Mohammad A. El-Kalay, Ph.D., Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, and Member of the Board of Directors.

Dr. El-Kalay is a seasoned biopharmaceutical industry executive with more than 25 years of experience in the areas of Research, Clinical Development, Business Development, and Manufacturing. During this time he has held Senior Management positions including Vice President of R&D at MicroIslet (pancreatic islet isolation and encapsulation), Sr. Vice President of R&D at both Telos Pharmaceuticals (antibodies and fusion proteins that modulate T-cells) and ValeocyTe Therapeutics (activated T-cells), Vice President of Product Development at MorphoGen Pharmaceuticals (stem cells) and Director of Product Development at Osiris, SyStemix and Applied Immune Sciences (stem cells). He has successfully lead teams that earned FDA approval for a range of devices and cell-based products. He has acted as a consultant and served on the Scientific Advisory Boards of several stem cell companies. Dr. El-Kalay is an author of many patents and publications. He holds a Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Biomedical Engineering and B.Sc. (Hons.) in Chemical Engineering from Strathclyde University in Glasgow, Scotland.

Noushin Dunkelman, Vice President, Process Development

Ms. Dunkelman joined EyeCyte with over 18 years industry experience in research, bio-process engineering and product development of cell-based therapies. She has held several management positions including Senior Director, Cell Process Development at MicroIslet Inc., where she led a team of scientists and engineers in the development of porcine islet isolation and encapsulation for treatment of type I diabetes. As the Senior Director, Process Development at Telos Pharmaceuticals her group was responsible for developing culture processes to manufacture fusion proteins using stable expression systems. At ValeocyTe Therapies as the Senior Director, Process Development she led a multidisciplinary team in the development of activated Th1 cells for treatment of renal cell carcinoma. At MorphoGen Pharmaceuticals, she was the Director of Product and Process Development where she managed the development for pluripotent stem cells for treatment of diabetes, skeletal, neurodegenerative diseases. She was a Research Scientist at Advanced Tissue Sciences, where she was the project leader responsible for bioreactor design from R&D concept to pre-clinical stage for cartilage product. She led the design and development of a bioreactor system for vascular graft production.

Matthew R. Ritter, Ph.D. Manager, Research and Development

Dr. Ritter has 15 years of experience working in the field of vascular biology and a decade working in vision science. Dr. Ritter’s research experience includes investigations into the mechanisms involved in cell signaling, adhesion, and chemotaxis as they relate to angiogenesis and tumor biology. He has applied his experience in angiogenesis to the study of blood vessel biology in the eye. More recently, he identified and characterized a population of progenitor cells that influence blood vessel repair and stability in the retina and described methods to recruit these cells from the circulation to the damaged retina. Patents filed on these findings establish him as a co-inventor of EyeCyte’s core technologies. He is an author of numerous scientific articles, reviews and patents and holds a B.S. degree in Biological Sciences from The University of California, Irvine and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Southern California. Dr. Ritter conducted post-doctoral studies at The Scripps Research Institute in the laboratory of Dr. Martin Friedlander and was the recipient of a National Institutes of Health Kirschstein National Research Service Award.