Biophysical Society Bulletin | December 2020

Biophysicist in Profile

Since May 2018, he has been CCO of AnaBios Corporation, where he guides business development, marketing, and con- tributes to the company’s overall strategic direction. AnaBios is a human tissue company that does physiology experiments with tissues and cells obtained from ethically consented donors. “AnaBios is a unique biotech company and pre-clinical contract research organization,” he says. “This year we have been collaborating with a neuroscience team from Eli Lilly to develop a novel human spinal cord electrophysiology assay for drug discovery applications.” He is focused now on the success of AnaBios. “There is such a strong need for translational assays in pre-clinical drug discovery. We are uniquely poised to help pharma and biotech develop better medicines in a timely fashion. In many ways human stem cells (i.e., iPSCs) have not lived up to the hope and hype of helping drug discovery,” he says. “AnaBios has stepped in to fill the gap with unique assays in pain research and cardiovascular disease using adult human primary cells. Down the road I plan to grow my consulting business to help pharma and biotech companies with ion channel and related projects.” Mathes has been a member of the Biophysical Society throughout his career and has found the connections fa- cilitated by his membership to be a big help along the way. “I have experienced Biophysical Society conferences from many different angles — presenter, attendee, and exhibitor. The Biophysical Society has been such an important part of developing my career for the past 30 years,” he says. “The relationships and connections have been extremely valuable at every step of my career, for example, meeting Reinhold Penner at conferences, then joining his lab as a postdoc, and interacting with industry scientists at the Axon and Sophion exhibits, which helped me to foster relationships that lead to future positions and opportunities.”

in PNAS.” She admires his open spirit, saying, “Chris is kind, respectful, resourceful, positive, generous, encouraging, and friendly to all. I want to be like that!” Mathes joined ChanTest Corporation as Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) in 2012, where he helped grow the business to sell to Charles River in 2014. Mathes next served as CCO of Icagen, Inc., a company focused on ion channel and transporter drug discovery. He oversaw sales, marketing, and customer relations activities, as well as providing strategic guidance for the organization. Mathes dissects a squid for a fifth grade science class, showing off the squid giant axon, which can be seen with the naked eye. The teacher was his daughter Alisa.

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December 2020

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