Text Box: Russ H. Read Member of the Board of Directors R.H. (Russ) Read was born and educated at Loyola, McGill and Concordia Universities in Montreal. He has worked in senior positions in the pharmaceutical industry for over thirty years. His work with Burroughs Wellcome and subsequently Glaxo Wellcome led him to successive strategic marketing opportunities, including the launches of “bench to the bedside” antivirals such as acyclovir, AZT, 3TC and abacavir for the treatment of HIV. In 1999-2000 he helped set up the initial commercial strategy which won the Federal Networks of Centers of Excellence an $18 million grant application for the Canadian Network of Excellence in Vaccines for Chronic Viral diseases and Cancer (CANVAC). From mid 2001 until August 2004 he was the founding CEO & President of the Kucera Pharmaceutical Company, formerly based in Winston- Salem NC, having raised just under $3 million in funding. In January of 2005 he was appointed Executive Director of the National Center for the Biotechnology Work Force, a $5 million program sponsored by a U. S. Department of Labor grant, based at Forsyth Tech Community College(Forsyth County, NC). He serves on the Board of Directors of the Kucera Pharmaceutical Company, Onconix Inc., NC Biosciences, the Science Advisory Board for the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, the Forsyth Tech Community College Biotechnology Program Advisory Committee. He is the current Co – Chair of the Piedmont Triad Life Sciences Executives Round Table and Vice - Chair of the Piedmont Triad Biotechnology Committee and immediate past Co – Chair of the Winston - Salem Chamber of Commerce Technology Council.