Our Team

Our team has decades of experience, with over 120 published scientific papers and patent applications an extensive background in founding, R&D, protecting IP & Data Privacy in biotech and Pharma and marketing & branding in the cannabis industry

ITZHAK KUREK, PhD

CEO & Co-Founder

Dr. Kurek is a senior biotech leader with experience in managing, consulting and research roles in the Ag-Biotech, Human and Nutritional Supplements, Renewable Energy and Biobased Products businesses. Dr. Kurek joined Cannformatics from Solix Algredients, a B2B supplier of algae-based natural ingredients where he served as R&D consultant at the Vice-President level. Previously, Dr. Kurek worked at Kiverdi inc., a company making high-value oils and chemicals from waste carbon sources, as the Senior Director of R&D. Dr. Kurek held research scientist positions at Pioneer Hi-Bred (DuPont), Verdia Inc. and Maxygen Inc.

Dr. Kurek has published 20 peer reviewed scientific papers and 13 granted US and international patents cited over 2,000 times. Dr. Kurek received his Ph.D. in Plant Sciences from Tel Aviv University and completed his postdoctoral research at the University of California, Davis. Dr. Kurek has also conducted research at the Technical University of Munich, John Innes Center Norwich, C.N.R.S Bordeaux and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories.

Read Dr. Kurek's recent articles on cannabis and the Cannformatics approach:

How cannabinoids work part 1: Paths into the body

How cannabinoids work part 2: Paths through the body

How cannabinoids work part 3: Metabolism and elimination

How cannabinoids work part 4: Physiological conditions

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KENNETH EPSTEIN

CCO & Co-Founder

Mr. Epstein was a founding partner and brand strategist at WYD, a full service marketing agency specializing in all facets of the cannabis industry. Prior to joining WYD Ken was responsible for increasing revenue and brand equity for some of the world’s most powerful brands including; Clorox, Levi’s, Intel, Electronic Arts and Sunrun. At Sunrun Ken led the Brand and Corporate Communications team during Sunrun’s IPO raising over $251M in equity and led the brand launch of Brightbox Sunrun’s industry leading solar energy storage solution. He has extensive expertise in public relations, social media, and advertising.

Ken has a variety of marketing awards for TV, Billboard and Social Media campaigns including Emmy nominations, Webbys, One Show, and many more. He received his BA in Information and Communication Studies with a minor in Human Biology and Health Science from CSU, Chico. He is on the Board of Directors and serves as the Executive Secretary for Access Institute a San Francisco based non-profit provider of mental health services and Post-Doctoral Fellowship training.

Read Mr. Epstein’s article on exhibiting at a cannabis trade show: Getting Higher Results at Cannabis Trade Shows.

MIKE SIANI-ROSE

VP Computational Biology

Mr. Siani-rose has 20+ years of experience in regenerative medicine, biotechnology and bioinformatics. At Cannformatics, he provides project leadership for strategic partnerships and leadership on computational biology and computational chemistry. He has been a project management consultant to Pharma/Biotech, directing projects that reach broadly across manufacturing organizations. Previously, as President and Founder of Theregen he raised $10M and led the company from preclinical through IND and two Phase I clinical trials for the implantable Anginera epicardial patch. He has extensive expertise in computational chemistry, drug discovery and bioinformatics from positions at Chiron Corporation (now Novartis), Kosan Biosciences and Affymetrix.

Mike has 45+ publications and ten issued patents in drug discovery, laboratory automation, bioinformatics, and regenerative medicine. He received his BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Rochester, did graduate work in Computer Science at UCSD, and attended the BioExecutive Institute in the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley.

ADVISORY BOARD

HONORABLE EDWARD FEIGHAN

Business & Policy Advisor | Executive Chairman, Vitality Bio

Edward F. Feighan J.D. is Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors of Vitality Bio a cannabinoid-based biopharma. Mr. Feighan is currently the Chairman and CEO of Covius LLC, a privately held firm providing a range of services to the mortgage securitization industry. Mr. Feighan has been an owner and Director of Continental Heritage Insurance Company, an early leader in the cannabis insurance market which provides surety bonds and other insurance solutions to the emerging cannabis markets, for more than twenty years. Previously, Mr. Feighan served as Chairman and CEO of ProCentury Insurance Corporation (NASDAQ: PROS) from its IPO in 2004 until the sale of the company to another public insurance group in 2008. In 1996, Mr. Feighan was the founding CEO of Century Business Services (NYSE: CBZ).

