolli graduated from the University of Perugia (Italy) in 1976. In 1994 he accepted the position of Chief of Division of Cardiology at the University of Louisville. He is also the Vice Chairman for Research of the Department of Medicine, a distinguished University Scholar, and the Jewish Hospital Distinguished Chair in Cardiology at the University of Louisville. Dr. Bolli honors include the 1987 Physician Scientist Award of the American College of Chest Physicians, the 2001 Basic Research Prize of the American Heart Association, the 2004 Research Achievement Award of the international Society for Heart Research, and the 2006 Distinguished Achievement Award of the American Heart Association. He is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation and the association of American Physicians, and a Foreign Fellow of the academy of Sciences of the Royal Society of Canada. Dr. Bolli has been a member of numerous NIH study sections and committees and is presently a member of the NHLBI Advisory Council. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors of the American Heart Association. Dr. Bolli is or has been on the editorial board of all major cardiovascular journals and is presently associate editor of Circulation Research and of the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology.
Alessandro Giacomello M.D., Ph.D.,
Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Giacomello is Full Professor of General Pathology, Sapienza University, Rome, Italy. He has focused his research activity on purine metabolism in man. Since 2002 his work has explored cardiac stem cells isolated and expanded from human heart biopsies. Dr. Giacomello graduated from University of Rome “La Sapienza” in 1973 in Medicine and Surgery and with a specialty degree in Rheumatology in 1977. He has been Faculty at the University of Rome “La Sapienza” since 1980 and Full Professor since 1986. Dr. Giacomello has served in numerous societies and institutes including President of the Scientific Committee of the European Society for the Study of Purine and Pyrimidine Metabolism, and as member of the Scientific Council at the Istituto Pasteur-Fondazione Cenci Bolognetti.
Rachel Smith, Ph.D., Director of Research and Development
Dr. Smith obtained her Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University under the advisement of Dr. Eduardo Marbán and with the support of a Whitaker Foundation Graduate Fellowship and a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. She co-invented the cardiosphere technology that forms the core of Capricor's product portfolio and published the seminal proof-of-concept paper demonstrating the clinical utility of the cardiosphere-derived stem cells in models of heart disease. Her research expertise encompasses the areas of stem cell biology, cardiac physiology and electrophysiology, as well as cell and tissue engineering.