Dr. Eileen Remold-O’Donnell
Eileen Remold-O’Donnell, PhD was originally trained in Organic Chemistry, Biochemistry and Genetics at the Ludwig Maximilian University (University of Munich) and the Max Planck Institute for Biochemistry from which she holds M.S. (“diplom”) and Ph.D degrees. After postdoctoral training with Dr. Guido Guidotti at the Biological Laboratories of Harvard University, she joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School in 1975, becoming investigator in 1976, senior investigator in 1984 at the Center for Blood Research at Harvard, which was later renamed Immune Disease Institute (IDI) and merged with Boston Children’s Hospital in 2012.
Eileen made key contributions in understanding of neutrophils and T lymphocytes in immunodeficiency and inflammation and has more than 100 publications on the biochemistry and immunology of blood cells. She made major contributions to the discovery and characterization of the leukocyte anti-adhesion surface protein now known as CD43; she established a clinically important PCR-based mutation identification protocol for immunodeficiency Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome (WAS) diagnosis; together with the late Fred Rosen, she developed and co-directed a national center for primary immune deficiency diagnosis at IDI; Eileen also identified the gene family now known as clade B serpins (ovalbumin/intracellular serpins), ancient proteins recognized as regulators of cell survival, such as SerpinB9, which is critically expressed by cytolytic immune cells to protect their survival during anti-viral and anti-tumor responses. Another major accomplishment is the discovery and characterization of SerpinB1, the neutrophil elastase inhibitor and neutrophil survival factor. Indeed, the physiological roles of SerpinB1 are increasingly recognized, including promoting pancreatic β cell proliferation, preventing programmed cell death of IL17-expressing T cells and as the checkpoint of inflammatory caspase activation.
Together with Dr. Lifei Hou, then a postdoctoral fellow, Eileen most recently discovered the feature of pathogenic T cells that drives multiple sclerosis and devised a treatment to specifically target those T cells. She and Lifei co-founded Edelweiss Immune Inc in June, 2019.
Dr. Lifei Hou
Lifei Hou, PhD is co-founder of Edelweiss Immune Inc. He has 15 years experience in both drug discovery and basic research focusing on inflammation and immune disorders. He currently holds the junior faculty position in Harvard Medical School and is Research Associate at Boston Children’s Hospital. He was trained in Dr. Eileen Remold-O’Donnell’s laboratory at the Immune Disease Institute, Harvard Medical School (currently Program in Cellular and Molecular Medicine, Boston Children’s Hospital), where he and Eileen co-discovered the feature of pathogenic T cells that drives multiple sclerosis, and then co-founded Edelweiss Immune Inc. Prior to that, Lifei studied B lymphocyte tolerance mechanisms in autoimmune disease at the Knapp Center for Lupus and Immunology Research of the University of Chicago and viral immunology and viral hepatitis in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology of the University of Texas Medical Branch. Before arriving in the U.S., Lifei was assistant professor at the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences, where he discovered and developed a small molecule SM934 to treat human lupus disease, which is now in phase II clinical trial in Shanghai. Lifei originally trained in medicinal chemistry and pharmaceutics, and is knowledgeable in areas of biology, immunology, pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics (PK/PD), drug toxicology, safety evaluation and US and China FDA regulations. He has co-authored more than 40 scientific publications, reviews, editorials, abstracts and book chapter. Lifei is on the editorial board and was recently appointed associate editor of International Immunopharmacology. He holds a B.E in pharmaceutics from the China Pharmaceutical University (Nanjing, China), and a PhD in Pharmacology from the Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences (Shanghai, China).