Jankopoulos, George

Early Years, Family, and Education

Born in 1959 in Woodside ( Queens , New York , USA ) in the family of the Greeks Damis (Damianos) Jankopulos and Vasiliki Pekmesari from Kastoria ( Western Macedonia , the Kingdom of Greece ). After the end of the civil war in Greece, George’s parents came to New York. He has a sister, Sophia, who graduated from Columbia University and is a scientist in the field of theoretical astrophysics ^{[6] [9]} .

The once rich, due to the Second World War and the Greek Civil War, the Yankopoulos family lost all their possessions ^[6] .

George's grandfather, Yorgos Yankopulos, was born in the city of Kastoria, which then remained under the rule of the Ottoman Empire and was conquered by Greece in November 1912 during the First Balkan War . Escaping from Ottoman slavery , he managed to escape to Austria , where, working as a cleaner at the opera house , he independently learned German through concert programs, thanks to which he was able to get a degree in electrical engineering . Subsequently, he returned to Greece, where up to the beginning of World War II, together with his business partners, he built 15 hydroelectric power plants - one of the first power stations in Greece, including two near Smyrna , which were lost after the Asia Minor disaster . Since the beginning of the war, he was imprisoned after he refused to cooperate with the Nazis who were occupying the country ^{[6] [9]} .

George's father (d. 2010), living in Greece, during the Second World War, fought against the Nazis, and during the civil war - against the Communists ^[6] . Had no education. Having immigrated to the United States , he first worked as a furrier , and then as a life insurance agent and financial planner . He was an active member of the Greek community of the United States, including the Panmacedonian Association of America and Canada ^[6] .

George's mother's family was engaged in furrowing . Forced during the war years to leave school, George’s mother returned to education at the age of 60 ^{[9] [11]} .

Since childhood, inspired by the speeches of the 35th US President John F. Kennedy and fascinated by the space program (see Space Race ), George dreamed of becoming a scientist ^[9] . Absorbed by the questions "how a lizard grows a lost tail" and "how the body works," John wanted to study the ability of living things to regenerate ^[16] .

He graduated from the , enrolled only because the word " science " was in its name ^[16] .

In 1987, he received his Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biophysics , and the doctor of medicine at the ^{[13] [17]} . Becoming a professor of biology at the age of 28, he was one of the youngest and most promising teachers at Columbia University.

In 1988, the Yankopoulos Laboratory won a grant of $ 2.5 million, which gave him the opportunity to continue his research for eight years to come. However, George's father wanted his son to become a practicing physician , rather than a low-paid scientist ^[14] .

The decision of the young researcher was influenced by the successful scientist and businessman P. Roy Vagelos , also the son of Greek immigrants, about whom George’s father read in the periodical articles of the newspaper Εθνικός ρυξ ( The National Herald ) ^{[6] [9]} . At that time, Vagelos was already the CEO and president of the pharmaceutical giant Merck ^{[11] [14]} .

A few years later, Jankopoulos received a phone call from a doctor and businessman , who recruited talented specialists to a new biotechnology company. The startup planned to look for ways of (regeneration of nerve cells ) for the potential treatment of such neurodegenerative disorders as Alzheimer's disease , Parkinson's disease , Lou Gehrig's disease , etc. ^{[9] [11] [16]}

Offer Shleifer interested Jankopoulos. After completing molecular immunology research at Columbia University with Dr. Frederick Alt , in 1989, Jankopoulos left the world of university science and joined the company, which later became known as “ Regeneron ” ^{[13] [17]} .

Career at Regeneron

In 1989 he started working at Regeneron as a founding scientist.

In 1989–1991 - Senior Researcher at Regeneron Research Laboratories, a subsidiary of Regeneron.

In 1991-1992 he was the head of development at Regeneron Research Laboratories.

In 1992-1997, he was vice-president of Regeneron Research Laboratories.

Since 1997 - Senior Vice President, Regeneron Research Laboratories.

Since 1998 - CSO "Regeneron".

In 2000–2016 - President of Regeneron Research Laboratories.

Since 2000 - Executive Vice President, Regeneron.

Since 2001 - Scientific Director of Regeneron.

Since 2016 - President of Regeneron ^[18] .

Over the years of work at Regeneron, Jankopoulos expanded her area of ​​interest, which, in addition to the nervous system, began to engage in research in various fields, ranging from eye diseases to cancer .

Since childhood, an active member of the Greek community of the United States ^[6] . Thus, in 2017, Jankopoulos, along with a Russian businessman invited to New York and the President of the Association of Greek Public Associations of Russia (AOOR) Ivan Savvidy, led a parade in honor of the 196th anniversary of the independence of Greece ^{[12] [19] [20]} .

The works, in particular, are devoted to the search for growth factors (such as neurotrophins , ephrins and angiopoietins ), their and signaling pathways , as well as new approaches to the treatment of diseases ^[13] .

Yankopoulos, together with the key members of his team at Regeneron, is the main inventor and developer of a number of drugs ( , , ) ^[21] , approved by the Food Safety Authority and drugs (FDA), as well as technologies Trap, VelociGene and VelocImmune ^{[7] [11]} .

At the end of March 2017, the FDA approved the monoclonal antibody “ ”, which was developed by Regeneron in collaboration with the French pharmaceutical company Sanofi , and is intended for the treatment of atopic diseases such as eczema ^[22] . The results of the 16-week study were presented in the New England Medical Journal ^{[23] [24] [25]} .

