As Senior Vice President, Research, Greg Babcock oversees all aspects of research including target selection, disease areas of focus, academic partnerships and discovery of novel biologics.
Greg joined Visterra in 2013 and has 20 years of experience researching and developing monoclonal antibodies for a variety of disease indications. Previously, Greg served as the Deputy Director of MassBiologics, building and leading the research efforts at the organization. While at MassBiologics, he discovered and developed four human monoclonal antibodies, primarily for infectious disease targets, that were studied in human clinical trials. Two of these antibodies, bezlotoxumab (Zinplava, for the treatment of recurrent C. difficile infection) and RAB1 (Rabishield, post-exposure prophylaxis for rabies virus) have been approved for human use globally and in India, respectively. Greg has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and numerous patents in the field of monoclonal antibodies.
Greg received his BS in Microbiology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and his Ph.D. in Immunology from Tufts University where he developed the model for Epstein Barr virus long-term latency in humans. Following his graduate work, he did his post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School/Dana Farber Cancer Institute studying the biology of HIV co-receptor usage and viral entry.