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Meet Our Team

Farhad Parhami PhD,MBA
Farhad Parhami PhD,MBA

Founder, President, and CEO

Frank Stappenbeck, Ph.D.
Frank Stappenbeck, Ph.D.

Director of Chemistry

Gonzalo Payan
Gonzalo Payan

Director of Finance & Operations

Feng Wang, Ph.D.
Feng Wang, Ph.D.

Director of Molecular and Cellular Biology

Anthony Chao
Anthony Chao

Lab Manager

Our Scientific Founders

Farhad Parhami PhD,MBA
Farhad Parhami PhD,MBA

Founder, President & CEO Professor Emeritus, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA

 

Michael E. Jung, PhD
Michael E. Jung, PhD

Scientific Co-Founder Professor of Chemistry, UCLA

 

William Matsui, MD
William Matsui, MD

Scientific Co-Founder Professor of Oncology Dell Medical School

 

About Us
Scientific Advisors

Farhad Parhami

Founder, President, and CEO

Farhad Parhami was trained as an Experimental Pathologist in the Department of Pathology at UCLA under the mentorship of Professor Judith Berliner. His training and experience include molecular and cellular biology, lipid metabolism, inflammation, and bone and vascular biology. In 1996 he obtained a faculty position and held the title of Professor-in-Residence in the Department of Medicine at UCLA until his separation from the University in July 2016. Dr. Parhami received his M.B.A. degree from the UCLA Anderson School of Management in July 2012.  His research laboratory at UCLA had a number of full time scientists and several staff members, and was involved in training of doctoral and post-doctoral fellows. Dr. Parhami serves as a reviewer for several scientific journals, and is a member of National Scientific Organizations including the American Society for Bone and Mineral Research, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, American Heart Association, American Association for Cancer Research.  In addition to discovering the cross talk between Liver X Receptors and Hedgehog signaling pathway, Dr. Parhami is credited with seminal discoveries including the identification of osteogenic and anti-adipogenic effects of specific oxysterols, the recognition that dyslipidemia causes adverse effects on bone cells and bone formation, and that cholesterol biosynthesis by osteoprogenitor cells is necessary for their proper differentiation and maturation into bone forming osteoblasts. Dr. Parhami has published and continues to publish in many peer-reviewed scientific journals, and is regularly invited to present his research nationally and internationally. Dr. Parhami founded MAX BioPharma Inc. in December 2010 and negotiated an Exclusive License Agreement from UCLA for the intellectual property involving a novel oxysterol technology platform developed in his laboratory at UCLA. Dr. Parhami has been successful in developing MAX BioPharma into a fully functioning biotechnology company that currently has 7 employees, performs R&D in 3 major preclinical programs that utilize novel oxysterols as therapeutic candidates, obtained two SBIR Phase I and two SBIR Phase II grants from the National Institutes of Health, and raised $250,000 of seed funding for the company. In October 2014, Dr. Parhami successfully finalized negotiations with a major biopharmaceutical/device company and licensed one of MAX BioPharma’s programs, resulting in significant value for MAX BioPharma.

Frank Stappenbeck, Ph.D.

Director of Chemistry

Frank Stappenbeck serves as the Director of Chemistry at MAX BioPharma. Since joining the company, he has spent more than two decades working with drug discovery teams in the pharmaceutical industry during previous appointments at Elan Pharmaceuticals, ICOS Corporation, SGX-Pharmaceuticals and Fate Therapeutics. He has worked on drug chemistry problems in the areas of oncology, autoimmune disease, neurodegenerative disease and regenerative medicine. His experience includes structure-based design, fragment-based drug discovery and drug screening based on phenotypic assays. Dr. Stappenbeck first became interested in chemistry as an undergraduate student at the University of Göttingen in Germany before completing a Ph.D. degree in organic chemistry at Oregon State University and postdoctoral training at UC Irvine. Informed and encouraged by his training, Dr. Stappenbeck has developed an ongoing interest in the chemistry and pharmacological properties of naturally occurring substances, such as alkaloids and sterols, as worthwhile starting points in drug discovery research.

Anthony Chao

Lab Manager

Anthony is the Lab Manager at MAX BioPharma. Prior to joining MAX BioPharma, Anthony worked as a Lab Assistant in the Parhami Lab at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Department of Medicine, where he managed the lab’s inventory and safety protocols. Anthony received a Bachelor’s of Science Degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in Sociology.

Feng Wang, Ph.D.

Director of Molecular and Cellular Biology

Dr. Wang is the Director of Molecular and Cellular Biology at MAX BioPharma. During his more than 30 year research career, he has made seminal discoveries in the fields of oxysterol biology, molecular toxicology and molecular oncology. His major accomplishments include: 1) characterization of the inhibitory effects of oxysterols on Hedgehog (Hh), TGF-β TLR2/TLR4 pathway signaling. 2) establishment of the role of coactivators in transcriptional regulation of target genes of both HIF and aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) pathways, and 3) demonstration of the inhibitory effects of nitric oxide donors on hypoxia inducible factor 1 (HIF1) pathway that drives the progression of many cancers. His activities at MAX BioPharma have been focused on elucidation of complex molecular mechanisms underlying the inhibitory effects of our proprietary small molecule oxysterols on Hedgehog (Hh) and TGF-β pathways and their anti-tumorigenic and anti-fibrogenic effects. Dr. Wang received his Bachelor degree in Biochemistry at Nankai University in China (1984). He then received a Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry at Tohoku University in Japan (2001) followed by a postdoctoral appointment at UCLA.

Gonzalo Payan

Director of Finance & Operations

Gonzalo Payan serves as Director of Finance & Operations at MAX BioPharma. Prior to joining MAX BioPharma, Gonzalo worked as a Senior Fund Manager at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Department of Medicine, where he applied his extensive experience towards managing and budgeting for contracts, grants and clinical trials. He managed a portfolio of over $50 million dollars comprised of funds received from a variety of sponsors, including the National Institutes of Health, the American Heart Association, St. Jude Medical and GlaxoSmithKline. In addition to managing the portfolio of funds for the Department of Medicine, Gonzalo also helped establish consortia between UCLA scientists and their collaborators at other universities and pharmaceutical companies around the country. Gonzalo received a Bachelor’s of Science Degree from the University of California, Los Angeles in Actuarial Mathematics.