Dr. Chris Ballas

CHIEF SCIENTIFIC CONSULTANT

Chris Ballas, Ph.D., is Chief Scientific Consultant to the Company.  From 2004 to 2010,  Dr. Ballas acted as consultant and Chief Scientific Advisor (CSA) to EGT. From 2010 to the present, Dr. Ballas has been employed as Senior Vice President, Manufacturing, for Innovative Cellular Therapeutics in Rockville, Maryland.  Dr. Ballas will continue such employment while also acting as CSA to the Company on a consulting basis.  Dr. Ballas has 25 years of experience working on cell and gene therapies in academic and industry roles with expertise in development and manufacturing of viral vectors and cell therapies. From 2018 to 2019, Dr. Ballas was employed as Vice President of Manufacturing for the publicly-traded company Rocket Pharmaceuticals. From 2015 to 2018, Dr. Ballas was employed in several Director level roles culminating in Senior Director of Process Development and Commercialization for the Advanced Therapies Unit of the publicly-traded company WuXi AppTec, where he had additionally been responsible for manufacturing operations and program management for gene therapy clients. 

Dr. Ballas ran autologous cell therapy clinical trials for Cook Medical from 2012 to 2015. Dr. Ballas held key positions for cell and gene therapy core programs and served as research faculty as Research Assistant Professor at Indiana University School of Medicine from 2002 to 2012.  Dr. Ballas co-developed an ultra-high throughput microinjection device (US9885059) and co-founded Basilard Biotech in 2019 to commercialize this technology. 

Dr. Ballas received a B.S. degree in Cell and Developmental Biology from Purdue University in 1990. Dr. Ballas received a Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Pathology from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1998. Dr. Ballas was a Children’s Brittle Bone Foundation fellow during a postdoctoral fellowship at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine from 1998 to 2002.