Advisors 

Scott Harris, MD, MS, FACP, AGAF  

Dr. Harris is the co-founder of Lyric Pharmaceuticals, a company specializing in hospital-based gastrointestinal therapeutics. For the past ten years, he has been Principal of Middleburg Consultants, Inc., a biotech consulting specializing in gastrointestinal drug development. From 2012 – 2015, Dr. Harris was Chief Medical Officer at Avaxia Biologics . Prior to working with Avaxia, he was interim Chief Medical Officer of Tranzyme Pharma (2011) and Chief Medical Officer of Ocera Therapeutics (2008-2010). From 2006-2008, he was Chief Medical Officer and Vice President of Clinical Affairs at Napo Pharmaceuticals, where he authored the two-stage pivotal adaptive trial design leading to approval of Fulyzaq® (crofelemer). Dr. Harris has served on the faculties of the Medical College of Wisconsin, where he conducted basic research in small bowel diseases, and the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, where was Clinical Professor and Head of the Division of Gastroenterology. He has been a consultant on third-world drug development for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and PATH and an invited speaker at many national and international scientific meetings. He is currently Professor of Clinical Medicine at Georgetown University School in Washington, DC, where he directs a graduate level course in drug development.

Barry Mangum, PharmD, FCP

Dr. Mangum is a co-founder and CEO of Paidion Research, Inc., a pediatric clinical research organization. He previously served as Associate Clinical Professor, Clinical Pharmacology and Associate Clinical Professor, Pediatrics in the Schools of Medicine at Duke University and University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Dr. Mangum is a graduate of The Medical University of South Carolina where he received his Doctorate in Pharmacy with special thesis emphasis on neonatal/pediatric pharmacology.

Bruce E. Sands, MD, MS

Dr. Sands is Chief of the Henry D. Janowitz Division of Gastroenterology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in NY. He was previously Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Associate Physician, Co-Director of the Crohn´s and Colitis Center and Director of Clinical Research for the Gastrointestinal Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital. He is a member of the American Gastroenterological Association, and a Fellow of the American College of Gastroenterology. He is past Chairman of the Clinical Research Alliance of the Crohn´s & Colitis Foundation of America. Dr. Sands received his MD from Boston University School of Medicine.

Giovanni Traverso, MD, PhD

Dr. Traverso is an Instructor in Medicine and Associate Physician in the Division of Gastroenterology, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Harvard Medical School and a Research Affiliate at the Langer Laboratory at MIT. His current research program is focused on developing the next generation of drug delivery systems to enable efficient delivery of therapeutics through the gastrointestinal tract. Dr. Traverso’s work has been published in the New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Science Translational Medicine and Cancer Research. He has been the recipient of the Grand Prize of the Collegiate Inventors Competition, a Research Fellowship from Trinity College, and was named one of the most promising innovators under 35 by the MIT Tech Review’s TR 35. He received his PhD from the lab of Prof. Bert Vogelstein at Johns Hopkins and his MD at the University of Cambridge.