Mark Thiede

Mark Thiede:

Since receiving his PhD from the University of Connecticut in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry in 1986, Y have spent my research career in the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology industries.   From 1986-9991 I was  a member of the Bone Biology group at Merck, Sharp and Dohme Research Labs (West Point, PA).  In 1991, I joined Pfizer’s new Osteoporosis group and focused on calcium mobilizing hormones and selective estrogen receptor modulators (SERMs).  I left Pfizer in 1994 to participate in the start up of Osiris Therapeutics (OTI) where my research focused on technologies for the isolation, culture, differentiation of MSCs and their scaling for therapeutic infusion.  I collaborated with the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center’s bone marrow transplant unit to generate data to support OTI’s initial INDs for clinical infusion of autologous MSCs to support hematopoietic recovery after high dose chemotherapy.  Those MSC infusion studies ultimately lead to the development of “Prochymal”; OTI’s first cell infusion product for the prevention of graft vs. host disease.   I led a key collaboration between OTI and Novartis to develop and implement strategies for applying hMSCs for gene discovery and cell therapy for bone biology. From 1999-2007, I was a member of the Discovery Pharmacology Group for Monsanto/Pharmacia/Pfizer in St Louis, supporting the early and late stage discovery and development of the pre-clinical Inflammation DMARD portfolio.   In 2007, I joined the Genetically Modified Model Research Center of Emphasis (GeMM RCoE) in Groton, CT where I currently use the in vitro differentiation potential of human stem cells to develop unique human cells for cell-based assays for drug discovery and safety.