Board of Directors

Bernard A. Fox, PhD

Bernard A. Fox, PhD, has a 35+ year career in cancer immunotherapy starting in 1985 as a fellow with Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg, NCI, NIH, at the time when the first high dose IL-2, LAK, TIL and gene therapy studies were performed. For almost 30 years Dr. Fox has led a translational cancer immunotherapy lab at the Earle A. Chiles Research Institute, where he is the Harder Family endowed chair for Cancer Research. Dr. Fox has been PI or Co-I on first-in-human clinical trials of cancer vaccines, adoptive T cell immunotherapy and gene therapy of cancer. During this time he has also served on the Board of Directors for NeoPharm, PrimeVax, and Oregon Bioscience Association, and review/advisory boards for NCI, FDA, Pharma (Pfizer, Novartis, Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, AstraZeneca, Bristol Myers Squibb, Janssen/JNJ, EMD/Serono, Ventana/Roche, Kite) and 20+ biotechs. A past president of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer (SITC), he received the Visionary/Legacy Award from SITC in 2015 and the Team Science Award in 2020. The same year he also received the Bridge Award, from Melanoma Foundation Onlus, for outstanding and lifelong contributions to melanoma research. As founder and CEO of UbiVac, he has led the company from development through first-in-human phase I/II trials and to collaborations with Janssen/JNJ, Bristol Myers Squibb, CanWell Pharma, and Incyte, with additional collaborations currently in discussion.

Sung Poblete, PhD, RN

CEO of Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE), and the former CEO of Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C). Prior to her 11 years at SU2C, Dr. Poblete was director of clinical and translational programs at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), while there she was instrumental to the organization’s scientific review, overseeing the administration and management of grants, and was the point person for scientific communications and general administration. Dr. Poblete was liaison to the Clinical and Translational Committee, the Pediatric Cancer Working Group, the Task Force on Survivorship Research, the Oncology Nursing Society, and the American Society of Clinical Oncology, while also leading AACR’s continuing medical education program.

Her educational background is equally impressive, receiving Bachelor and Master of Science degrees, as well as a PhD in nursing, from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Her teaching career began at Rutgers over 25 years ago, where she continues to serve as a visiting associate professor in the School of Nursing. In 2016, Sung was inducted into Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni, this elite group honors those who are “world-changers”, that have distinguished themselves in advancing the greater good of society. Dr. Poblete is the recipient of numerous research funding grants from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Science Foundation, and various private foundations. Sung also sits on Boards in both the private and not for profit sectors.

Hong-Ming Hu, PhD

Hong-Ming Hu, PhD, has served as UbiVac’s Chief Scientific Officer since founding the company in 2005. Dr. Hu received his BS degree in biochemistry from Fudan University, Shanghai, China. He received his MS degree in Molecular Biology from the Chinese Academy of Science, Shanghai, China and worked with Dr. Vishva Dixit at the Howard Hughes Medical Research Institute at the University of Michigan, before joining the Earle A. Chiles Research Institute in Portland, Oregon. He received his PhD from Oregon Health and Science University and performed research at the Earle A. Chiles Research Institute, where his fellowship training was in tumor immunology and cancer immunotherapy.

Dr. Hu is the inventor of UbiVac’s DRibble and nanoparticle vaccines, and has played a central role in directing the scientific development of UbiVac’s products. He is associate member and Chief, Laboratory of Cancer Immunobiology, at the Robert W. Franz Cancer Research Center, Earle A. Chiles Research Institute, Providence Cancer Center.

He also holds adjunct faculty positions in the Department of Radiation Oncology at Oregon Health and Science University and in the Department of Physics, Portland State University, Portland, Oregon. He is also co-director, Center for Cancer Research and Biotherapy, Southeastern University and Nanjing Second Hospital, Nanjing, China. He has received funding from the National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society and several foundations and has served on review committees for NIH, the Veterans Administration and the Department of Defense.