• Member of the of Plain Sight Systems;
• 2004 - Member of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA ;
• 2004 - Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences ;
• 2015 - Member of the Board of Trustees of the Laboratory at Cold Spring Harbor ^[26] ;
• Trustee of the non-profit scientific organization “ ” (in the past) ^[3] ;
• and etc.

He has daughters Urania and Dimitru, and sons Damis and Lucas ^{[6] [9] [14]} .

He is the author of numerous scientific articles ^[21] .

Selected Publications

• Yancopoulos GD, Alt FW (February 1985). "Developmentally controlled and tissue-specific expression of unrearranged VH gene segments". Cell. 40 (2): 271-81. doi: 10.1016 / 0092-8674 (85) 90141-2. PMID 2578321 .
• Yancopoulos GD, Blackwell TK, Suh H, Hood L, Alt FW (January 1986). "Introduced T cell receptor variable region preb B cells: evidence that B and T cells use a common recombinase." Cell. 44 (2): 251-9. doi: 10.1016 / 0092-8674 (86) 90759-2. PMID 3484682 .
• Maisonpierre PC, Belluscio L, Squinto S, et al. (March 1990). "Neurotrophin-3: a neurotrophic factor related to NGF and BDNF." Science. 247 (4949 Pt 1): 1446-51. doi: 10.1126 / science.2321006. PMID 2321006 .
• Boulton TG, Nye SH, Robbins DJ, et al. (May 1991). "ERKs: a family of protein-serine / threonine kinases that are activated and in response to insulin and NGF." Cell. 65 (4): 663-75. doi: 10.1016 / 0092-8674 (91) 90098-J. PMID 2032290 .
• Glass DJ, Nye SH, Hantzopoulos P, et al. (July 1991). "TrkB mediates BDNF / NT-3-dependent survival and proliferation in fibroblasts lacking the low affinity NGF receptor". Cell. 66 (2): 405-13. doi: 10.1016 / 0092-8674 (91) 90629-D. PMID 1649703 .
• Davis S, Aldrich TH, Valenzuela DM, et al. (July 1991). "The receptor for ciliary neurotrophic factor". Science. 253 (5015): 59-63. doi: 10.1126 / science.1648265. PMID 1648265 .
• Ip NY, Stitt TN, Tapley P, et al. (February 1993). "Similarities and differences in the way of the neurotrophins interacting with the Trk receptors in the neuronal and nonneuronal cells". Neuron. 10 (2): 137-49. doi: 10.1016 / 0896-6273 (93) 90306-C. PMID 7679912 .
• Davis S, Gale NW, Aldrich TH, et al. (November 1994). "Ligands for EPH-related receptor tyrosine kinases that require a membrane attachment or clustering for activity." Science. 266 (5186): 816-9. doi: 10.1126 / science.7973638. PMID 7973638 .
• DeChiara TM, Vejsada R, Poueymirou WT, et al. (October 1995). "Mice lacking the CNTF receptor, unlike mice lacking CNTF, exhibit profound motor neuron deficits at birth". Cell. 83 (2): 313-22. doi: 10.1016 / 0092-8674 (95) 90172-8. PMID 7585948 .
• Economides AN, Ravetch JV, Yancopoulos GD, Stahl N (November 1995). Designer cytokines: targeting actions to cells of choice. Science. 270 (5240): 1351-3. doi: 10.1126 / science.270.5240.1351. PMID 7481821 .
• DeChiara TM, Bowen DC, Valenzuela DM, et al. (May 1996). "The receptor tyrosine kinase MuSK is required for neuromuscular junction formation in vivo." Cell. 85 (4): 501-12. doi: 10.1016 / S0092-8674 (00) 81251-9. PMID 8653786 .
• Glass DJ, Bowen DC, Stitt TN, et al. (May 1996). "Agrin acts via a MuSK receptor complex". Cell. 85 (4): 513-23. doi: 10.1016 / S0092-8674 (00) 81252-0. PMID 8653787 .
• Davis S, Aldrich TH, Jones PF, et al. (December 1996). "Isolation of angiopoietin-1, a ligand for the TIE2 receptor, by secretion-trap expression cloning". Cell. 87 (7): 1161-9. doi: 10.1016 / S0092-8674 (00) 81812-7. PMID 8980223 .
• Shrivastava A, Radziejewski C, Campbell E, et al. (December 1997). "An orphan receptor tyrosine kinase family of members serve as nonintegrin collagen receptors." Molecular Cell. 1 (1): 25-34. doi: 10.1016 / S1097-2765 (00) 80004-0. PMID 9659900 .
• DeChiara TM, Kimble RB, Poueymirou WT, et al. (March 2000). "Ror2, encoding a receptor-like tyrosine kinase, is it required for cartilage and growth plate development". Nature Genetics. 24 (3): 271-4. doi: 10.1038 / 73488. PMID 10700181 .
• Holash J, Davis S, Papadopoulos N, et al. (August 2002). “VEGF-Trap: a VEGF blocker with potent antitumor effects”. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 99 (17): 11393-8. doi: 10.1073 / pnas.172398299. PMC 123267Freely accessible. PMID 12177445 .
• Valenzuela DM, Murphy AJ, Frendewey D, et al. (June 2003). "High-throughput engineering of the mouse genome coupled with high-resolution expression analysis". Nature Biotechnology. 21 (6): 652-9. doi: 10.1038 / nbt822. PMID 12730667 .
• Economides AN, Carpenter LR, Rudge JS, et al. (January 2003). "Cytokine traps: multi-component, high-affinity blockers of cytokine action." Nature Medicine. 9 (1): 47-52. doi: 10.1038 / nm811. PMID 12483208 .

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