Our Mission:
Increase Patient Survival
At Protocol Intelligence, our mission is driving precision oncology by delivering curated data and decision support to Industry, Academia, and Clinicians, using comprehensive molecular profiling and proprietary predictive technology to improve Pharma R&D and patient outcomes. We are building a curated data repository for myeloma researchers and an “Intelligent Navigational System” for myeloma oncologists, comprising software, human data curation, and decision support, that advises which drugs to use and when to use them, optimized for each patient's evolving needs and physician-imposed constraints. Our goal is to help oncologists significantly extend the lives of myeloma patients and increase cure rates compared to the common approach of treat until failure, change treatments, then repeat.
Percent of Patients Surviving
Increased Survival
Median
Patient
Surival
Cure
Rate
Years After Diagnosis
Our mission is to increase survival
for every myeloma patient.
About Us
Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee
Founder & CEO: Jeff Colborn, PhD
Dr. Colborn has a broad background in R&D and technology team leadership. He founded Protocol Intelligence Inc. in 2014 and has led its computational modeling and software development, building a collaborative team of computational scientists, university clinicians, and cancer researchers. Prior to this, he held various management positions in clinical and financial environments. From 1995 through 2003 he was founder, Chairman and CEO of a fuel cell development company, leading it through R&D and strategic partnering phases, growing the company from 1 to over 100 and raising over $40 million in venture capital and government grants. Prior to that he held research positions at Science Applications International Corporation and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Jeff earned his BS in Engineering Physics from UC Berkeley and his Master's and PhD from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Jeff was diagnosed with myeloma in 2012, and after getting differing recommendations on initial post-relapse therapy from three leading myeloma oncologists, realized their need for computer-assisted, personalized decision support, and in collaboration with them and others, began building a computational model and diagnostic-data-driven approach that has formed the basis of the company's technology and supported his successful treatment.
Board Member: Frank Tufaro, PhD
Dr. Tufaro has extensive experience with the founding, financing, and operation of biotechnology firms. He is currently CEO of DNAtrix, a developer of virus-driven immunotherapies for cancer. Prior to DNAtrix, Frank was part of the founding team of Neurovir, Inc., a developer of herpes-simplex virus oncolytic vectors for treating cancer. Frank was instrumental in raising venture financing that established NeuroVir as the major player in the field of viral oncology. He also co-founded Nurel Therapeutics, a gene therapy company later sold to Diamyd Medical AB, and Allera Health Products, Inc. From 1987-2002, Frank was a Professor of Microbiology at the University of British Columbia, where his laboratory worked on herpes simplex virus and gene therapy for cancer. Frank received his BSc in Cell and Molecular Biology, a PhD in Developmental Biology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
Board Member: Kobi Sethna
Mr. Sethna is a globally experienced pharmaceutical executive with over 35 years of product development and marketing experience at large and medium sized pharmaceutical companies and at venture-backed biotech companies. His responsibilities have spanned clinical research, regulatory affairs, manufacturing, human resource/scientific personnel enhancements, business development, and finance. As CEO of a premier San Diego anti-cancer drug development biotech company, he raised over $150 million and built a large global venture syndicate. Prior to his biotech experience, Mr. Sethna was a Vice President of the Lederle Pharmaceutical Division of America Cyanamid International, where he directed multidisciplinary, global teams with several successful product launches of important oncology, anti-invective, anti-inflammatory and cardiovascular medicines. Mr. Sethna holds a bachelor's degree in pharmacy and a master's degree in pharmaceutical marketing from The Ohio State University.
Leadership
About Us
Leadership
Jeff Colborn, PhD
Founder & CEO
Dr. Colborn has a broad background in R&D and technology team leadership. He founded Protocol Intelligence Inc. in 2014 and has led its computational modeling, software development, business development, and institutional partnerships, building a collaborative team of computational and cancer scientists, university clinicians, and cancer researchers. Prior to this, he held various management positions in clinical and financial environments. From 1995 through 2003 he was founder, Chairman and CEO of a fuel cell development company, leading it through R&D and strategic partnering phases, growing the company from 1 to over 100 employees and raising over $40 million in venture capital and government grants. Prior to that he held research positions at Science Applications International Corporation and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Jeff earned his BS in Engineering Physics from UC Berkeley and his Master's and PhD from MIT in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Jeff has focused on myeloma research since 2013, when after being diagnosed with myeloma he realized the need for computer-assisted, personalized cancer-treatment decision support and in collaboration with leading oncologists, mathematicians, and myeloma scientists, began building computational models and a machine-learning approach that has formed the basis of the company's technology.
