Dr.

Regis B. Kelly

University of California, San Francisco
Neuroscientist; Academic and research institution administrator; Educator
Area
Leadership, Policy, and Communications
Specialty
Scientific, Cultural, and Nonprofit Leadership
Elected
2013
Director; Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics. Kelly's career evolved from fundamental science to public health benefit. Moving from physics through molecular biology and neurobiology into administration at the University of California, San Francisco, he became Director of the Hormone Research Institute and ultimately, executive vice chancellor. His conviction that a more effective academic health center would partner its science and clinical skills with the expertise and insight of the private sector guided his oversight of the new $2.5 billion Mission Bay campus. Since being named director of the Institute for Quantitative Biosciences (QB3), one of four California Institutes for Science and Innovation, he has sought to restructure the academic innovation process to better benefit human health. He has used scientists as knowledge brokers to connect basic, clinical, and industry scientists with complementary skills, as in the QB3/Pfizer partnership. He promoted entrepreneurship by providing innovators with inexpensive space through the QB3 Incubator Network, and with seed funding through the Mission Bay Capital venture fund, which he co-manages, thereby connecting academia, existing companies, new companies, investors, and the government sector in a bioinnovation ecosystem that facilitates job creation, economic growth, and translational medicine.
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