Helen F. Schiltz, MS, PhD
Dr. Helen Schiltz has more than 25 years of experience in the biotechnology industry and with the US government in the development and management of therapeutic, diagnostic, and vaccine products for a wide range of bacterial and viral biodefense and emerging infectious pathogens. As a formal program officer in the Office of Biodefense Research, Resources and Translational Research (OBRRTR) within the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Schiltz was instrumental in building a successful BEI Resources Reagents and Repository Program for NIAID that supports US and international research and development efforts for diagnostic, vaccine, and therapeutic products. Furthermore, she was a founding member and acting chief of the Drug Development Section of OBRRTR and has made significant contributions to the overall strategic implementation of NIAID’s biodefense research and development agenda in building a robust therapeutic portfolio targeting a wide selection of high-priority bacterial and viral pathogens spanning from preclinical to early clinical (phase 1 and 2) development stages.
Dr. Schiltz has worked with a variety of technologies and innovative approaches for products, including biologics (recombinant protein and antibodies) and small molecules (siRNA, peptides, and other chemical entities) for inhaled, oral, and parenteral administrations. She has overseen more than 20 IND submissions and multiple clinical phase 1 and 2 trials and is a leading expert in the development of products that are licensed under the Animal Rule.
Prior to joining OncoC4 and OncoImmune, Dr. Schiltz was Senior Director of research and development at the Sabin Vaccine Institute. Before joining NIAID, she held manager and director positions for research and development at Qiagen (formally Digene) and Metrigenix, where she developed HIV, HBV, and parvovirus B19 quantitative detection assays and HPV genotyping assays, as well as multiplex genomic and proteomic arrays for disease biomarkers. Dr. Schiltz received her master of science degree from Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou China and her doctoral degree in biochemistry from Louisiana State University.