Joseph Hernandez
Chief Executive Officer
Joseph Hernandez is an established leader in biotech entrepreneurship and early stage technology development. With a strong background in biology, epidemiology, molecular genetics, marketing, and finance, Mr. Hernandez has successfully founded or led six entrepreneurial companies, including Blue Water Vaccines. These companies focus on cutting edge biotech arenas, and he has raised over $150M in investment capital and commercialized respective products. As founder and CEO of Blue Water Vaccines, Mr. Hernandez is confident that this novel universal influenza vaccine will change the global approach to attacking influenza infection and burden.
Mr. Hernandez earned his BS in Neuroscience, MS in Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, and MBA from the University of Florida, and will finish a MSc in Chronic Disease Epidemiology and Biostatistics from Yale University.
Dr. Brian Price
Chief Operating Officer
Dr. Price is the Chief Operating Officer of Blue Water Vaccines. His leadership strategy is driven by more than 20 years of experience in product development, CMC, quality control and regulatory compliance. Dr. Price has a demonstrated successful track record of product development experience and business development growth based on programs in toxicology, analytics, and therapeutic and vaccine development.
With years of experience in pharmaceutical development, business development, and research oversight, Dr. Price has served in a range of leadership roles at various institutions and organizations. Prior to his work with Blue Water Vaccines, Dr. Price directed and oversaw research projects for commercial and government clients in the areas of toxicology, vaccine and therapeutic efficacy evaluation, medical device development, environmental microbiology, assay development and validation, and vaccine production at Battelle Memorial Institute.
Dr. Price earned his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees in microbiology at The Ohio State University.
Dr. Craig Thompson
Chief Scientific Officer
Dr. Craig Thompson is Chief Scientific Officer of Blue Water Vaccines and a Principal Investigator in the Department of Zoology, University of Oxford.
Dr Thompson has spent the past five years developing a novel influenza vaccine based on mathematical modelling and structural bioinformatics whilst working at the Jenner Institute and Peter Medawar Building for Pathogen Research at the University of Oxford. This influenza vaccine was licensed by Blue Water Vaccines in 2019.
Dr. Thompson holds a PhD in Molecular Genetics from the University of Cambridge and a Biochemistry degree from the University of York.
Dr. Sunetra Gupta
Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology, University of Oxford
Sunetra Gupta is Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the University of Oxford with an interest in infectious disease agents that are responsible for malaria, HIV, influenza and bacterial meningitis. She has been awarded the Scientific Medal by the Zoological Society of London and the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award for her scientific research.
Gupta has consolidated a body of theoretical work on the evolution of pathogen population structure which establishes a novel pipeline for developing a universal influenza vaccine; the technology has been licensed by US startup Blue Water Vaccines, following a successful preclinical study. This work presents a rare example of where a mathematical model of the evolutionary dynamics of an infectious disease has led to the experimental identification of a novel vaccine target.