Mr. Feighan held elective office in Cleveland, Ohio for twenty consecutive years from 1973 to 1993. After being elected to three terms in the Ohio House of Representatives from 1973 to 1979, Mr. Feighan served a four-year term as a Cuyahoga County Commissioner in the State of Ohio. Subsequently, Mr. Feighan served five terms as a Member of the United States House of Representatives from 1983 to 1993. During those ten years, Mr. Feighan served on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee and Foreign Affairs Committee. Mr. Feighan earned his law degree from Cleveland State University in 1978.

DONALD ABRAMS, MD

Scientific Advisor | Professor, UCSF

Donald I. Abrams, MD is an oncologist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General and a Professor of Clinical Medicine at the University of California San Francisco. He has an Integrative Oncology consultation practice at the UCSF Osher Center for Integrative Medicine. He received an AB in Molecular Biology from Brown University in 1972 and graduated from the Stanford University School of Medicine in 1977. After completing an Internal Medicine residency at the Kaiser Foundation Hospital in San Francisco, he became a fellow in Hematology/Oncology at the Cancer Research Institute of the University of California, San Francisco in 1980. He was one the original clinician/investigators to recognize and define many early AIDS-related conditions. He has long been interested in clinical trials of complementary and alternative medicine interventions for HIV/AIDS and cancer, including evaluations of medicinal marijuana.

In 1997, he received funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to conduct clinical trials of the short-term safety of cannabinoids in HIV infection. Subsequently he was granted funds by the University of California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research to continue studies of the effectiveness of cannabis in a number of clinical conditions. He completed a placebo-controlled study of smoked cannabis in patients with painful HIV-related peripheral neuropathy as well as a study evaluating vaporization as a smokeless delivery system for medicinal. He conducted an NIDA-funded trial investigated the safety of adding vaporized cannabis to opioid analgesics in patients with chronic pain. His most recent study was an NIH-funded trial investigating vaporized cannabis in patients with Sickle Cell disease. He co-authored the chapter on “Cannabinoids and Cancer” in the Oxford University Press Integrative Oncology text that he co-edited with Andrew Weil. He co-edits the NCI PDQ CAM Cannabinoids and Cancer website. He was a member of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine’s committee that published The Health Effects of Cannabis and Cannabinoids: Current State of Evidence and Recommendations for Research in January 2017.

BONNI GOLDSTEIN, MD

Clinical Advisor | Canna-Centers Wellness & Education

Dr. Bonni Goldstein is one of the country’s most respected and experienced medical cannabis physicians. She is the owner and Medical Director of Canna-Centers Wellness & Education. Since establishing her practice in Los Angeles in 2008, she has successfully treated thousands of adult and pediatric patients with serious and chronic medical conditions. She has spoken both nationally and internationally at numerous scientific conferences and patient group events. In September 2020, she published her second book, “Cannabis is Medicine: How Medical Cannabis and CBD Are Healing Everything from Anxiety to Chronic Pain.” She is a board member of the International Association of Cannabinoid Medicines, and also a member of the International Cannabinoid Research Society, and the Society of Cannabis Clinicians.

A native of New Jersey, Dr. Goldstein received her undergraduate education at Rutgers College. She pursued her medical degree at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey. After completing her internship and residency at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, she served as Chief Resident. She was a Clinical Instructor in Pediatrics at USC School of Medicine in Los Angeles, Emergency Transport Attending Physician at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles and Emergency Medicine Attending Physician in the Pediatric Emergency Department at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center. Dr. Goldstein developed an interest in the science of medical cannabis after witnessing its beneficial effects on an ill friend.

Montel Williams

Industry & Media Advisor

Montel Williams is an Emmy Award winning television personality, decorated former naval
officer, inspirational speaker, author, entrepreneur, and cannabis advocate for patients
worldwide. In 2020 Williams launched his debut podcast Let’s Be Blunt with Montel with a
recurring theme of covering the cannabis space. Williams is also the host of the Lifetime Show, Military Makeover with Montel and a bi-weekly podcast titled Free Thinking. Williams is the founder of Lenitiv Scientific, LLC a cannabis product and branding company. The Lenitiv portfolio includes the Inspire by Montel cannabis product line as well as the LivBetr by Montel CBD product line which will launch in early 2023.

