OUR FOUNDERS

CancerMune was founded in 2019 when entrepreneur and immunologist Dr. Jose V. Torres met neuroscientist Dr. Oscar Vazquez when Dr. Vazquez was a medical student at the UC Davis School of Medicine.


In the late 1980s, Torres and biochemist M. Zouhair Atassi pioneered molecular techniques to interrogate viral proteomes and identify recognition sites on viral proteins used by immune cells. Dr. Torres was captivated by the questions in this field and delved into virology and cancer biology's fascinating intersection with cellular immunology for the next thirty years. In 2001, Torres founded Variation Biotechnologies Inc. (now VBI Vaccines) and successfully led its scientific and corporate enterprises while expanding the company’s operations from California to Boston, MA, and Ottawa, Canada. Dr. Torres' passion for teaching and a career of service anchored him to Davis, CA. Thus, he passed the torch to his students to steer Variation Biotechnologies' future while he stayed in academia. In 2017, shortly after Dr. Vazquez completed his Ph.D. in neuroscience at UC Berkeley, Drs. Torres and Vazquez met in a classroom at the UC Davis School of Medicine, where Dr. Torres taught the medical immunology course, and Dr. Vazquez was a medical student. While Dr. Vazquez was working with UC Davis Health's Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology for his clinical clerkship in OB/Gyn, he placed a call to Dr. Torres and requested a meeting. Dr. Torres agreed to give the young entrepreneur and medical student 15 minutes of his time. Dr. Vazquez's enthusiasm for the technological advances in immunology and his faith in the commercial potential of applying these advances to solve some of the most severe issues in women's health were contagious, and the meeting extended from 15 minutes to two hours; by its conclusion, CancerMune was born.

To build on Dr. Torres's work developing therapeutic vaccines for HIV, hepatitis viruses, and Human Papillomavirus, Drs. Torres and Vazquez assembled a team of innovators and serial entrepreneurs that energized and multiplied the company's capabilities and acceleration rate to the commercialization of their vision. Xia Li, M.D. Ph.D. is a physician-scientist and dermatologist with more than 20 years of clinical and basic research experience studying immunology and cancer. Elizabeth Tenborg, D.V.M. joined the team with more than ten years of veterinary and biomedical research experience and enthusiastically took charge of all of the company's animal trials in collaboration with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. Ariel Sepulveda, Ph.D., brought with him more than 17 years of computer science research in academia and his entrepreneurial experience as the founder and president of Pronto Analytics, a Big data analytics service-provider that uses artificial intelligence to convert data into easily accessible and actionable information.

Jose V. Torres, Ph.D.

Jose V. Torres, Ph.D.

Jose V. Torres co-founded the company in 2019 with Oscar Vazquez and Xia Li, physician-scientists; Elizabeth Tenborg, a veterinarian; and Ariel Sepulveda, an engineer and computer scientist. He is also the chairman of the board of directors. An immunologist and virologist, Jose first demonstrated the usefulness of immunoinformatics and protein engineering technology to produce commercial medicines in the early 2000s, which laid the groundwork for CancerMune's development....

Oscar Vazquez, M.D. Ph.D.

Oscar Vazquez, M.D. Ph.D.

Growing up poor in Hormiueros, Puerto Rico, Dr. Vazquez's passion for scientific discovery faced many challenges, such as attending school in high-crime neighborhoods, discrimination, and educational and healthcare inequities. An early appreciation of his family's difficulties as a medically underserved population and early exposure to creative problem-solving in resource-scarce settings showed him the value of resilience, curiosity, and service....

Elizabeth F. Tenborg, D.V.M.

Elizabeth F. Tenborg, D.V.M.

Elizabeth Tenborg's humble beginnings started at her family's chicken ranch in Northern California. Growing up as a farmer with many responsibilities to her family and her animals gave Dr. Tenborg a drive to better understand how systems function and a desire to use that knowledge to make the world a healthier and better place. This drive compelled her to pursue an academic career in science and learn more about improving her community and serving those in need throughout the world. Her early academic successes and scientific discoveries prompted her to follow graduate studies at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, where she earned her Doctorate in Veterinary Medicine....


Xia Li, M.D. Ph.D.

Xia Li, M.D. Ph.D.

Xia Li spent her childhood years in a heavy industrial city in North China, where she saw how people were forced to endure constant exposure to a highly contaminated environment and the health challenges created. To understand the world better and help people, she went on her medical training at Southern Medical University in Guangdong Province, China. This World Health Organization-recognized institution of advanced medical training gave Dr. Li the opportunity and tools to build her credentials as an exceptionally productive biomedical researcher. Upon completing her medical training, Dr. Li gained admission in the highly competitive residency program in the Department of Dermatology at the Bethune International Peace Hospital in Shijiazhuang, China....

Ariel Sepulveda, Ph.D.

Ariel Sepulveda, Ph.D.

Dr. Sepúlveda grew up in a poor and humble farming family and working the lands of the breathtaking highlands of Adjuntas, Puerto Rico. His family invested in pressing on him the value of education and honest hard work. He always showed interest in mathematics and studied Engineering and completed a Master degree in Industrial Engineering at the University of Puerto Rico, Mayagüez Campus (UPRM), the leading engineering school in Puerto Rico. His creativity, outstanding problem-solving skills, and meticulous scholarly work prompted his research mentors to recommend that Dr. Sepúlveda pursue graduate studies to develop his research initiatives further. Accordingly, he joined the graduate program of Industrial and Systems Engineering at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (Virginia Tech), where he earned his Ph.D....