About PAI
PAI Life Sciences specializes in the developmental and translational research necessary to bring products from the laboratory through the clinical bedside on to commercialization.
We started as Protein Advances Incorporated in 2004, and today PAI has the lab facilities and the scientific expertise available to pursue a deployment-driven approach to vaccine and diagnostic discovery, process development, and product prototyping.
At its inception, PAI developed a computational methodology harnessing the power of cloud computing to represent the proteome of a pathogenic organism by a small number of peptide pools, a method that enabled rapid and economical screening of an entire proteome and thereby provided a valuable utility in the quest for new diagnostic, vaccine, and therapeutic targets. In addition to the bioinformatics approach, PAI has developed a number of biotech candidates in the last ten years. The wet lab capabilities of the company are used to move partnered projects and antigenic leads forward to translation to the clinical bedside.
We have developed candidates in the therapeutic, device, vaccine and diagnostic market and two products that we had developed are in the market now.
As part of our research we are developing protein-based antigens and therapeutics and have a pipeline of products ranging from infectious disease vaccines and adjuvants to small molecule therapeutics.
Fully-equipped Lab Facilities
The PAI facilities are designed for molecular, immunological, and chemical research and contain a wide variety of standard equipment for general use including laminar flow hoods, tissue culture incubators, fume hoods, water purification system, ice machine, balances, ovens, pH meters, vacuum oven, and a wide variety of small equipment.
Additionally, PAI has access to a complete chemistry laboratory facility located in the same building. In addition to fume hoods, rotary evaporators, and glassware, we are able to use major equipment including a Bruker Avance 300 MHz NMR spectrometer, Agilent 1100 LCMS, preparative HPLC systems, automatic flash chromatography system, hydrogenator, and ozone generator.
Meet the PAI Team
Darrick Carter, PhD
CEO
Dr. Darrick Carter, PAI Life Sciences CEO, is a biochemist/biophysicist with over 20 years of biotechnology experience most recently serving as CSO of HDT Bio and VP of Adjuvant Technologies at AAHI (Formerly IDRI). He has founded five companies beginning with an internet startup. At Corixa he led a new tuberculosis vaccine into human trials. He started PAI as a bioinformatics company using proprietary artificial neural nets. He helped spin out Dharma Therapeutics a specialty pharma company for drug delivery. Next, he co-founded a company improving cancer outcomes, Compliment Corp. He is an inventor on over 120 patents and applications with more than 100 publications co-authored.
Darrick Carter, Ph.D.
CEO
Ruth Havertz, M.Sc. Head of Operations
As a Master of Science graduate from the Fachhochschule Aachen, Abt. Juelich, Germany in 1993, with work experience in hazardous waste management, Ruth switched fields to managing a government funded school for advanced education, targeting unemployed adults with degrees in science. After Ruth moved to Seattle, Washington in 2006, she switched fields once again and has been in Operations at PAI Life Sciences for the past 15 years, currently managing finances for Federal, non-Federal and IR&D projects.
Ruth Havertz, M.Sc.
Head of Operations
Dr. Gray is a biotech veteran with over 20 years experience in for-profit, non-profit, and government institutions. He has been awarded multiple NIH grants for the development of vaccines for intestinal and urinary schistosomiasis, and HIV. He oversaw the manufacture and release testing of Sm-p80 for SchistoShield™, the first ever human vaccine for schistosomiasis. This vaccine is currently in Phase 1b clinical trials in Africa. He is inventor/co-inventor on 5 patents or applications including a novel antigen for inclusion in a canine heartworm vaccine. He has co-authored more than 30 peer-reviewed publications and two book chapters.
Sean Gray, Ph.D.
VP Research & Development
Jenn Davis, PAI Life Sciences Scientist, is an Medical Technologist/Immunologist with over 25 years of research/biotechnology experience focusing on process development, assay design and validation with a focus on quality control and development of GxP assays.
Jenn Davis, MT, CLS
Scientist
Dr. Jiho Kim is a scientist at PAI Life Sciences primarily working in preclinical development and testing of PAI’s vaccine and therapeutic products. He has spent 8 years at PAI, carrying out his PhD training in Pathobiology/Global Health on the junction opener protein at both PAI and Dr. Andre Lieber’s lab at the University of Washington. His work now encompasses the oncology (JO) and vaccine translational research (SchistoshieldTM). He is passionate about diseases affecting global undeserved populations and hopes to move PAI’s projects further along to address such pressing issues.
Jiho Kim, Ph.D. MPH
Scientist