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Dr. VanCott received his Bachelors degree in Chemistry from Dickinson College and his Doctrate degree in Physical Chemistry from the University of Virginia. He joined ABL in 2004 as Director of Product Development. Dr. VanCott became Executive Vice President of Operations in 2006 and President & CEO in October of 2008. From 1990-2003, he led the preclinical HIV vaccine development efforts for the U.S. Military HIV Research Program. He currently serves as the Co-Principal Investigator of a multi-year master contract with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a division of the National Institutes of Health, to perform preclinical development of promising HIV-1 vaccines and microbicides.
This effort includes providing: project management; process development and vaccine/microbicide production and purification; safety, immunogenicity and a spectrum of activity testing; regulatory documentation, and information technology and data management support as well as assisting with the identification of potential new products and provide all support needed for small-scale research and GMP production, preclinical testing and documentation leading to IND submission for Phase I clinical testing. His product development efforts include the development of preventive and therapeutic vaccine candidates to treat chronic human viral infections. His current research focuses on heterologous prime-boost vaccine strategies to elicit mucosal immunity and protection against pathogenic mucosal challenge in animal models.
Dr. Markham joined ABL's predecessor, Litton Bionectics, Inc. (LBI) in 1975 as a Viral Oncologist. Over the next 35 years, Dr. Markham took on positions of increasing responsibility and leadership, helping ABL become a leading research lab for HIV therapeutic and Vaccine innovation.
During Dr. Markham's more than 30 years experience in biomedical research, he has served as Principle Investigator, co-Principle Investigator and key scientist on numerous government contracts; supervised scientific research and provision of reagents or services, managed resources to meet deliverables, and provided administrative oversight.
Dr. Markham earned a Masters of Science degree from Utah State University, Department of Bacteriology, Logan, Utah and a Doctorate degree from the University of California, Los Angeles, Medical School, Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology, Los Angeles, CA.
Dr. Markham has made important contributions to the field of human and animal virology. His research has associated him with the initial isolation and characterization of the first human retroviruses, HTLV and HIV, a novel human Herpes virus, HHV-6, and several nonhuman primate viruses, including novel strains of Gibbon Ape Leukemia virus (HUGO), SIV (L'Hoest), STLV (Pan p), and Herpes virus (HVmne). Dr. Markham has also studied the effects of exogenous agents, such as, cytokines/chemokines, growth factors, hormones, suppressor factors, and transforming agents on virus infection/expression and on human and nonhuman primates hematopoietic cells.
Mr. Arrage joined ABL in 2011 as Vice President, Business Development and is responsible for developing and executing ABL's commercial business growth strategy. Mr. Arrage has over twelve years of experience as a management consultant and business development executive in the bio/pharmaceutical contract service industry, most recently with Laureate Biopharmaceutical Services, Inc. where he served as Director of Business Development. Mr. Arrage received his M.B.A. from the University of Tennessee and has a M.S. degree in Microbiology from Virginia Tech.
Ms. Tebeau, joined ABL in 2009, and has overall responsibility for Process Development and GMP Manufacturing of proteins, vaccines, and viral vector products. Ms. Tebeau has over 20 years of industry experience developing and producing a variety of early and late phase biopharmaceutical therapeutic products with specific targets in the areas of Hematology, Oncology, Growth and Metabolism, and Autoimmune Diseases. Ms. Tebeau has extensive experience in product ctommercialization, and contributed to the successful launch of Erbitux®, Neumega®, Benefix®, and Refacto®. Prior to joining ABL, Ms. Tebeau was the Vice President of Manufacturing at WuXi AppTec, responsible for developing and production of Monoclonal Antibodies and Recombinant Proteins for early phase clinical studies.
Dr. Bhale joined ABL in 2005 and is responsible for the Quality Assurance function at ABL. In this role, he manages all Quality system activities and provides quality support to government and commercial projects. Dr. Bhale has over 15 years of biopharmaceutical quality system experience specifically managing the cGMP manufacturing for all phases of clinical trials and commercial products. Dr.Bhale received his Ph.D. degree in 1985 in Analytical Chemistry. From 1986-1990, Dr. Bhale conducted research work as a post-doctoral research fellow at Kagoshima University, Japan, University of New Mexico Albuquerque and University of Kansas, Lawrence.
