René has a PhD in protein chemistry from Aarhus University, Denmark and has more than 15 years’ experience in planning, managing, coordinating, and executing academic and industrial R&D projects including characterization of bacterial toxins and small molecule inhibitors, antigen production and vaccine development, and planning and execution of in vivo studies.

As a PhD student René developed a curiosity for the sophisticated mechanism of exotoxins from bacterial pathogens to bind to and enter host cells followed by terminating important functions inside the cell that will eventually kill the cell. Therefore, he decided to pursue more knowledge about these exotoxins as a postdoc in one of the leading laboratories within this field at University of Guelph in Canada.

In 2012, René received a prestigious grant from the Danish Council of Independent research to start up his own research group at Statens Serum Institut in Denmark continuing his studies on bacterial toxins. Years later René decided to move to a more academic setting and become associate professor at Roskilde University in Denmark.

Over the years he has established numerous international collaborations both with academic research groups as well as with pharmaceutical companies such as Merck, Basilea, and Guilford. He has received 2 awards for his scientific work, is a co-inventor of 2 patents and his work has resulted in the publication of several scientific articles in renowned peer-reviewed journals, such as Nature, EMBO, Blood and Nature Chemical Biology.

Aria has a PhD in protein biochemistry and molecular biology from University of Copenhagen and Statens Serum Institute in Denmark and has more than 8 years' experience in planning, managing and executing academic and industrial R&D projects. He has extensive experience in protein purification, structural characterization of proteins such as cryo-EM and electron microscopy, column chromatography, biophysical characterization, detoxification of bacterial toxins, antigen production and vaccine development, and planning and execution of in vivo studies.

With a broad knowledge and technical skills in bacterial vaccine development, and large-scale process development, Aria has successfully taken projects all the way from initial lab scale experiments to completion of preclinical proof-of-concept in large non-rodent animals species and into preparation for commercial scale production. 

As a PhD student Aria worked with several aspects of Clostridioides difficile infection with the aim of developing a novel vaccine, which led to the invention of the bacterial toxin detoxification technology, which was the predecessor to Proxi Biotech's current BACTOVAC technology. Results from his PhD project led to several publications in high-ranking scientific journals such as EMBO reports, Free Radical Biology and Medicine, and Toxins. 

Aria has accumulated substantial experience in international collaborative projects e.g. Eurostars, TRANSVAC2 and Innobooster projects, is a co-inventor of 2 patents and presentations at national and international conferences.