Summary of Qualifications

• Reliable, self-motivated, hard-working, passionate for problem solving and delivering effective and innovative solutions. A detail-oriented scientist with over 4 years of experience in cell and gene therapy including cancer and T-cells/CAR-T. Experienced with interfacing and leading critical customer projects and delivering results in new modalities in BioPharma/CDMO.

Relevant Competencies

• Experience in expanding and culturing immune cells, including mammalian and insect cells.

• Extensive knowledge of analytical techniques including multicolor flow cytometry (FACSCelesta, LSRFortessa), NanoFCM, ELISA, BCA, NTA (DLS, ZetaView, NanoSight), and Nanodrop.

• Skilled in T-cell lentiviral transduction and transfection, especially electroporation methods (e.g., Lonza Nucleofector)

• Various purification methods including TFF, ion exchange and size exclusion chromatography (AKTA, Izon)

• Knowledgeable of several imaging techniques (TEM, SEM, FIB, Fluorescence microscopy)

• Familiar with regulatory guidance documents from WHO, FDA, ICH, EFPIA and other international organizations

• Managing multiple stakeholders including external collaborators

• Create, update, and review SOPs, Project Management, Troubleshooting, Data analysis

• Programing/ Software: MATLAB, LABVIEW, C++, Origin, ImageJ, FLUOVIEW Viewer, FlowJo, Unicorn, Gen5, MS Office

Highlights

• Currently working as Lead Scientist in Charles River Laboratories designing and executing viral vectors process development experiments, recording, and analyzing and presenting the data to stakeholders.

• Scientist II in Novavax, optimizing the proposed process to make it robust, high purity/yield, economic and scalable for clinical stage manufacturing of nanoparticle vaccine and other biologic product candidates.

• Scientist I in Lonza, in charge of optimizing production, purification, and characterization of exosomes using multiple techniques, e.g., TFF, Ion exchange/size exclusion chromatography, NanoFCM, and Flow cytometry for internal R&D CAR T cell and customers projects.

• Led a novel project on development of a new method for magnetic isolation of cancer derived exosomes using magnetic nanoparticles.

• Successfully established an innovative research line on synthesis of anisotropic magnetic nanoparticles for cancer treatment through magnetic hyperthermia.

• Collaborated cross-functionally with multiple teams, actively collaborated with researchers around the world, and provided training to graduate and undergraduate students.

Work Experience

09/2022–Present Lead Scientist, Charles River Laboratories

• Designing and execute experiments to support process development including gene therapy process optimization, technology development, and process modeling.

• Performing analytical testing to characterize biological processes, analyze data, interpret results, and convey these findings effectively in laboratory documents, technical reports, and presentations.

• Contributing to process development tech transfer reports and scientific publications, patents, and regulatory submissions.

• Supporting process characterization studies, tech transfer process, process validation, including validation protocol writing, execution and report writing.

07/2021–08/2022 Scientist II, Novavax Inc.

• Leading the assessment of a new purification process, by reviewing and compiling relevant literature data concerning structure, physio-chemical, and biological data on the target protein, to propose the most suitable purification process.

• Supporting process characterization studies, tech transfer process, process validation, including validation protocol writing, execution and report writing.

• Hands on experience in both downstream (AKTA, ELISA, Nanofiltration), and upstream (Shake flasks, harvesting up to 20-L bioreactors, NovaFlex 2) process development.

07/2020–07/2021 Scientist I R&D, Lonza

●Developing new strategies and refining existing methods for optimizing production, purification, and characterization of exosomes following cGDP and cGMP. This includes methods and equipment such as ultra-filtration, TFF, chromatography, single particle analysis (NanoFCM), flow cytometry (FACSCelesta, LSRFortessa), BCA, ELISA, and other technics.

●Scaling up the production process via plant trials and making changes to raw materials and process parameters to ensure quality is maintained.

●Planning, performing, and supervising process trials. Devising and validating test methods to assess the production process.

07/2017–12/2019 Postdoctoral Research Associate, Masonic Cancer Research Center

●Managing and coordinating a research project on magnetic isolation of cancer derived exosomes for development of a new biomarker for cancer detection through blood biopsies.

●Synthesizing, functionalizing, and characterizing magnetic nanowires using HRTEM and VSM.

●Culturing various types of cancer cells for exosome isolation and investigating internalization of magnetic nanostructures inside these cells using confocal and electron microscopy (HRTEM, SEM, FIB, EDX).

●Analyzing the size distribution and protein/microRNA content of magnetically isolated exosomes using NTA, western blot, and qPCR, and comparing the results with those obtained by conventional methods.

12/2016–06/2017 Research Associate and Adjunct Faculty, University of South Florida

Responsibilities:

●Establishing a new research line on anisotropic magnetic nanoparticles for cancer treatment through magnetic hyperthermia, which resulted in designing and synthesizing magnetic nanoparticles with higher heating efficiency for cancer treatment.

●Synthesizing and functionalizing magnetic nanoparticles using thermal decomposition and sol-gel methods and optimizing the synthesis parameters to obtain tunable sizes and morphologies of nanoparticles.

●Characterizing the physical properties of nanoparticles using DLS, TEM, and X-ray diffractometry, and measuring their magnetic properties using VSM, ACMS, and TDO.

●Analyzing and improving the heating efficiency of magnetic nanoparticles with different properties.

Education

2014-2016 Ph.D.: Applied Physics (Materials Science), University of South Florida, Tampa, FL

2012-2014 M.Sc.: Applied Physics (Materials Science), University of South Florida, Tampa, FL

2006- 2009 M.Sc.: Applied Physics (Optics), University of Zanjan, Zanjan, Iran

2000-2005 B.Sc.: Physics, University of Guilan, Gilan, Iran

Publications

1. Z. Nemati et. al, “Isolation of Cancer-Derived Exosomes Using a Variety of Magnetic Nanostructures: From Fe3O4 Nanoparticles to Ni Nanowires” Nanomaterials 10 (9), 1662, 2020.

2. Z. Nemati et. al, “Magnetic Isolation of Cancer Derived Exosomes Using Fe/Au Nanowires”, ACS Appl. Nano Mater., 3 (2), 2058-2069, 2020.

3. Z. Nemati et. al, “Improving the Heating Efficiency of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles by Tuning their Shape and Size”, The Journal of Physical Chemistry C 122 (4), 2367–2381, 2018.

Complete list of publications: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lCaaObwAAAAJ&hl=en

Honors and Awards

●Received Green card through USCIS EB Exceptional Ability in Science Program (May 2018).

●Published 26 papers (first author in 7 of them) which have received over 1,200 citations to date (h-index 16, i10-index 20, and presented my work in 30 national and international conferences.

●Two best Poster Awards in Session granted by the Organizing Committee of the International Conference on Magnetism (ICM 2018) and 59th MMM Conference (2014).

●Tharp Endowed Scholarship Fund Graduate Award, University of South Florida ($5000, 2016).

●Served as a Referee for Journal of Electronic Materials (JEMS), Journal of Science: Advanced Materials and Devices (JSAMD), and Journal of Materials Research (JMR).

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