Our People

Brian Walters assumed the role of President & CEO of Genovac Antibody Discovery after leading a management-led buyout of Aldevron’s Antibody Discovery Business Unit. Most recently, Brian was serving as President of Aldevron’s Antibody Discovery Business Unit before leading the establishment of Genovac. Brian graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi with a Master of Science in Economic Development and received a Bachelor of Science from the University of North Dakota in Geography and Mathematics.

Prior to joining Genovac, Pete was a principal scientist for downstream process development at Catalent, Madison, Wis. Before that he was a proposal manager at Patheon, a division of Thermos Fisher Scientific, in Princeton, N.J., and the senior manager of technical operations in the Madison, Wis., Protein Division of Fargo-based Aldevron. Pete holds a Bachelor of Arts in chemistry from St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn., and a doctorate in biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Troy Brendemuhl joined Genovac in 2021 as the Director of Finance.  Troy has nearly 25 years of accounting experience in a variety of industries, spending the last six years as the Controller for Aldevron.  He received a Bachelor of Science from Minnesota State University Moorhead in Accounting and Finance.  Troy holds a MN CPA license (inactive) since 2001.

As one of the first scientific employees of Genovac, Hubertus Schleer was instrumental in establishing and optimizing processes and methods for antibody development using genetic immunization, highly efficient cell fusion technologies and cell-based screening methods. After several years as Head of Antibody Production at Aldevron, he now serves Genovac in the role of Vice President of Science and Operations. Hubertus holds a Master of Science in Cell Biology and Immunology from the Albert-Ludwigs-University, Freiburg, Germany. He received his PhD from the Medical Faculty Carl Gustav Carus of the Technical University of Dresden, working in the field of cancer immunology and molecular biology.

At Genovac, Iwona leads the single B-cell antibody discovery technology group where she is responsible for the development of processes on and around Berkeley Lights’ Beacon platform for the discovery of antibodies against challenging targets. Iwona earned her PhD from the Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena, Germany and has ten years of experience in immunobiology. Her work in the field of T cells and infectious diseases resulted in several publications in peer-reviewed journals.

Christoph Burger took the role as Department Head Hybridoma after working for Genovac and Aldevron as computer specialist and laboratory technician since 2000. Before (1990-1993) Christoph received his education as a laboratory technician in the Group of Dr. Fritz Grunert in Freiburg, one of the three founders of Genovac. From 1995 to 1998 he studied computer science at the Albert Ludwigs University in Freiburg but stopped after receiving his intermediate diploma.

Beril joined the newly founded company Genovac as a project analyst and she accompanied the company’s transition to Aldevron-Freiburg and its re-organization to today´s Genovac, gaining over 20 years of experience in the assessment and accomplishment of DNA immunization projects. This work led her to her current role as the head of the Molecular Immunology department at Genovac where she is responsible for the analyses of incoming project requests and the development of project strategies as well as overlooking the molecular biological work of the DNA immunization projects. After earning her diploma degree in Biology with the focus on Developmental Biology at the University of Freiburg, Beril completed her PhD followed by a post-doc position at the Institute of Immunology in Freiburg.

Steffen joined Genovac 2013 and is managing at present the antibody sequencing department. Steffen received his PhD at the Friedrich Miescher Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation in Basel, working in the field of molecular biology. He then was a postdoctoral fellow in the “Developmental and Molecular Immunology” group at the Department of Biomedicine of the University of Basel studying molecular mechanisms underlying early B cell development.

Before his employment at Genovac GmbH, Andreas Weise was holding a deputy professorship in the cell biology department at the University of Albert-Ludwigs-University Freiburg, Germany. Andreas joined Genovac GmbH in 2016 as a Project Manager. By time he took over more responsibilities in the Genovac Account Management and he now holds a position as Senior Account Manager. In this function he is the primary contact for many Genovac key accounts throughout the course of Antibody Discovery projects. Andreas holds a Ph.D. in molecular and cell biology and graduated at the Eberhard Karls University Tübingen, Germany.

Alina is part of the account management team at Genovac in Freiburg. She obtained a PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Mainz as a scholarship student within the International PhD Programme. She graduated with distinction from Uni Konstanz with a Master of Science in Molecular Life Sciences.

Kathrin has joined Genovac in 2022 as an Account Manager. Kathrin holds a PhD in Immunology from the University of Regensburg and was part of the international Master program of the University of applied Sciences in Mannheim. Before joining Genovac, Kathrin has conducted her postdoctoral research at the Leibniz Institute for Immunotherapy in Regensburg.