Our People

Mary Jo Baarsch, Ph.D.

Chief Operations Officer

Dr. Mary Jo Baarsch brings more than 16 years of experience in strategic planning, business development and licensing, project management and operations management for products targeting the health industry. Prior to joining Syntiron, Dr. Baarsch was the Principal owner of a consulting business that provided project management, operations management and business development consulting to clients in biotechnology, human health and animal health industries. Prior to the consulting business, she served several years at the publically traded biotechnology company, Pfizer, where she was responsible for identifying external technologies and products in support of Pfizer Animal Health's internal portfolio of biologics and pharmaceuticals. In addition, she served as an R&D scientist and project leader for global teams developing biological for animal health. Dr. Baarsch holds an MBA from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Hartford and a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of Minnesota.

Patricia E. Tam, Ph.D.

R&D Executive Director

Joining Syntiron in 2011, Dr. Patricia Tam manages responsibilities related to Syntiron’s platform vaccine technology, intellectual property design, regulatory strategy and corporate development planning activities. Prior to being named Executive Director, she served as owner of a technical writing and consulting company providing scientific publications, white papers, regulatory documents, and research proposals for clients in drug, biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, and medical device companies. In addition, she developed grant proposals for submission to agencies including the NIH, NSF, DOD, DOE, CDC, and USDA. As a recognized leader in biotechnology, with a specialty in bacteriology, Dr. Tam served as CSO at Martell Biosystems, an in vitro diagnostics company establishing a new, immunoassay platform technology for the enhanced detection of serum biomarkers in cancer patients. Dr. Tam served as an assistant professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Minnesota, mapping the genetics basis of coxsackievirus virulence. Dr. Tam holds a B.S. in Biology from Western Michigan University and a Ph.D. in Bacteriology from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Drew Catron, Ph.D.

Senior Scientific Director

Dr. Catron has ten years of experience working on Salmonella pathogenesis and host immune responses. Since joining Syntiron in 2007, Dr. Catron oversees mouse models in the research of bacterial disease and experiments to measure humoral and cellular immune responses to vaccine antigens. He earned a Ph.D. in immunology and microbial pathogenesis at Northwestern University where he characterized the interactions between Salmonella virulence proteins and host cell trafficking pathways. Prior to joining Syntiron, Dr. Catron was a postdoctoral research fellow in the laboratory of Dr. Marc Jenkins, at the University of Minnesota, where he studied CD4 T cell memory, B cell antigen acquisition, and the development of modular microsphere-based subunit vaccines. As a research fellow, Dr. Catron was supported by a Cancer Research Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship and a University of Minnesota Cancer Postdoctoral Training Grant.

Lisa Herron-Olson, Ph.D.

Senior Scientific Director, Program Manager

Dr. Herron-Olson has eight years of experience working in Staphylococcal pathogenesis. After joining Syntiron in 2005, Dr. Herron-Olson focused on establishing defined antigen production protocols for S. aureus and identifying the roles of individual antigens in stimulating an immune response. Initial data resulted in the award of two Small Business Innovative Research grants from the National Institute of Health (NIH) to study both the vaccine antigens and the resulting antibodies for prophylactic and therapeutic applications. In 2009, Dr. Herron-Olson help Syntiron enter into an exclusive licensing and development agreement with sanofi pasteur. Dr. Herron-Olson conducted her undergraduate training in Biology at Kalamazoo College and the Universidad San Francisco de Quito in Cumbaya, Ecuador as a National Merit Scholar, and she subsequently earned her Ph.D. in molecular microbiology and bioinformatics at the University of Minnesota. In the U of M laboratory, she determined the complete genomic sequences of two isolates of Staphylococcus aureus and conducted a comparative genomic analysis that included functional comparison of the iron metabolic systems among S. aureus isolates from different hosts.