Ali Torkamani, PhD
Chief Science Officer
Ali Torkamani is the Director of Genomics and Genome Informatics at the Scripps Translational Science Institute and an Associate Professor at The Scripps Research Institute. Dr. Torkamani is a leader in the use of genomic technologies to identify the genetic etiology and underlying mechanisms of human disease in order to define health risks and individualized interventions. His major research focus areas include human genome interpretation and genetic dissection of novel rare diseases, prediction of disease risk via combined genetic and clinical factors, and novel sequencing-based assays as biomarkers of disease. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications as well as numerous book chapters and Medscape references, and his research has been highlighted in the popular press. Dr. Torkamani’s overall vision is to decipher that code in order to understand and predict interventions that restore diseased individuals to their personal health baseline. Dr. Torkamani was co-founder of Cypher Genomics, a SaaS genome interpretation company, acquired by Human Longevity. Dr. Torkamani obtained his undergraduate degree in chemistry at Stanford University, where he received a Bing Foundation Chemistry Research Fellowship, and his doctorate in biomedical sciences at the University of California, San Diego.
Arun Wiita, MD, PhD
Co-Chief Science Officer
Arun Wiita is a physician-scientist in the Dept. of Laboratory Medicine at UCSF. Dr. Wiita's research group focuses on systems-level approaches to multiple myeloma and other hematologic malignancies, with particular expertise in mass spectrometry-based proteomics, as well as preclinical development and evaluation of novel small molecule and cellular therapies for these diseases. Dr. Wiita is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards including the New Innovator Award from the Office of the NIH Director, Clinical Scientist Development Award from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and Breakthrough Award from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation. He received his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Princeton University, earned his MD/PhD from Columbia University with graduate training in single molecule biophysics, and completed post-doctoral training in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at UCSF. Dr. Wiita is also board-certified in Clinical Pathology and completed his residency training in Laboratory Medicine at UCSF.
Joanna Peterkin, MD
Vice President, Medical and Clinical Affairs
Dr. Peterkin has over 20 years of experience in drug development and holds degrees in
medicine, medical biology and nutrition. After starting her career in private practice, she served as clinical investigator for large pharmaceutical company-sponsored trials at the University of California, San Diego. Thereafter, she transitioned into the pharmaceutical/biotech industry, holding positions that included Medical Director, Executive Director of Clinical and Regulatory Affairs, and Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer for various start-up and established biotech/pharma companies. Dr. Peterkin has designed and directed the conduct of phase I-IV clinical trials, overseen new product safety in both pre- and post-marketing settings, organized and participated on Data and Safety Monitoring Boards and mock FDA review panels, and interacted with regulatory authorities. Many pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies have benefited from her expertise and strong operational and organizational skills especially in the area of pharmacovigilance supporting U.S. and international clinical trials. Dr. Peterkin’s clinical development experience includes biologics for a wide range of medical indications, including oncology (e.g., leukemia, brain and solid tumors: lung, prostate, ovarian, breast, head and neck, lymphoma, malignant melanoma, colorectal). In addition, she co-founded eLancers Inc., a pharmaceutical industry and biotechnology consulting business, and founded two medical research, consulting firms.
Dr. Peterkin earned her medical degree from Newcastle University, and completed a medical fellowship at the University of California, San Diego.
