Management Team

Mr. de Clara founded CEL-SCI Corporation in March 1983 and has been a Director of CEL-SCI since its inception and has been President of CEL-SCI since July 1983.  Prior to his affiliation with CEL-SCI, Mr. de Clara was involved in the management of his personal investments and personally funded research in the fields of biotechnology and biomedicine. 

Mr. de Clara attended the medical school of the University of Munich from 1949 to 1955.  During the summers of 1954 and 1955, he worked as a research assistant at the University of Istanbul in the field of cancer research.  For his efforts and dedication to research and development in the fight against cancer and AIDS, Mr. de Clara was awarded the "Pour le Merit" honorary medal of the Austrian Military Order "Merito Navale." He was awarded the honor cross of the Austrian Albert Schweitzer Society.

Geert Kersten has served in his current leadership role at CEL-SCI since 1995. Mr. Kersten has been with CEL-SCI from the early days of its inception since 1987. He has been involved in the pioneering field of cancer immunotherapy for almost two decades and has successfully steered CEL-SCI through many challenging cycles in the biotechnology industry.

Mr. Kersten also provides CEL-SCI with significant expertise in the fields of finance and law and has a unique vision of how the company's Multikine® product will change the way cancer is treated.  Prior to CEL-SCI, Mr. Kersten worked at the law firm of Finley & Kumble and worked at Source Capital, an investment banking firm located in McLean, VA.

He is a native of Germany, graduated from Millfield School in England, and completed his studies in the US. Mr. Kersten completed his Undergraduate Degree in Accounting, received an M.B.A. from George Washington University, and a law degree (J.D.) from American University in Washington, DC. 

Patricia B. Prichep has over 30 years experience in business operations and administration. She joined CEL-SCI in 1992 and has been CEL-SCI's Senior Vice President of Operations since March 1994. Between December 1992 and March 1994, Ms. Prichep was CEL-SCI's Director of Operations. Ms. Prichep became CEL-SCI's Corporate Secretary in May 2000. She is responsible for all day-to-day operations of the Company, including human resources and is the liaison with the auditing firm for financial reporting. June 1990 to December 1992, Ms. Prichep was the Manager of Quality and Productivity for the NASD's Management, Systems and Support Department. She was responsible for the internal auditing and work flow analysis of operations. Between 1982 and 1990, Ms. Prichep was Vice President and Operations Manager for Source Capital, Ltd. She handled all operations and compliance for the company and was licensed as a securities broker. Ms. Prichep received her B.A. from the University of Bridgeport in Connecticut.

Eyal Talor joined CEL-SCI in October 1993. In October 2009, Dr. Talor was promoted to Chief Scientific Officer. Prior to this promotion, Dr. Talor was the Senior Vice President of Research and Manufacturing. He is a clinical immunologist with over 19 years of hands-on management of clinical research and drug development for immunotherapy application; pre-clinical to Phase III, in the biopharmaceutical industry.  His expertise includes; biopharmaceutical R&D and Biologics product development, GMP (Good Manufacturing Practices) manufacture, Quality Control testing, and the design and building of GMP manufacturing and testing facilities.  He served as Director of Clinical Laboratories (certified by the State of Maryland) and has experience in the design of clinical trials (Phase I - III) and GCP (Good Clinical Practices) requirements.  He also has broad experience in the different aspects of biological assay development, analytical methods validation, raw material specifications, and QC (Quality Control) tests development under FDA/GMP, USP, and ICH guidelines.  He has extensive experience in the preparation of documentation for IND and other regulatory submissions.  His scientific area of expertise encompasses immune response assessment.  He is the author of over 25 publications and has published a number of reviews on immune regulations in relation to clinical immunology. Before coming to CEL-SCI, he was Director of R&D and Clinical Development at CBL, Inc., Principal Scientist - Project Director, and Clinical Laboratory Director at SRA Technologies, Inc. Prior to that he was a full time faculty member at The Johns Hopkins University, Medical Intuitions; School of Public Health.  He holds two US patents; one on Multikine®'s composition of matter and method of use in cancer, and one on a platform Peptide technology ('Adapt') for the treatment of autoimmune diseases, asthma, allergy, and transplantation rejection.  He also has numerous product and process inventions as well as a number of pending US and PCT patent applications.  He received his Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, and had post-doctoral training in clinical and cellular immunology at The John Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.  He holds an Adjunct Associate teaching position at the Johns Hopkins University Medical Institutions.

Daniel H. Zimmerman, Ph.D., is the Senior Vice President of Research, Cellular Immunology for CEL-SCI Corporation and head of the L.E.A.P.S. technology program.  Dr. Zimmerman holds over a dozen US patents as well as many foreign equivalent patents. He is the author of over 40 scientific publications in the area of immunology and infectious diseases. He has been awarded numerous grants from NIH and DOD.  From 1969-1973, Dr. Zimmerman was a Senior Staff Fellow at NIH. For the following 25 years, he continued on at NIH as a guest worker. Dr Zimmerman received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry in 1969, a Masters in Zoology in 1966 from the University of Florida and a B.S. in Biology from Emory and Henry College in 1963.

John Cipriano, is CEL-SCI's Senior Vice President of Regulatory Affairs.  Mr. Cipriano brings to CEL-SCI over 30 years of experience in both biotech and pharmaceutical companies. In addition, he held positions at the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as Deputy Director, Division of Biologics Investigational New Drugs, Office of Biologics Research and Review and was the Deputy Director, IND Branch, Division of Biologics Evaluation, Office of Biologics.  Mr. Cipriano completed his B.S. in Pharmacy from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy in Boston, Massachusetts. He received his M.S. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana.

William "Brooke" Jones has been with CEL-SCI since 1999 and has overall responsibility for Quality Assurance.  Mr. Jones began his career in biotechnology in 1978 at the Fort Detrick, NCI- Frederick Cancer Research Center where he was responsible for GMP compliance of fermentation-based, clinical trial drug products used by the National Cancer Institute. With nearly 30 years management experience in biotechnology at such companies as Biogen and Novartis, Mr. Jones brings significant experience (both American and European) in the areas of Quality, Regulatory and Validation. In addition to his responsibilities at Novartis in the US, Mr. Jones was also the Director of Quality Control and Quality Assurance at the Systemix Facility in Lyon, France, where he was involved in developing cell therapy-based clinical trial products derived from the Hematopoetic Stem Cell. Mr. Jones completed his Undergraduate degree in Biology at George Mason University and his Graduate Degree course work in Environmental Biology at Hood College.

Todd S. Burkhart joined CEL-SCI Corporation as Vice President of Manufacturing/Facilities and Commercial Operations in January 2010.  Mr. Burkhart has over 30 years of experience in the manufacture and process development of biologicals, medical devices and other Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs). During his career in the Pharmaceutical and Biopharmaceutical Industry and prior to joining CEL-SCI, Mr. Burkhart has been responsible for all aspects of GMP manufacturing and operations including production, materials controls and facilities maintenance. In addition he has extensive experience in the design of manufacturing facilities meeting FDA GMP requirements. Mr. Burkhart has also been involved in the building and/or running a number of major pharmaceutical facilities at companies such as Cephalon, Human Genome Sciences and Univax Biologics.  Mr. Burkhart received his B.S. in Biology from Tusculum College, Greeneville, TN.