Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Center

Steven Haney, PhD

Research Fellow, Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Center

Steven Haney, Ph.D., joined the IBRI in July 2018 as Research Fellow in the IBRI’s Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Center. In this role, he is responsible for establishing the protein expression and production cores, as well as developing biological support for emerging therapeutics.

Prior to the IBRI, and since 2012, Dr. Haney served as a Senior Research Advisor and Group Leader, and Senior Research Advisor at Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, IN. His research focus at Lilly was on quantitative biology discovery chemistry and research technologies, and oncology translational research. Prior to Lilly, he was a consultant to the Yale Medical Center for Molecular Discovery, New Haven, CT. He also held various senior, principal and management scientific research positions at Pfizer Research and Wyeth Research, both Cambridge, MA, and at Cadus Pharmaceutical Corporation, Tarrytown, NY.

Dr. Haney earned a B.S. in Biochemistry from the State University of New York, Stony Brook, NY, and a Ph.D., in Biological Chemistry from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI and was a Research Fellow in the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ. He co-holds the patent for methods of modulating apoptosis using inhibitors of brain-localized protein kinases. He has authored or co-authored more than 25 publications, and has authored more than 30 commentaries, reviews and book chapters, and is the editor of two books on High Content Screening.   He is currently President of the Society for Biomolecular Imaging and Informatics.

Victor Wroblewski, PhD

Research Fellow, Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Center

Victor J. Wroblewski, Ph.D., joined the IBRI in July 2018 as Research Fellow in the IBRI’s Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Center. In this role, he is responsible for preclinical evaluation and optimization of antibody leads and lead development. 

Prior to the IBRI, Dr. Wroblewski held positions with increasing responsibility during a 25-year span at Eli Lilly and Company’s Lilly Research Laboratories in Indianapolis, IN. His responsibilities at Lilly Research Labs included the direction of a team of 30 scientists charged with supporting the preclinical development of Lilly’s biotechnology portfolio (monoclonal antibodies, multi-functional antibodies, fusion proteins and peptides). Prior to Lilly, he worked at Bayer Corporation in Berkeley, CA, as a Staff Scientist and Senior Staff Scientist, and before that, he served as a Post-Doctoral Scientist at the University of California at Davis.

Dr. Wroblewski earned a B.S. in Biology from State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse, NY, and his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the University of Buffalo, Buffalo, NY. He holds the patent for Protease Resistant FLINT Analogs. He has authored, co-authored or contributed to more than 25 publications and book chapters.

Partha Banerjee, PhD

Staff Scientist, Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Center

June Javens-Wolfe, PhD

Research Analyst, Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Center

Bhupal Ban, PhD

Senior Staff Scientist, Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Center

Bhupal Ban, Ph.D., joined the IBRI in March 2019 as Senior Staff Scientist in the IBRI’s Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Center (PBC). In this role, he will be responsible for defining and executing molecular engineering strategies designed to optimize the biological activity and pharmaceutical properties of lead monoclonal antibody candidates.

Prior to the IBRI, and since 2015, Dr. Ban served as an Assistant Professor of Research and Director of the Antibody and Engineering Technology Core in the Department of Cell Biology at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Va. While at UVA, he was recognized as having the outstanding research core of the year for 2016. Prior to UVA and since 2013, he served as Research Associate in the College of Pharmacy at Xavier University in New Orleans, La. From 2011 to 2013, he was a Postdoctoral Researcher at Tulane University’s School of Medicine, also in New Orleans.

Dr. Ban’s corporate experience includes working in the Bioscience Division of Los Alamos National Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M., and serving as Senior Research Scientist and Project Leader for MedyTox Inc. in South Korea where he was recognized as outstanding researcher of the year in 2008.

A native of Nepal, Dr. Ban earned his B.S. in Biological Sciences from Tri-bhuvan University in Nepal, and his M.S. in Organic Chemistry, also from Tri-bhuvan University. He earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Sun Moon University in South Korea, where he also served as a Doctoral Researcher.  He has published more than two dozen papers and presentation abstracts and holds three patents.

Mustapha Moussaif, PhD

Senior Staff Scientist, Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Center

Mustapha Moussaif, Ph.D., joined the IBRI in January 2019 as Senior Staff Scientist in the Pharmaceutical Biotechnology Center (PBC).  In this role, he is responsible for establishing operational platforms for biotherapeutic antibody discovery, lead optimization and developability.

Prior to the IBRI, he worked as Scientist in the Bio-Therapeutics/Lead Engineering group with Boehringer-Ingelheim in Ridgefield, CT. Prior to that, he was a Senior Scientist in Biotherapeutics Discovery at the Icahn Medical School in Mount Sanai, NY. and worked as a Research Scientist at New York University in New York City. From 2004 to 2010, he was a Research Associated with the department of molecular pharmacology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City.

Dr. Moussaif also served as Postdoctoral Research Associate in Biochemistry, Biophysics and Molecular Biology at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, and as a Postdoctoral Fellow at Wayne State University in Detroit, Mich. He earned his Ph.D. in Biology and Biological Sciences from the University of Liège, Liège, Belgium, and his B.S. in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University Abdel Malek Essaadi in Morocco. He has published and contributed to the publication of more than 15 research articles.