GARY GLICK:
 
ALEX BURKULAS




 
 
 
 
 
Founder and Chief Science Officer, Lycera Corp. in Plymouth. Glick founded Lycera in 2006 and raised the seed round and $36 million series A financing for the company in 2009. Lycera is developing novel, small-molecule pharmaceuticals to treat autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease. Glick has received a number of awards for his scientific contributions, including an Arthritis Investigator Award from the National Arthritis Foundation, Junior Faculty Research Award from the American Cancer Society, Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, Research Fellowship from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and two Research Excellence Awards from the University of Michigan. A Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Glick holds the Werner E. Bachmann chair in chemistry at the University of Michigan (U-M). Also a professor of biological chemistry at the U-M Medical School, he is a member of the training faculty for the interdepartmental immunology and medicinal chemistry doctoral programs, and the founder and director of U-M’s Chemical Biology Doctoral Program. Glick’s research interests are in drug discovery and development for autoimmune diseases and cancer; chemical-induced apoptosis; nucleic acid structure, folding, and recognition; and molecular recognition of nucleic acids by proteins. He serves on numerous boards and committees, including the Bioorganic and Natural Products Chemistry Study Section of the National Institutes of Health, and the Scientific Advisory Board of the National Arthritis Foundation, Michigan Chapter. He is on several editorial boards, is editor-in-chief of Biopolymers, a leading journal in biochemistry and biophysics, and is a counselor to the American Chemical Society’s Division of Biological Chemistry. Glick received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Rutgers University, and two master’s degrees and the PhD from Columbia University. He then completed a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University.


WHERE BORN: “Queens, N.Y.”

MOST INFLUENTIAL PERSONS: “My post-doctoral advisor at Harvard, Jeremy Knowles. He was a brilliant scientist, a gentleman, fair, a kind person, and just admirable in his personal and professional attributes.”

LAST BOOK READ: "Senior Leadership Teams: What It Takes to Make Them Great by Ruth Wageman, Debra Nunes, James Burruss, and J. Richard Hackman.”

WORDS THAT DESCRIBE ME: “Energetic, demanding, fair, and fun.”

WHERE MY FIELD/INDUSTRY IS HEADED:  “The biotech industry is headed for a period of unprecedented growth over the next several years as a large number of patents held by large pharmaceutical companies expire. There’s a need for new and innovative medicines. Many products will originate in small- to midsize biotech companies like Lycera.”

FAVORITE TECHNOLOGICAL GADGET: “My mechanical watches.”

FAVORITE PLACE: “The Central Rift Valley in Kenya. It’s one of the most amazing places on the planet.”

FAVORITE HOBBIES: “Without question it is traveling, and also driving sports cars.”

FAVORITE FOOD: “It’s a three-way tie: steamed clams, lobster, and pasta with marinara sauce. I cannot put a No. 1 there.”

MY HIDDEN TALENT: “I can tell a good joke.”

HOW I WANT TO BE REMEMBERED: “As it relates to my work, the work in Lycera and research at the University of Michigan that made a difference in people’s lives. Also with respect to my children, being remembered as a parent that loved them, taught them, and as someone they could respect.”


Grant Thornton Website At the annual awards reception in April 2014, one Leader & Innovator from the previous 12 months will be selected as the Grant Thornton Leader & Innovator of the Year.