The Intersection of Biotechnology Power Summit

Katherine has been involved in financial and entrepreneurial activities for over thirty -five years. A serial entrepreneur& a patented inventor, Katherine has launched businesses in the sciences, financial services, and energy segments.

Cocoon (An Alabama C Corporation) is as an accelerator, investor, and global connector of integrated initiatives supplying technology, processes and leadership with a primary focus in biotechnology. Katherine brings years of experience in Deep Learning and Big Data from the Financial Services industry to integrate to biotechnology discovery and investment communities for such initiatives.

Cocoon is lead investor in Volatile Analysis Corporation, a company that has recently been successful in obtaining funding at a billion dollar plus valuation. Volatile has been featured on global news sites like Fox News, BBC, and others due to its development of a chewing gum for cancer detection. Volatile has now been positioned to utilize AI and Deep Learning on a predictive disease consumer database and Cocoon is working with Volatile to achieve success of those efforts. Volatile Analysis Corporation is also part of the biotechnology think tank and innovation discovery center, Hudson Alpha Institute For Biotechnology.

Katherine’s other recent activities include global expansion of deals into China, Israel, India, and other countries and agreement to participate in a US trade delegation to Saudi Arabia.

Katherine is wife to Dr. Russell Bazemore and has two children, a daughter-in-law, son-in-law, and three grandchildren. She is very committed to stand for truth in the sciences and exercise bioethics based on foundational spiritual/biblical principles that are a part of her daily life. Her motto is Never, Never, Quit.

Dr. Hamada is an accomplished physician and business executive in both civilian and military healthcare markets.

Omar, born in Tallahassee, Florida of Lebanese immigrant parents, believes in changing hearts and minds, and thus the way people think and act. This applies to all aspects of people’s lives.

Omar has earned an MBA from Vanderbilt University’s Owen Graduate School of Management, an MD from the University of Tennessee College of Medicine, and a BS from Union University. He is a Diplomat and Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians, the International College of Surgeons, and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

Omar , amongst other companies, is Co-Founder of PrimdeVie, a concierge healthcare firm with genomic and personalized medicine.

Viviana was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and came to the U.S.A. as a graduate student. She earned a Ph.D. in Biopharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Maryland, at Baltimore, did post-doctoral research at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, and graduated with a Juris Doctor degree from the George Washington University Law Center.

Dr. Amzel has had a distinguished career both as a Scientist and as an Intellectual property patent attorney. She launched her own firm in 1989 and has years of experience through her practice for Intellectual Property consulting. Dr. Amzel’s ability to understand biotechnology inventions and their applications and how to move these into highly valuable intellectual property portfolios has proven most effective for companies across the globe. Her work with drug polymers, drug discovery, device development and other IP areas have many intersections to machine learning, deep learning, and the path of Artificial Intelligence.

Viviana worked in private practice, more recently as a partner at an Intellectual Property (IP) law firm and in-house as Corporate Counsel of a bio-pharmaceutical company and Chief IP Officer of a biotechnology company.

Viviana is also an investor in real estate, both residential and industrial/commercial, and brings this additional capability to Cocoon to help in the company’s expansion in related Real Estate ventures for its’ overall initiatives.

James brings investors point of view for our invested companies and provides guidance on the right targets for various co-investments in which Cocoon participates.

James, an entrepreneur as well, founded Rock Solid Wealth Strategies, LLC. For the past 32 years James has been an intergenerational wealth management design consultant for business owners, CPA, law firms and charities in various states in the US. He has specialized in helping high net worth individuals and his corporate clients maximize the cash for their philanthropic, investment, or charitable goals.

Ziad K. Abdelnour is a Wall Street Financier, Author, Philanthropist, Activist, Lobbyist, Oil & Gas Trader & President & CEO of Blackhawk Partners, Inc., a New York based private equity “family office” that focuses on originating, structuring, advising and acting as equity investor in management-led buyouts, strategic minority equity investments, equity private placements, consolidations, buildups, and growth capital financing in companies and projects based both in the US and emerging markets and the trading of key physical commodities.

Mr. Abdelnour is also Founder & Chairman of the Board of the Financial Policy Council ; a 501 (c) (3) non-profit organization designed to give its select group of supporters the opportunity to have direct face-to-face dialogue with the nation’s quintessential powerbrokers and policymakers.

Since 1985, Mr. Abdelnour has been involved in over 125 transactions worth in aggregate over $10 billion in the investment banking, high yield bond and distressed debt markets and has been widely recognized for playing an integral role in those three key market sectors.

Mr. Abdelnour is an astute market player who also serves on the Advisory board of DPG Investments, a recognized premier multi strategy global merchant banking, alternative investment, management and advisory firm.

On a more personal level, Mr. Abdelnour, former President of the Arab Bankers Association of North America, is the author of “Economic Warfare: Secrets of Wealth Creation in the Age of Welfare Politics” ; a best seller manuscript written for investors that need to navigate the troubled geopolitical waters of the post-crisis world and a prolific writer for 100+ entrepreneurial and financial publications advising and educating investors in private equity, hedge funds, crowdfunding, Sovereign Wealth Funds, fund-of-funds, angel networks, venture capital and family offices.

Mr. Abdelnour is also a regular speaker on Private Equity, Physical Commodities trading and Middle East geo-political analysis at industry conferences & TV outlets nationwide including but not limited to Fox News, Newsmax, etc…and a key “influencer” in his own right having a hard core constituency of over 2 million viewers having read his blog postings and analyses since January 2014.

Mr. Abdelnour holds an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Economics, Summa Cum Laude, from the American University of Beirut.

He was recently listed as one of the 500 Most Influential CEOs in the World.