Full Name
Bret Wallace
Job Title
Director
Company
Symberix, Inc
Speaker Bio
Dr. Wallace is the Director of Research at Symberix, Inc., and received his PhD from UNC-Chapel Hill. His graduate work was pivotal in understanding how the human microbiome could be targeted to alleviate toxic side effects from various drugs. This included toxicities from the chemotherapeutic CPT-11 and the NSAID diclofenac; both studies resulting in peer-reviewed publications. He was instrumental in the animal studies of SBX inhibitors, as well as the development of cell-based activity assays and bacterial and mammalian cell survival experiments. His first-hand experience in nurturing this technology was acknowledged with the invitation to write a review article detailing the therapeutic relevance and importance of the human GI microbiome. To complement this research, he studied xenobiotic metabolism at the human level, studying xenobiotic receptors, such as the pregnane X receptor, and what role this plays in ultimately affecting health. After graduate school, Dr. Wallace did his post-doctoral work at NIEHS to study DNA repair enzymes and mechanisms and the interplay between those systems and carcinogenesis and neurodegenerative disease development. After his post-doctoral position, Dr. Wallace was recruited to Symberix because of his first-hand experience and knowledge of the technology.
Bret Wallace