Conference Speakers

Laurence Corash, M.D. is Senior Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer of Cerus Corporation, which he founded in 1992. He is Professor of Laboratory Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, where he served for 15 years as Chief of the Clinical Laboratory Hematology Service. He has published more than 200 original research papers in peer reviewed journals in the field of hematology and transfusion medicine. Dr. Corash graduated from New York University School of Medicine and completed Internal Medicine training at Bellevue Hospital, New York, NY. He was a Research Associate at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
(NICHD), Bethesda, MD (1971-73) and completed training in Hematology and Hematology-Pathology at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Clinical Center. From 1977 to 1981 he served as Assistant Chief, Hematology Service at the NIH Clinical
Center. He is Board Certified in Medicine, Hematology, and Hematology-Pathology. Dr. Corash has collaborated with scientists in academic institutions and government agencies throughout the US and abroad, as well as colleagues at Cerus on research in blood cell aging and technology for inactivation of infectious pathogens in blood components, and he has directed the development of technology for the inactivation of pathogens in labile blood components. Currently, he is the Principal Investigator of a contract from the US Department of Health and Human Services to complete development of the INTERCEPT Blood System for Red Blood Cells. He is the Principal Investigator on a contract from the U.S. Department of Defense to develop freeze dried pathogen reduced fibrinogen complex. He also leads the Convalescent Plasma for Emerging Pathogens Consortium to develop convalescent plasma for the COVID-19 pandemic. The INTERCEPT pathogen inactivation system for preparation of platelets, plasma, fibrinogen complex that he developed is in use by more than 300 blood centers around the world.