Steve Worland, co-founder of San Diego-based eFFECTOR Therapeutics Inc., will speak at Ohio Wesleyan University on March 24 .
Worland co-founded the firm in 2012 in an effort to develop a new type of treatment for cancer and other serious diseases – one that prevents the body from carrying out the harmful instructions of disease-triggering proteins.
Worland, eFFECTOR’s president and CEO, will discuss “The Importance of Alternative Perspectives in Business Ethics” when he presents OWU’s 2016 Heisler Business Ethics Lecture at 7:30 p.m. March 24. He will speak in Benes Room B of OWU’s Hamilton-Williams Campus Center, 40 Rowland Ave.
Earlier in the day, Worland will discuss “Entrepreneurship in the Biological Sciences” when he speaks to OWU students as part of the university’s ongoing science lecture series. The daytime presentation will be at noon in Room 163 of Schimmel/Conrades Science Center, 90 S. Henry St.
Both presentations are free and open to the public.
In addition to his leadership of eFFECTOR Therapeutics, Worland also is a member of the board of directors for San Diego-based TRACON Pharmaceuticals Inc., which is working to create therapeutics to treat cancer and vision-related diseases.
Before co-founding eFFECTOR Therapeutics, Worland served as president and CEO of Anadys Pharmaceuticals Inc., which was developing treatments for Hepatitis C and cancer. The company was acquired by Roche in 2011. Worland began his healthcare industry career at Agouron Pharmaceuticals Inc., and remained with the company through its commercialization of an HIV protease inhibitor and successive acquisitions by Warner-Lambert and Pfizer.
Worland earned his bachelor of science degree in biological chemistry from the University of Michigan and his doctoral degree in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley. He later served as National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow in molecular biology at Harvard University.
Ohio Wesleyan’s annual Heisler Business Ethics Lecture is funded by the Heisler Family Endowment for the Study of Ethics, which honors university graduates James Heisler, Class of 1938; Robert Heisler, Class of 1942; and Bruce Heisler, Class of 1949. The lecture is sponsored by the university’s Woltemade Center for Economics, Business and Entrepreneurship.
