Our Team

President – Greg L. Harris, Ph.D.
Dr. Harris is a Professor of Biology at San Diego State University where he has taught and run an active research program since 1989. As a founder of Expression Drug Designs, he brings 35 years of biomedical research experience to the company and an intense enthusiasm for translating EDD's discoveries to the clinic.

Chief Executive Officer – Greg Brulte, DDS.

Dr. Brulte is an assistant research professor of Anatomy and Physiology at San Diego State University, Cuyamaca Community College, and San Diego City College.

Lead Scientist - Deron R. Herr, Ph.D.

Dr. Herr is an assistant professor in the Department of Pharmacology at the National University of Singapore. He currently maintains an active research program that focuses on uncovering the biological roles of sphingolipids and other bioactive mediators.

Chief Financial Officer  – Michael Howard, B.Sc., M.B.A.

After serving five years in the US Army Security Agency, Michael “Mike” Howard earned a B.Sc. in Chemistry and Physics, and an MBA and at San Diego State University.  He has over 40 years of corporate accounting and finance experience as a Controller and CFO. Mike also serves as an Adjunct Instructor at UCSD where he has been teaching accounting and financial reporting for over 20 years.

Technology

Lipids are highly diverse molecules that serve critical roles in energy storage and barrier function. In addition, lipids have important signaling properties and regulate cellular activity. Many pathological conditions are caused by a disruption of these signaling pathways. Our technology relies on specialized knowledge of these lipid signaling systems to design and develop new drugs that target lipid receptors. We have implemented a variety of approaches to develop a pipeline of early stage, small molecule and biologic drug candidates.

Therapeutic areas

Neuropathy: Nerve inflammation can cause numbness or tingling of the extremities, movement disorders, or chronic pain. These symptoms are usually persistent, resulting in long-term disability. Although neuropathy can be caused by a number of different factors (e.g. diabetes, trauma, or chemotherapy), there are common inflammatory processes that drive the symptoms in most cases. We have identified one of these processes and are currently developing new drugs that will alter its activation in a manner that will disrupt nerve inflammation. We expect that these new drugs will switch off the neuropathy cascade and alleviate its symptoms without the need to use dangerous narcotics.

Central Nervous System (CNS) inflammation: Nerve inflammation that occurs in the CNS (the brain and spinal cord) results in tissue degeneration and contributes to diseases such as multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, and stroke. This process is complex and involves many factors – including the activation of lipid pathways. Many of these pathways are known but have yet to be used for the development of drugs. Other important pathways remain that have not yet been identified. We have a unique set of tools to examine the known pathways and to identify new pathways, and we are using these tools to design novel drug therapies.

Diabetes: Interestingly, many of the same processes that cause inflammation in the nervous system may also contribute to inflammation in other organs. When this occurs in the pancreas, liver, muscle, and/or fat tissue it can promote the development of type 2 diabetes. We are exploring the relationships between these two types of inflammation to determine which new classes of drugs are likely to block diabetes.