Frank Tufaro, PhD
Board Member
Dr. Tufaro has extensive experience with the founding, financing, and operation of biotechnology firms. His most recent position was as CEO of DNAtrix, a developer of virus-driven immunotherapies for cancer. Prior to DNAtrix, Frank was part of the founding team of Neurovir, Inc., a developer of herpes-simplex virus oncolytic vectors for treating cancer. Frank was instrumental in raising venture financing that established NeuroVir as the major player in the field of viral oncology. He also co-founded Nurel Therapeutics, a gene therapy company later sold to Diamyd Medical AB, and Allera Health Products, Inc. From 1987-2002, Frank was a Professor of Microbiology at the University of British Columbia, where his laboratory worked on herpes simplex virus and gene therapy for cancer. Frank received his BSc in Cell and Molecular Biology, a PhD in Developmental Biology from McGill University in Montreal, Canada and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and the Carnegie Institution of Washington.
Kobi Sethna
Board Member
Mr. Sethna is a globally experienced pharmaceutical executive with over 35 years of product development and marketing experience at large and medium sized pharmaceutical companies and at venture-backed biotech companies. His responsibilities have spanned clinical research, regulatory affairs, manufacturing, human resource/scientific personnel enhancements, business development, and finance. As CEO of a premier San Diego anti-cancer drug development biotech company, he raised over $150 million and built a large global venture syndicate. Prior to his biotech experience, Mr. Sethna was a Vice President of the Lederle Pharmaceutical Division of America Cyanamid International, where he directed multidisciplinary, global teams with several successful product launches of important oncology, anti-invective, anti-inflammatory and cardiovascular medicines. Mr. Sethna holds a bachelor's degree in pharmacy and a master's degree in pharmaceutical marketing from The Ohio State University.
Consultants and Advisors
Paul Richardson, MD
Member of Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee
Dr. Richardson is the R.J. Corman Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Clinical Program Leader / Director of Clinical Research at the Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, where he maintains a busy clinical practice. Throughout his career, he has led the study and clinical development of numerous novel drugs in the treatment of multiple myeloma including thalidomide, lenalidomide, bortezomib, ixazomib, panobinostat, pomalidomide, elotuzumab and recently daratumumab, all of which have contributed to a remarkable improvement in outcome for patients over the last 15 years, with median survival increasing from 2-3 years to 7-10 years and beyond. He also led the practice-changing work that demonstrated the effectiveness of RVD combination therapy (lenalidomide, bortezomib and dexamethasone) for multiple myeloma and established this as the standard induction therapy. More recently, his clinical innovations have involved antibody drug conjugates as well as other immunotherapeutic strategies, and he is leading the development of the targeted cytotoxic melflufen and a first-in-class small molecule nuclear export protein inhibitor selinexor. He has published over 370 original articles and 300 reviews, chapters, and editorials in peer-reviewed journals. In addition to holding positions on the editorial boards of leading journals, he has served as Chairman of the Multiple Myeloma Research Consortium (MMRC), Clinical Trials Core, a member of ASCO Hematologic Malignancies Subcommittee, the ASCO Internet Cancer Information Committee, and Chair of the Alliance Myeloma Committee. He has received numerous awards for excellence in clinical research and patient care, including the Tisch Outstanding Achievement Award for Clinical Research, an honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Physicians (UK), the Warren Alpert Foundation Prize, the ASH Ernest Beutler Prize for clinical science and translational research in multiple myeloma, the COMY Award for multiple myeloma research (Paris, France), and the International Myeloma Foundation Robert A. Kyle Lifetime Achievement Award. Dr. Richardson earned his medical degree from the University of London, St. Bartholomew's Medical College and is board-certified in hematology, internal medicine, and medical oncology.
Natalia Komarova, PhD
Member of Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee
Dr. Komarova is a Chancellor's Professor of Mathematics at the University of California, Irvine. She has extensive experience with mathematical models describing in-vivo dynamics of human diseases, most notably cancer. In particular, she is very familiar with stochastic modeling approaches to describe cancer and the evolution of cancer cells. Her areas of scientific contribution have included cancer modeling, the stochastic dynamics of election-mutation networks, and the evolutionary dynamics of complex traits, spatial dynamics, fragmentation, and cooperation. She has been PI and investigator on a number of funded NIH and NSF grants, has collaborated with a variety of experimental groups, and has successfully led and coordinated scientific work in the context of larger projects. She previously held positions at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton in the Center for Systems Biology, the Program in Theoretical Biology, and the School of Mathematics, as well as research and teaching positions at the University of Leeds, UK, the University of Chicago, and the University of Warwick, UK. She has published over 100 original articles in peer-reviewed journals. She holds a PhD in applied mathematics from the University of Arizona and an MS in Physics from Moscow State University.
