Stephen L Hoffman

Biography

Stephen L. Hoffman M.D., D.T.M.H., CAPT, MC, USN (RET) has over 20 years of experience building and managing large, successful research and development programs. From 1987-2001 he was Director of the Malaria Program at the Naval Medical Research Center where he built a focused professional team of over 100 individuals in the United States and overseas working on all aspects of malaria research, but especially vaccine development and genomics. Dr. Hoffman and his team were leaders in the effort to sequence the P. falciparum genome and conducted the first studies in the world that showed that DNA vaccines elicited killer T cell responses in humans. In early 2001 Dr. Hoffman retired from the Navy and joined Celera Genomics as Senior Vice President of Biologics to create a program to utilize genomics and proteomics to produce new biopharmaceuticals. He established this program, organized the effort that successfully sequenced the genome of the mosquito responsible for most transmission of malaria in Africa, Anopheles gambiae, and left Celera in August 2002 to found Sanaria. He holds several professorships, and chairs or serves on multiple advisory boards. He is a past president of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, has edited two books on malaria vaccine development, been the author of more than 325 scientific publications, and has numerous patents. He received his B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania, M.D. from Cornell University Medical College, Diploma in Tropical Medicine and Hygiene from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and did residency training at the University of California, San Diego. He is board certified in Family Practice. In 2004 he was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies. 

Research Interest

Purified recombinant proteins and DNA plasmids that express these proteins are at the core of modern biologics research, development, and products, and the discovery and development of small molecule drugs. Rapid translation of the enormous numbers of discoveries in genomics, proteomics and high throughput screening into potential commercial products such as drugs, vaccines, and diagnostics requires a robust, high quality protein development and production process that takes molecules from discovery through initiation of clinical trials.