He was previously Senior Vice President and Franchise Head, Bone, Respiratory, Immunology, Endocrine, Dermatology and Urology at Merck Research Laboratories; he joined Merck in 2006 and retired in March 2011. At Merck, he was responsible for the overall scientific direction of the drug discovery and development process from target identification through the life cycle management for approved drugs for Merck’s key therapeutic areas of immunology, respiratory disease, endocrine disorders, urology, dermatology and woman’s health. Prior to Merck, Alan worked at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he had served as chief of Pediatric Services at the MassGeneral Hospital for Children and the Partners Healthcare System. He also served on many senior committees including the Executive Committee on Research the Massachusetts General Hospital, which he chaired. He also served as the Charles Wilder Professor of Pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School and chaired the committee that led to the establishment of the Academy at the Harvard Medical School where he served as a Scholar and Founding member.

He served on the Board of Directors of the Partners Healthcare System and MassGeneral Physicians Organization. He also served on the Boards of Anika Therapeutics and Natimmune, a biotech company that he founded. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Oxagen, and Abide Therapeutics. He is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, the American Pediatric Society and a Fellow of AAAS. He served on NIH Subcommittee on Biodefense; NIH Subcommittee on Vaccine Adjuvants; National Academy of Sciences panel on antibiotic resistance: National Academy of Science panel examining academic pharmaceutical partnerships; Council AAAS Section for Medical Sciences that reviews policy and membership for the AAAS. ARISE 2 task force of American Academy of Arts & Science Member that is evaluating the impact of federal and industrial funding of science, engineering, and medicine on American universities.

He is a pioneer in the field of innate immunity and has over 150 publications. His work has enhanced the understanding of innate immunity. In particular his group played a major role in defining the structure function of the mannose binding lectin and the macrophage mannose receptor. In addition his work on phagocyte biology spanned from a very basic understanding of the complex regulation of phagocytosis using flies as a model system, to the translation to human phagocyte biology and includes the application of this knowledge into an FDA approved treatment for Chronic Granulomatous Disease, a phagocytic disorder in humans. In 2008 he was honored with the establishment R. Alan Ezekowitz Professorship in Pediatrics at the Harvard Medical School.

Dr. Ezekowitz received his medical training at the University of Cape Town in South Africa and was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Oxford University where he also completed a postdoctoral fellowship. At Children’s Hospital in Boston, he completed a second postdoctoral fellowship in the Division of Hematology and Oncology and his clinical training in pediatrics. He was on the staff of the Children’s Hospital of Boston prior to moving to the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Previously Todd served as Vice President of Chemistry & Enabling Technologies at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development (J&JPRD) where he had responsibility for establishing, building and guiding Medicinal Chemistry, Biology Enabling Research Technologies (Compound Logistics, Developability, Drug Metabolism & Pharmacokinetics, Genomics and High Throughput Screening), Scale-up Chemistry, Analytical Chemistry, and Computational Chemistry. During Todd’s leadership tenure, the J&JPRD La Jolla site generated over thirty new molecular entities that were accepted into development with more than fifteen advancing into human clinical trials.

Prior to J&JPRD, Todd held positions of increasing responsibility at Ontogen Corporation, an automated high-throughput chemical-synthesis drug discovery company, and Ligand Pharmaceuticals, a cutting-edge drug discovery biotechnology company, in San Diego. Todd began his pharmaceutical career at Merck Research Laboratories in Rahway, NJ, where he gained experience in process and medicinal chemistry. Todd has been involved in projects spanning anti-parasitic, inflammatory, metabolic, neuroscience, oncology, pain, and reproductive medicine therapeutic areas. He is an inventor on more than ninety issued United States patents and a co-author on over sixty peer-reviewed scientific publications.

Todd earned his B.S. in chemistry from the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, CO, followed by a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, IL, in Professor Scott Denmark’s laboratories. He was awarded a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University in Cambridge, MA, under the direction of Professor David Evans.

During this time he has been involved with closing well over $200 million in venture capital, PIPE, and debt financing transactions, as well as closed several M&A transactions and SEC compliance reporting. Prior BlackFord, Mr. Blackburn was a principal with Alitum/RCG Management, a financial advisory firm to emerging technology companies. Over his career, he has been involved in closing well over $200 million in venture capital and debt financing transactions, including direct involvement with mergers and acquisition transactions, and SEC compliance reporting. Mr. Blackburn began his career with Arthur Andersen & Co., is a licensed Certified Public Accountant, and earned his Bachelor of Arts in Accounting from the University of Illinois