Featured Speakers

Senator Richard Burr*
North Carolina United States Senator

* The asterisk (*) beside Senator Burr's name denotes that his participation is confirmed but contingent upon his voting duties on Capitol Hill allowing him to participate.

On January 4, 2005, Richard Burr was sworn-in to serve North Carolina in the United States Senate.

As Senator, Richard Burr will continue to focus on the needs of North Carolina and promote economic growth. Burr serves on four committees in the United States Senate: Energy and Natural Resources; Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee; Indian Affairs; and Veterans Affairs.

Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994, Burr established himself as an effective legislator on health care issues and worked to restore accountability and fiscal discipline to the federal government.

Burr’s first major legislative achievement was passage of H.R. 1411 (S. 830, enacted), the Food and Drug Modernization Act of 1997. The “Burr Bill” made significant improvements to the safe regulation of food, drugs, and medical devices, while cutting through government red tape to bring life-saving medicine to the marketplace.

After graduating from R.J. Reynolds High School and Wake Forest University, both located in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Burr began his career far from the halls of Congress. After seventeen years as a businessman with Carswell Distributing, a wholesale commercial products company, he entered public service to reverse the trend of rising taxes and centralized government that burdened North Carolina families and businesses.

Burr currently serves as a Board Member of Brenner Children’s Hospital. He is also an active Board Member of Idealliance, a group of local, academic, and government officials working to expand North Carolina’s Piedmont Triad Research Park.

Senator Burr and his wife, Brooke, have two sons.

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Ira Flatow
Veteran National Public Radio (NPR) Science Correspondent and Award-Winning TV Journalist

Listen to Ira Flatow’s keynote remarks from Biotech 2006.

Ira Flatow is the host of Talk of The Nation: Science Friday®. Anchoring the show each Friday, he brings radio and Internet listeners worldwide a lively, informative discussion on science, technology, health, space and the environment and has shared his enthusiasm with public radio listeners for more than 30 years. Before joining NPR, Flatow was News Director at WBFO-FM/Buffalo, New York (1971). His numerous network TV credits include six years as host and writer for the Emmy-award-winning Newton's Apple on PBS; science reporter for CBS This Morning, Westinghouse and CNBC.

Flatow has worked for a variety of cable networks and recently wrote, produced and hosted the award-winning PBS documentary Transistorized!. He has talked science on many TV talk shows and has authored articles for various magazines. His most recent book is entitled They All Laughed ... From Light Bulbs to Lasers: The Fascinating Stories Behind the Great Inventions That Have Changed Our Lives. He has been the recipient of many honors and awards and currently serves as a board member of the National Association of Science Writers.

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Stelios Papadopoulos, Ph.D.
Vice Chairman
SG Cowen & Co., LLC

Listen to Stelios Papdopoulos’s keynote remarks from Biotech 2006.

Dr. Stelios Papadopoulos is a Vice Chairman of SG Cowen and as an investment banker he focuses on the biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors. Prior to joining SG Cowen in February 2000, he spent thirteen years as an investment banker at PaineWebber, Incorporated where he was most recently Chairman of PaineWebber Development Corp., a PaineWebber subsidiary focusing on biotechnology. He joined PaineWebber in April 1987 from Drexel Burnham Lambert where he was a vice president in the Equity Research Department covering the biotechnology industry. Prior to Drexel, he was a biotechnology analyst at Donaldson, Lufkin & Jenrette.

Before coming to Wall Street, Dr. Papadopoulos was on the faculty of the Department of Cell Biology at New York University Medical Center. He continues his affiliation with NYU Medical Center as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Cell Biology. Dr. Papadopoulos holds a Ph.D. in biophysics and an MBA in finance, both from New York University.

Dr. Stelios Papadopoulos is a co-founder and Chairman of the Board of Exelixis, Inc., and he is a co-founder and member of the Board of Cellzome, Inc. and Anadys Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of GenVec, Inc., SGX Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and BG Medicine, Inc. In the not-for-profit sector, Dr. Papadopoulos is a co-founder and Chairman of Fondation Santé. He is also a member of the board of BioVentures for Global Health and the board of Governors of the New York Academy of Sciences.