Forbes 30 Under 30 Rising Stars to be Featured in Keynote Luncheon at the 2013 BIO International Convention

WASHINGTON -- (BUSINESS WIRE) -- For the second year in a row, Forbes magazine has published its list of the most awe-inspiring rising stars in science and healthcare, all under the age of 30. BIO’s President and CEO, Jim Greenwood will join a select group of these rising stars for a Keynote Luncheon Tuesday, April 23^rd, 12:00 – 1:30 p.m. at the 2013 BIO International Convention. Hosted by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), the Convention, celebrating its 20^th anniversary, will take place April 22-25, 2013 at McCormick Place in Chicago, Ill.

“The young minds featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30 list are changing the way science, innovation and healthcare are progressing,” said BIO President & CEO Jim Greenwood. “I look forward to engaging with these innovators in a forward thinking conversation which promises to examine the real future of biotech.”

The rising stars participating include:

• Laura Deming, 18, Partner, Longevity Fund
  Deming has wanted to work on curing the diseases of aging for as long as she can remember. She started working in a biogerontology lab when she was 12 and matriculated at MIT when she was 14. Now a member of the prestigious Thiel Fellowship, she is a partner at The Longevity Fund looking to find and fund the development of innovative therapies for the treatment of Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, and other aging-related diseases.

• Joshua Sommer, 24, Executive Director, The Chordoma Foundation
  Sommer is executive director of the Chordoma Foundation, a nonprofit organization that proactively initiates, facilitates, and funds research to develop effective treatments, and ultimately a cure, for chordoma – a bone cancer of the skull and spine. Diagnosed with a skull-base chordoma in 2006 and unwilling to accept the limited treatment options available to chordoma patients, he joined the lab of Dr. Michael Kelley at Duke University, where he spent the next two years studying chordoma. In 2007, Josh founded the Chordoma Foundation, which to date has raised $2.5 million, funding research in 11 labs.
• Adina Mangubat, 25, Chief Executive, Spiral Genetics
  Mangubat has held leadership positions in two high technology start-up companies focused in the distributed computing space. In both companies, her role included team development, executive team management, brand development, marketing, channel development and sales for complex technologies with consumer facing products. Additionally, her roles in both companies focused on consumer education around scaleable product portfolios.
• Isaac Kinde, 29, MD-PhD Candidate, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
  Kinde attended college at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, where he was a Meyerhoff scholar and majored in Biological Sciences. At UMBC, he solidified his interest in biomedical research while investigating anti-HIV therapeutics in the lab of Dr. Michael Summers concurrently with his undergraduate studies. As an M.D. and Ph.D. candidate at Johns Hopkins, his research has focused on developing a novel DNA sequencing method to detect cancers at their earliest, most treatable stages under the expert guidance of his mentors Drs. Luis Diaz, Victor Velculescu, Shibin Zhou, Nickolas Papadopoulos, Kenneth Kinzler, and Bert Vogelstein. His inventions are the subject of several patent applications and articles describing his work have appeared in prominent scientific journals such as Science Translational Medicine, Nature, and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

To view the complete list of the Forbes 30 Under 30 rising stars, please visit here.

Additionally, the Keynote will feature the presentation of awards for the International BioGENEius Challenge.

BIO is pleased to recognize the leadership provided by the 2013 Rising Stars of Biotech Keynote sponsors. The sponsor is Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson.

The Tuesday Keynote Luncheon is open to attendees who have registered as Convention Access or higher and to credentialed members of the media.

Now open, the BIO International Convention also features the industry's largest partnering event, hosting a record breaking 25,000+ partnering meetings in 2012. More than 4,000 companies participated in One-on-One Partnering meetings in the BIO Business Forum™ and in the BIO Exhibition. These efficient meetings foster the opportunity for companies to initiate business contacts in a friendly environment and schedule meetings prior to the Convention.

Advance media registration is now available for qualified reporters working full time for print, broadcast and web publications with valid press credentials. To register, please visit here.

About BIO

BIO represents more than 1,100 biotechnology companies, academic institutions, state biotechnology centers and related organizations across the United States and in more than 30 other nations. BIO members are involved in the research and development of innovative healthcare, agricultural, industrial and environmental biotechnology products. BIO also produces the BIO International Convention, the world’s largest gathering of the biotechnology industry, along with industry-leading investor and partnering meetings held around the world. BIO produces BIOtechNOW, an online portal and monthly newsletter chronicling “innovations transforming our world.” Subscribe to BIOtechNOW.

Upcoming BIO Events

BIO IPCC Conference
March 25 – 27, 2013
San Diego, CA

BIO International Convention
April 22 – 25, 2013
Chicago, IL

World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology
June 16 – 19, 2013
Montreal, Canada