Michael Bentley Ph.D

Michael Bentley Ph.D General Information

Biography

Dr. Michael Bentley is a Co-Founder of Serina Therapeutics. Dr. Bentley received his B.S. (1963) and M.S. (1965) degrees in Chemistry from Auburn University, his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Texas in Austin in 1968, and did postdoctoral work at the University of California, Berkeley from 1968-9. Dr. Bentley was a Professor and Chair of Chemistry at the University of Maine and won the Presidential Research and Creative Achievement Award at the University. He joined Shearwater Corporation in 1997 to head its research group and begin a drug development program there. Prior to this time, Shearwater had focused on the supply of PEG reagents to pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Bentley utilized Shearwater's polyethylene glycol chemistry to create several new platforms for the enhancement and enablement of PEG-small molecule pharmaceutical conjugates for sustained drug delivery and for membrane barrier exclusion. This technology now forms the basis of multiple products in human clinical trials at Nektar, including for the treatment of cancer and opioid-induced constipation. The latter product was recently licensed to AstraZeneca in a billion-dollar deal. Dr. Bentley has numerous patents and publications in several areas of chemistry. Dr. Bentley has been a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar and a Fellow of the Japan Agency for Science and Technology.