Williams was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 1999. Early on his physician recommended cannabis as part of his treatment. Ever since that recommendation, Williams has strongly advocated for cannabis legalization, and specifically worked to pass medical cannabis laws in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Connecticut. He also supports change at the federal level. Williams was one of the first celebrities to advocate for cannabis patients on Capitol Hill and helped to lead the push for military veterans to access medical cannabis without the threat of losing benefits.

MYIESHA TAYLOR, MD

Medical Advisor | FACEP, Sunnyvale, TX

Dr. Myiesha Taylor is a board-certified emergency medicine physician specialist and a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians. Myiesha was born and raised in Long Beach and Los Angeles, CA. She graduated from Xavier University of Louisiana summa cum laude with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry, and subsequently attended the University of Southern California Keck School of Medicine obtaining her medical degree (MD). Thereafter, she continued her training as an intern and resident at Los Angeles County King Drew Medical Center in South Central Los Angeles, a premier training program in Emergency Medicine. She chose emergency medicine as a specialty after the untimely death of her father who was shot and killed during the civil unrest sparked by the Rodney King trial verdict in 1992. At King/Drew Medical Center, she served as Chief Resident her senior year receiving multiple community-based and academic awards.

In an effort to mentor and support women physicians of color globally, she founded Artemis Medical Society. For her work with Artemis, Dr. Taylor was honored by Disney Junior with the naming of the mother character, Myiesha McStuffins, in the highly acclaimed children’s TV show Doc McStuffins. Dr. Taylor has been featured in NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt’s Inspiring America segment, selected as a 2014 Dallas Women’s Foundation Young Leader Award honoree, featured in three Disney Junior Get Inspired Black History Month interstitials and serves as a Women’s Media Center She Source expert. In 2014, Dr. Taylor was selected to receive the Dallas Women’s Foundation Maura Women Helping Women Young Leader Award. The award is given to young leaders who are remarkable trailblazers for the next generation and who are finding ways to drive positive change for women and girls. Furthermore, Dr. Taylor has also been honored as a Dallas Business Journal’s 40 Under 40, D Magazine Moms Who Inspire, HBCU Digest’s Most Powerful People, and she is a past Fort Worth Business Press Great Women of Texas Honoree. In 2016, Dr. Taylor launched Brilliant In Color to help engage parents and students in pursuing academic excellence. Recently, Dr. Taylor was appointed as one of seven content experts for the Texas State Board of Education in the first review of Texas health education curriculum standards in 20 years. Dr. Taylor is active in community service with Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority, Inc. and philanthropy via Jack and Jill of America, Inc. Dr. Taylor has spent time in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where she and her husband adopted a baby girl, and provided medical care to HIV/AIDS orphans in the city. Myiesha is married to William Schlitz and is the mother of three wonderfully talented children.

STEPHANY COX, PHD

Autism Advisor | Pediatric Neuropsychologist, UCSF

Dr. Stephany Cox is a pediatric neuropsychologist with extensive experience with neurodevelopmental disorders, especially autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Dr. Cox is an Assistant Clinical Professor at Benioff Children's Hospital at UCSF where she provides evaluations for children with medical conditions that affect brain development. She also serves as co-director of a neurodevelopmental follow-up program for children with congenital heart disease.

Prior to attending her doctoral program, Dr. Cox performed neurocognitive and diagnostic evaluations within the context of research projects at the UCLA Center for Autism Research & Treatment and the Autism Genetic Resource Exchange. Her doctoral research focused on intervention programs for ASD, and while obtaining her doctorate, she helped establish a multidisciplinary autism center. Dr. Cox has also conducted research investigating neurodevelopmental outcomes for children with complex medical conditions, as well as neurocognitive profiles of ASD and other neurodevelopmental disorders. Dr. Cox received her Ph.D. in Clinical and School Psychology from the University of Virginia and BS in Biopsychology from the University of Michigan. She completed her predoctoral internship at Children's Hospital of Orange County and postdoctoral fellowship at Children's National Medical Center.