Dr. Richardson joined ABL in November of 2005 as a Project Manager for the Preclinical Master Contract, serving as technical lead for many of the vaccine development projects. He has taken on positions of increasing responsibility and was promoted to Director of Quality Control in 2011. In this role, he leads ABL's analytical operations along with custom virology and cell biology services, assay development and validation, oversight of raw materials receipt and testing, environmental monitoring, as well as in process and release testing to support internal and external manufacturing efforts.
Dr. Richardson has has over 15 years of industry experience, beginning during his post-doctoral work at Cornell Medical College assisting Enzo Biochem with a gene therapy program for HIV treatment. He then worked at Quality Biotech (now WuXiAppTec) as Study Director for viral clearance and molecular adventitious agent assays. Worked for Genovo/Targeted Genetics in technology development group, developing analytical methods and virus production platforms for gene therapy products. Before coming to ABL, he worked at Integral Molecular developing methods for VLP production and characterization. Educated at Cornell University, graduating with a B.S. in Microbiology. Obtained M.S. in Microbiology from Colorado State University, with research on influenza virus, and a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, working on Vesicular stomatitis virus RNA synthesis. Post doctoral work was performed in the Laboratory for AIDS Virus Research at Cornell Medical College.
Ms. Johnson-Leva joined ABL staff in 2004 with over 25 years of experience in the bioscience industry. She has more than 15 years experience with the FDA and in other regulatory or quality systems positions and provides guidance and direction for all regulatory requirements to understanding and interpretation of GLP/GMP guidelines and requirements for FDA immunomonitoring compliance. Ms. Johnson-Leva is a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park with a BS in Microbiology.
Throughout her career, Ms. Johnson-Leva has created Regulatory programs to become compliant with FDA observations, client and corporate observations, managed the development and implementation of quality practices in cGMP and GLP operations to ensure compliance with the Quality System, Regulations, directed the organization and preparation of FDA submissions including submissions for INDs, supplements to BLAs for CMC, labeling, product and facility changes, Drug Master Files, and Annual Reports as well as developed and provided cGMP, technical and regulatory expertise in review of protocols,procedures, change controls, deviations, raw material specifications, Quality Review Board, adverse events, labeling, promotional labeling and advertising.
Ms. Deane joined ABL in November 2004 and is responsible for government and commercial contract project management programs. She has 24 years of industry experience including 20 years in management positions supporting cGMP operational functions for biologics from technology transfer through phase III production. Ms. Deane received her B.S. from American International College and a M.S. from Anna Maria College.
Mark Fields joined ABL in May 2011 as Director, Finance and is responsible for the Accounting, Finance, Contracts and Purchasing functions of ABL. Mr. Fields has over twenty years of senior management experience in both public and private companies, most recently with PharmAthene, Inc. where he served as Vice-President Controller. Mr. Fields received his B.A. in Accounting from Loyola College and is a member of the Maryland Association of Certified Public Accountants.
Mr. Rocha joined ABL in 2008 as Director, Human Resources. He brings more than 35 years of experience to his role, having most recently served as Director, Human Resources for Birnbaum Interpreting Services in Silver Spring, MD, which is one of the largest American Sign Language interpreting services in the nation. He previously held Human Resources Director positions at the American Industrial Hygiene Association and the Cooperative Housing Foundation, as well as serving as a Senior HR Consultant at The Moone Group Inc. Prior to joining the private sector, Mr. Rocha spent 20 distinguished years in the U.S. Army as a Master Sergeant specializing in Personnel Management and Administration and held posts at The White House, US Pacific Command Hawaii, US Army Attache Africa, among other distinguished assignments. He earned a Bachelor's degree in Business Management (English minor) from Park College, MO and a Bachelor's of Applied Arts & Sciences in Religion from Wayland Baptist University, TX, as well as pursuing his continuing education in American Sign Language. Mr. Rocha has been an active member of the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM) since 1993.