Rob Laister, PhD
Member of Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee
Dr. Laister is an expert in cancer immunology and hematological malignancies. He completed his doctoral training at the University of Toronto in the department of Medical Biophysics where he studied protein NMR spectroscopy and the DNA damage response in the laboratory of Dr. Cheryl Arrowsmith. As a post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Laister trained with Dr. Mark Minden where he worked on tumour cell metabolism and drug discovery in acute myeloid leukemia. He was also a member of Dr. Frank Sicheri’s laboratory at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute studying the structural biology of protein kinase complexes. Dr. Laister currently leads a research group at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre that focuses on pre-clinical drug development for hematological malignancies. Two major themes to the group’s current work include understanding how blood cancers adapt to conditions of nutrient stress and determining how metabolites communicate signals between the cellular components of the tumor microenvironment. Dr. Laister’s group also collaborates with the lymphoma program at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre and the CCTG Hematology group to develop and implement clinical trial companion studies aimed at identifying and characterizing the function of proteomic and metabolic markers correlated with clinical outcomes.
Guy Ledergor, MD, PhD
Member of Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee
Dr. Ledergor is a leading expert in myeloma single-cell sequencing. He is currently a Resident Physician in Internal Medicine and Post-doctoral Fellow in the Cancer Immunotherapy Lab at UC San Francisco. His PhD studies focused on single cell analysis of multiple myeloma with the goal of understanding tumor heterogeneity both within and across patients, and how these relate to therapy resistance. He is performing active research at the Cancer Immunotherapy Lab in tight collaboration with the UCSF Stephan and Nancy Grand Multiple Myeloma Translational Initiative. His current research revolves around understanding the tumor immune microenvironment in the myeloma bone marrow niche, deciphering which cell states are associated with resistance specifically to anti BCMA chimeric antigen receptor (CAR)-T cell therapies. His areas of scientific interest include genomics, single-cell RNA and DNA sequencing, immunology, mass cytometry, high-dimensional flow cytometry, CAR-T cell and other cell therapies. Dr. Ledergor earned his MD at Hadassah Hebrew University Medical School and his PhD at the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Adam Pavlicek, PhD
Consultant and Member of Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee
Dr. Pavlicek is the founder and CEO of Monoceros Biosystems, a bioinformatics and omics analysis consultancy. He advises multiple drug discovery and precision-medicine companies. Throughout his career, Dr. Pavlicek has acquired substantial expertise in drug and biomarker discovery including broad expertise in oncology, rare diseases, and disorders of the liver, kidney, CNS, and eye. In his current role at Monoceros, he leads a team of bioinformaticians assisting clients with design of experiments, discovery of pharmacodynamic (PD) biomarkers, molecular mechanism of action, drug sensitivity analysis (single agents and combinations), resistance mechanisms, and drug discovery for multiple therapeutic modalities (small molecule, antibody, oligonucleotide). He is a co-founder of DTxPharma, a biotechnology startup leveraging fatty acids as targeting ligands to enable RNA medicines for novel therapeutic areas. Prior to Monoceros, he was Bioinformatics Group leader and Sr. Director of Discovery Technologies and Orphan Diseases for Regulus Therapeutics from 2012-2017. Prior to Regulus he was a Senior Principal Scientist in computational biology at Pfizer, where from 2006-2012 he focused on Identification of new cancer targets and discovery of predictive biomarkers of drug response from multidimensional omics data. Dr. Pavlicek has published 50 original scientific articles and reviews, including articles in Clinical Cancer Research, JNCI, Lancet, Trends in Genetics, Genome Research, PLoS Biology, and PNAS. He holds an M.S. in Theoretical Biology from the Charles University, Prague, and a Ph.D. in Human Genetics from the Jacques Monod Institute in Paris.
