Back FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE BIOSEEK ANNOUNCES ADDITION OF NOLAN SIGAL TO ITS DISTINGUISHED SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD -Dr. Nolan, Sigal M.D. Ph.D. provides a wealth of experience in drug discovery for autoimmunity and inflammatory disease- Burlingame, CA - April 15, 2003 - BioSeek, Inc. announced today that Nolan H. Sigal, M.D., Ph.D., a widely acclaimed expert in drug discovery for autoimmune and inflammatory disease therapeutics, has joined the company's Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). With the addition of Dr. Sigal, BioSeek's SAB now includes 10 distinguished, world-class scientists including Eugene Butcher, M.D. of Stanford University, Judah Folkman, M.D. of Harvard Medical School, Trevor J. Hastie, Ph.D. of Stanford University, Leroy Hood, M.D., Ph.D., of the Institute for Systems Biology, Louis J. Picker, M.D., of Oregon Health Sciences University, Vibeke Strand, M.D. of Stanford University, Warren S. Strober, M.D. of the National Institutes of Health, Robert J. Tibshirani, Ph.D. of Stanford University and Gregory J. del Zoppo, M.D. of the Scripps Institute. "We are delighted that Dr. Sigal is joining the other distinguished thought-leaders on BioSeek's SAB" commented Peter Staple, chief executive officer of BioSeek. "His strong scientific background as well as his expertise in building successful drug discovery programs and forming productive R&D alliances will be particularly helpful as BioSeek executes its scientific and business plans." "I welcome this opportunity to participate in BioSeek's pioneering application of primary human cell disease models to identify and elucidate the targets and mechanism of action of drug candidates," said Nolan Sigal M.D. Ph.D. "This high throughput human model systems approach holds immense potential for expediting drug discovery and more fully understanding the functions of candidate compounds early in the development process." Dr. Sigal's extensive career in drug discovery has included leadership of the Department of Immunology Research at Merck & Co., Inc., where he led a team of researchers who discovered the biochemical mechanisms of action of the important immunosuppressive drugs cyclosporine A and FK506. Following 10 years at Merck, Dr. Sigal co-founded and was senior vice president of drug discovery at Pharmacopeia, Inc., and served as executive vice president, R&D and chief scientific officer at Cytokinetics, Inc. Dr. Sigal currently serves as a consultant to the biotechnology, venture capital and pharmaceutical industries. Dr. Sigal has authored more than 100 scientific publications and holds several patents. He graduated magna cum laude from Princeton University with an A.B. in Chemistry, and received M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania. He completed a residency and fellowship program at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and prior to entering the pharmaceutical industry served on the faculty of the University of Toronto School of Medicine. BioSeek has established an unparalleled cross disciplinary SAB constituting experts from fields of relevance to the company's core expertise in applying high-throughput human biology to the development of novel drugs. These disciplines include: genomics and high throughput systems, inflammatory and autoimmune disease, angiogenesis and cancer biology, informatics and cerebrovascular disease. The Board is chaired by Eugene Butcher, M.D., co-founder of BioSeek and professor of Pathology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Other members include: - Angiogenesis and cancer biology: Judah Folkman, M.D., professor of Pediatric Surgery, Harvard Medical School and chairman emeritus, Department of Surgery, Children's Hospital in Boston. - Cerebrovascular disease: Gregory del Zoppo, M.D., associate member, Department of Molecular and Experimental Medicine, The Scripps Institute. - Genomics and high throughput systems: Leroy Hood, M.D., Ph.D., president and director, the Institute for Systems Biology. - Inflammatory and autoimmune disease: Louis Picker, M.D., professor of Pathology, Oregon Health Sciences University, Warren Strober, M.D., chief of the Laboratory of Clinical Investigation, National Institutes of Health; Vibeke Strand, M.D., biopharmaceutical consultant and clinical professor of Immunology, Stanford Medical School. - Informatics: Trevor Hastie, Ph.D., professor of Biostatistics, Stanford University; Robert Tibshirani, Ph.D., professor of Statistics and Health Research and Policy, Stanford University. - Drug discovery: Nolan H. Sigal, M.D., Ph.D., biopharmaceutical consultant. About BioSeek BioSeek, the human systems biology company, is transforming and accelerating the drug discovery process by applying its proprietary high-throughput human disease systems to identify and characterize potential new pharmaceutical products. The Company's core technology addresses the central challenge of postgenomic drug discovery: the need to integrate biology and biological function analyses into the drug development process. BioSeek's unique biosystems approach allows the Company to identify the most promising genomic targets, and to efficiently prioritize drug candidates generated in conventional high throughput screening or natural product screens. For more information, please e-mail BioSeek directly. -end-