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PRESS RELEASE - FEB 20th, 2008 UPSTREAM BIOSCIENCES APPOINTS LEADING BIOINFORMATICS
EXPERT DR. WINSTON HIDE TO ITS SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD Vancouver, British Columbia– February 20th, 2008– Upstream Biosciences Inc. (OTCBB: UPBS) today announced the appointment of Winston Hide, Ph.D., to its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). Dr. Hide is a world-renowned bioinformatics expert who is the founder and Director of the South African National Bioinformatics Institute at the University of the Western Cape (UWC) in Cape Town, South Africa. He is Professor of Genomics at UWC and currently serves as Visiting Professor of Bioinformatics at the Harvard University School of Public Health. Dr. Hide’s areas of expertise include computational biology and bioinformatics, genomics, tropical diseases and cancer. He has had a distinguished career as a researcher and teacher and also played a major role in creating a series of institutions for advanced biological and medical research in Africa and elsewhere. As a member of Upstream’s SAB, Dr. Hide has agreed to assist the company in the ongoing refinement of its advanced computational drug discovery platform and the development of its library of novel compounds for the treatment of tropical parasitic diseases, including malaria, leishmaniasis and trypanosomiasis, or African sleeping sickness. “Winston represents a treasure trove of knowledge and insight that are highly relevant to our drug discovery efforts,” said Joel L. Bellenson, Chief Executive Officer of Upstream. “He is a world class bioinformatics expert who can understand our unique computational discovery platform at a profound level. He is an African who has devoted a significant portion of his career to building first class scientific institutions in Africa and to discovering better treatments for devastating tropical diseases. His broad research interests include cancer, and our library may contain compounds with potential against malignancies. Winston is also an entrepreneur who has achieved success in private industry. We look forward to his contributions to our efforts to rapidly advance our promising drug candidates for malaria and other tropical diseases.” Upstream’s computational drug discovery platform has the potential to identify and optimize multiple drug candidates quickly and efficiently. The company currently is conducting preclinical tests on a number of compounds in the hope of treating major tropical diseases. Upstream recently announced preliminary results indicating that its novel structural class of agents is demonstrating promising in vitro activity against malaria. Upstream’s compounds have also shown encouraging therapeutic potential in vitro against leishmaniasis and trypanosomiasis. Malaria, leishmaniasis and trypanosomiasis, which are caused by related parasites, are leading sources of disability, death and economic hardship in Africa. “With our shared commitment to developing solutions for diseases disproportionately affecting the people of Africa and other developing nations, I am delighted to support the Upstream team at this exciting time in the company’s development, as its computational discovery platform and library of drug candidates are producing positive preclinical data,” said Dr. Hide. “Upstream’s strategy of advancing its pipeline by leveraging relationships with a variety of global institutions is congruent with my own approach, and I look forward to supporting its drug discovery and development efforts going forward.” In addition to his roles at UWC and Harvard, Dr. Hide currently leads a pathogen bioinformatics unit of the South African Medical Research Council where he is responsible for the bioinformatics of the Tsetse Fly Genome Project. The tsetse fly carries the pathogen that causes African sleeping sickness. In collaboration with the European 6th Framework Programme, the U.S. Department of Energy, the Brazilian Genome Project and the International Human Genome Consortium, Dr. Hide has developed several systems for disease gene discovery. Collaborating Institutions include Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Riken, Cambridge and Tokyo Universities, and the Pasteur Institute. Dr. Hide founded the African Society for Computational Biology and Bioinformatics and established Africa’s first World Health Organisation African Regional Training Centre for Bioinformatics, its first National Bioinformatics Network, its first large-scale HIV bioinformatics program and its first accredited graduate program in bioinformatics. He was the first African to be elected to the Board of Directors of the International Society for Computational Biology. Dr. Hide was a Keck Computational Fellow at the Baylor College of Medicine Department of Molecular Genetics and also a Fellow at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC. He was a Director of Genomics at MasPar Computer Corporation in Silicon Valley. Dr. Hide is an International Kerr Programme Fellow of the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research. Dr. Hide received a BSc degree from the University College Cardiff, University of Wales and a Ph.D. in molecular genetics from Temple University. He lectures widely and serves as an editorial board member and reviewer for numerous scientific journals. Dr. Hide is the recipient of many honors and awards. About Upstream Biosciences, Inc. For more information, please contact Samantha Haynes at 1-800-539-0289 or info@upstreambio.com. Media Contact: GendeLLindheim BioCom Partners, Barbara Lindheim: Tel: 212- 918-4650
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