Dominik Wodarz, PhD
Member of Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee
Dr. Wodarz is a Professor of Ecology and Evolution at the University of California, Irvine. He has a broad background in mathematical models that describe biological processes, especially in the context of diseases and biomedical questions. He has extensive experience with modeling the in-vivo dynamics of carcinogenesis and of viral infections and immune responses. He works with a variety of modeling approaches, including ordinary differential equations, stochastic models, as well as a variety of spatial modeling approaches including agent-based models. His significant areas of scientific contribution have included modeling of the somatic evolution of cancer cells, the treatment of cancers with oncolytic viruses, and the dynamics of viruses and immune responses. He has been PI and co-investigator on a number of funded NIH grants, and has successfully lead and coordinated scientific work in the context of larger projects. He has worked successfully with a number of experimental laboratories and led dual PI projects that involved combinations of mathematics and experiment. He has held previous positions at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. He has published over 120 articles in peer-reviewed journals and holds editorial positions at Mathematical Biosciences, Biological theory, and PLOS One. He holds a D.Phil from the University of Oxford and a B.Sc. from Imperial college, London.
Navigational System for Oncologists
Focusing initially on multiple myeloma, we are building the first true navigational system for oncologists. Combining artificial and real intelligence, detailed mathematical models of cancer evolution, and human data curation and support, our system trains itself on clinical tumor measurements with the goal of predicting the evolution of drug-resistant cancer subpopulations to dynamically advise treatment, minimize the likelihood of
multi-drug resistance, extend the life of each patient, and increase cure rates. Protocol Intelligence is currently training and testing its prototype software with patient data from major academic myeloma treatment centers.
Interested in becoming a clinical partner?
Contact us at partner@protocolintelligence.com
and help transform myeloma treatment.
Navigational System for Oncologists
Focusing initially on multiple myeloma, we are building the first true navigational system for oncologists. Combining artificial and real intelligence, detailed mathematical models of cancer evolution, and human data curation and support, our system trains itself on clinical tumor measurements with the goal of predicting the evolution of drug-resistant cancer subpopulations to dynamically advise treatment, minimize the likelihood of
multi-drug resistance, extend the life of each patient, and increase cure rates. Protocol Intelligence is currently training and testing its prototype software with patient data from major academic myeloma treatment centers.
Interested in becoming a clinical partner?
Contact us at partner@protocolintelligence.com
and help transform myeloma treatment.
Modeling Cancer and Drug Resistance
Many cancers, including myeloma, eventually develop resistance to anti-cancer drugs under current treatment protocols for most patients. It is now recognized that tumors are heterogeneous, resulting from random “Darwinian” mutation of cancer-cell DNA, both before and after treatment begins, and that this is the primary cause of resistance. This resistance can theoretically be postponed or overcome by optimizing the selection, timing, and sequencing of drug combinations for each patient. Recent advances in genomic sequencing, artificial intelligence, and cancer research have opened this possibility, but it remains challenging to predict cancer drug resistance in individual patients. Nonetheless, clinical oncologists need timely, actionable, and reliable decision support given the complex and ever-changing sets of drugs, doses, schedules, and cancer genomics of each patient.
We have developed an approach to the standard random-mutation model that takes these demands into account and forms the core basis of the dynamic predictive algorithm in our navigational system.
Bioinformatics and Artificial Intelligence
Every patient’s cancer is unique. A typical myeloma may have dozens of mutant clones and thousands of mutant subclones, many of which could harbor resistance. Using artificial and real intelligence, we examine patients’ genomic, metabolic, phenotypic, demographic, and other parameters, and we home in on those in each patient that best predict the effectiveness of each available drug and its susceptibility to resistance. Candidate parameters are selected based on empirical evidence and the best available understanding of drug mechanisms of action. These are then fed into competing machine-learning algorithms, which are trained on thousands of myeloma patients to discover the expected kill rates and mutation rates for each available treatment on each individual patient.