Uzma Shoukat-Mumtaz

Uzma joined Dark Horse Consulting in 2019, bringing 12 years of prior industry experience in process development, technology transfer, and GMP manufacturing of cell and gene-modified cell therapy products, including modifications using Sendai and retroviral vectors.

Uzma’s career started at Geron, a clinical stage biopharmaceutical company, where she was responsible for manufacturing hESC derived cell therapies in a cGMP setting. At Geron she learned to maintain strict cGMP manufacturing standards for equipment maintenance, and wrote SOPs, batch production records, and materials specifications. She also became a qualified clinical-site trainer for dose-prep and isolation of Geron’s GRNVAC1, an autologous dendritic cell vaccine targeting telomerase.

Uzma then moved on to research roles at iPierian and Cellogy, where she developed hands-on expertise in cell line development, stem cell differentiation, and cell banking. Using Sendai and retroviral vectors, she delivered gene constructs to primary tissue derived cell lines, and reprogrammed primary cells into iPSCs. Uzma was also responsible for optimizing protocols for differentiating iPSCs into a variety of different cell types, characterizing them, and preparing high quality cell banks. At both companies, Uzma designed and managed core facilities for cell culture. Her work at Cellogy on time-lapse imaging of iPSCs to evaluate cell lines for quality and health resulted in a publication in the Journal of Laboratory Automation.

In her most recent position as a Process Development Scientist at Asterias Biotherapeutics, Uzma was the lead trainer for an international tech transfer of AST-VAC2, an allogeneic cancer. She also designed and executed cell culture and scale-up processes to optimize the derivation of oligodendrocyte progenitor cells and dendritic cells from hESC cell lines. Her work on the process development of AST-OPC1, a stem cell transplant therapy to treat spinal cord injuries, resulted in a patent for Asterias.

SELECTED PATENTS

• Whiteley, Erik; Shoukat-Mumtaz, Uzma; Srivastava, Rashi; Manley, Nathan; Case, Casey. Oligodendrocyte progenitor cell compositions. US Patent WO/2017/173064. Issued May 5, 2017.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

• Mahnaz Maddah, Uzma Shoukat-Mumtaz, Sahar Nassirpour, Kevin Loewke. “A system for automated, noninvasive, morphology based evaluation of induced pluripotent stem cell cultures.” Journal of Laboratory Automation. Volume 19, Number 5, October 2014, Pages 454-460.

PAST EXPERIENCE

Asterias Biotherapeutics, Inc.
Process Development Scientist
Senior Research Associate

Cellogy, Inc.
Staff Scientist

iPierian, Inc.
Research Associate

Geron Corp.
Manufacturing Associate

VaxGen, Inc.
Research Associate

EDUCATION

San Jose State University
B.S. in Biological Sciences, Concentration in Microbiology & Minor in Chemistry