AdVec Management Team
Dr. Frank L. Graham
Cofounder AdVec Inc.
President & Chief Executive Officer
Dr. Silvia Bacchetti
Cofounder AdVec Inc.
Secretary Treasurer
Dr. Graham earned degrees in Mathematics and Physics (B.Sc. Hons.) from the University of Manitoba, Theoretical Physics (M.A.) and Medical Biophysics (Ph.D) from the University of Toronto. He is currently Professor Emeritus in the Departments of Biology and Pathology and Molecular Medicine and Distinguished University Professor, McMaster University. He was a recipient of the Robert L. Noble Prize from the Canadian Cancer Society and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. He has authored or co-authored over 250 technical papers in the fields of adenovirus molecular biology, gene therapy and oncology and holds twenty five patents.
Dr. Bacchetti received her Italian Doctor Degree in Biology (Laurea) at the University La Sapienza of Rome (Italy) where she worked on DNA repair in the Dept. of Genetics. After a postdoctoral in the Dept. of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto (Canada), and appointments at Argonne National Laboratory (USA) and at the Medical Biological Laboratory, TNO, Rijswijk (The Netherlands) she joined the Dept. of Pathology and Molecular Medicine, McMaster University (Canada) of which she is currently Emeritus Professor. Her research interests focused on the induction of genetic damage by radiation or viral oncogenes, and on the role of telomeres and telomerase in cell immortalization and cancer. She is coinventor on 2 patents on telomerase and on virus control of gene expression.
Dr. Mary Hitt
Chief Scientific Officer, AdVec, Inc.
Dr. Christina Addison
Chief Financial Officer, AdVec, Inc.
Dr. Hitt received B.S. (Chemistry) and B.A. (Biology) degrees from University of Missouri, St. Louis (USA) and a Ph.D. (Biochemistry) from University of California, Berkeley (USA). She was a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Beverly Griffin in the Department of Virology at the Royal Postgraduate Medical School (London, UK) and with Dr. Mark Kay in the Department of Medical Genetics, University of Washington Seattle (USA). She continued as a postdoctoral fellow and research associate in the laboratory of Dr. Graham at McMaster University (Hamilton, Ontario, Canada) for 11 years. She is currently Associate Professor Emeritus in the Department of Oncology, University of Alberta (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada). She is co-founder of DMKS Research, Ltd., an authorized distributor of HEK293 cells. Dr. Hitt is co-inventor on 3 patents on cell culture methodology and one patent on oncolytic reovirus.
Dr. Addison received her Honors B.Sc. (Microbiology/Genetics) from the University of Guelph and a Ph.D. (Biology) from McMaster University under the mentorship of Dr. Frank Graham. She was a postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Robert Strieter and Dr. Peter Polverini at the University of Michigan (Ann Arbor MI, USA). Christina has lead an active research laboratory since 2000, and is currently a Senior Scientist at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute and an Associate Professor in the Departments of Medicine, and Biochemistry, Microbiology & Immunology at the University of Ottawa (Ottawa ON, Canada). Her current research interests focus on cellular intercommunication in the bone metastatic microenvironment and novel therapies targeting bone metastatic tumor growth.