Russell J. Howard is an Australian-born scientist, CEO and entrepreneur. He was a pioneer in the fields of molecular parasitology, especially malaria, and in leading the commercialisation of one of the most important methods used widely today in molecular biology today called “DNA shuffling" or "Molecular breeding", a form of "Directed evolution". His contributions to malaria research over an 18-year period began in Australia at the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, then continued as a tenured Principal Investigator at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, USA, and continued at the biotechnology companies DNAX and in California. Thirteen years of his group's malaria research on antigenic variation in malaria culminated in the first molecular cloning of the malarial antigen PfEMP1, a parasite protein that this human malaria parasite expresses on the surface of malaria-infected red cells This antigen represents critical biological functions for the parasite including immune evasion and adherence to microvascular endothelial cells. During this time Howard served on the World Health Organization's Special Program for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases and the USAID program for research and vaccine development in malaria. While Howard was President and Scientific Director at Affymax Research Institute, Willem 'Pim' Stemmer conceived and developed DNA shuffling Technology. This revolutionary technology for improving the expressed phenotype of genes, pathways, plasmids, viruses and genomes gave birth to the creation and spinout of where Howard was CEO for 12 years. He took the company public and led its growth with 10s of corporate partnerships, technology application programs that led ultimately to the development and commercialisation worldwide of 10s of Life Science products in diverse fields. Maxygen exploited DNA Shuffling technology across the entire Life Sciences spectrum, creating new companies dedicated to Agricultural Products and Industrial Chemical opportunities as well as a Protein Pharmaceuticals Business. In 2008, Howard left Maxygen to found He is currently a founder and the CEO of Oakbio Inc. in Sunnyvale, California, USA, a company designing microbes for production of cost-competitive chemicals using industrial CO2 emissions as carbon source . Additionally, he is currently Commercial Strategy Advisor at the Garvan Institute of Medical Research's Kinghorn Centre for Clinical Genomics. Howard has published over 145 scientific publications in refereed journals and is an inventor on nine issued patents.
Education
Howard graduated from Box Hill High School in Melbourne, Australia and later studied Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of Melbourne, culminating in a PhD in 1975 where he studied the carbohydrate and central metabolism of Caulerpa simpliciuscula, a marine green alga.
Employment
He spent his first postdoctoral studies from 1976–1979 at the Immunoparasitology Laboratory at the Walter & Eliza Hall Institute in Melbourne, with frequent visits and collaborative work on sialic acids at the Biochemisches Institut at Christian Albrechts Universitat in Kiel, Germany. He started working as a Research Associate in the Malaria Section of the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland before earning his tenure in the same institution in 1987. From 1988 to 1992, he worked at the Laboratory of Infectious Diseases of the DNAX Research Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biology in Palo Alto, California, USA, with dual roles, studying cytokine genes for Schering Plough, the parent organisation of DNAX Research Institute, and leading his Infectious Diseases laboratory there on malaria work funded by DNAX and USAID. In 1994, he was named President and Scientific Director of Affymax, Inc. where he managed teams working on small molecule drug lead discovery using combinatorial chemistry and high throughput target screening. His independent malaria work continued at Affymax with support from USAID and Affymax, leading to cloning of the PfEMP1 gene while at Affymax. After Affymax was purchased by GlaxoWellcome, Howard led technology transfer and interchange in combinatorial chemistry, drug discovery and optimisation between Affymax and GlaxoWellcome worldwide. During this time, Molecular breeding or DNA shuffling Technology was conceived and the nascent company Maxygen Inc. incubated for later spun out from Affymax-GlaxoWellcome. From 1997 to 2009, Howard worked as Maxygen's CEO, focusing on human, including, protein pharmaceutical drugs and vaccine discovery, as core business. Non-core businesses were successively incubated, nurtured and spun-out or sold. In 2008, he left Maxygen with $200MM in cash, no debt, on-going clinical stage drug development programs and multiple partnerships and licenses with other parties. Following his departure, Howard started Oakbio, Inc., a seed-stage, privately held Clean Technology company in Sunnyvale, California, USA. Oakbio captures CO2 from industrial waste gas streams and uses microbial chemosynthetic systems to capture and convert this carbon resource to valuable chemicals, sequestering a Green House Gas from accumulation in the atmosphere. In 2012 Howard moved residency from Silicon Valley, California, where he had worked for 25 years, to Sydney, Australia. In 2013 he joined the Garvan Institute of Medical Research's Kinghorn Centre for Clinical Genomics as Commercial Strategy Advisor. He is now the Head of Commercial Strategy, The Kinghorn Centre for Clinical Genomics. In addition, currently Howard is Executive Chairman at NeuClone Pty. Ltd, Sydney, developing biosimilar monoclonal antibody products and a Non Executive Director at Immutep.
Financing leadership
With Howard as CEO, Maxygen, Inc. completed its Initial Public Offering of $110MM in 1999, just two years after its spinout from Affymax-GlaxoWellcome. In March 2000, Maxygen raised another $150MM in a Secondary Public Offering. More recently, Howard and colleagues at NeuClone, Pty. Ltd. raised >$10 MM from private investors in Sydney to support development of a portfolio of 10 biosimilar monoclonal antibodies.
Recognition & research
Howard has been awarded three Doctor of Science degrees, one from the University of Technology, Sydney, Australia in 2004, one from the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia in 2008 and the third from the University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia in 2014. Howard's >145 publications tackle topics ranging from the metabolism of the algae Caulerpa simpliciuscula, to the molecular pathogenesis of human cerebral malaria and the role of parasite antigenic variation and infected cell adherence in disease virulence. His papers reflect successful use of the tools of biochemistry, protein chemistry and structure-function, molecular biology, cell biology, large animal studies, and field studies with humans.
Patents
Howard is an inventor on nine patents. At the NIH he patented discovery, characterisation and cloning of a novel gene encoding a soluble malarial antigen, called PfHRP2 that the most lethal human malaria releases into the blood. This discovery led to a rapid, sensitive, inexpensive and reliable diagnostic test for malaria infection that the NIH licensed commercially. This test has been used worldwide for over 15 years. In 1990 and 1995, he and his colleagues at Affymax applied for the patents of antigenic determinants obtained using a pathogenic agent or a derivative that presents a restricted set of antigens, and recombinant DNA clone from Plasmodium falciparum. While working at Maxygen Inc., he and his colleagues developed three patents for the following technologies: antigen library immunisation using polynucleotides encoding flavivirus and alphavirus; multivalent antigenic polypeptides; and optimisation of immunomodulatory properties of genetic vaccines
