Dr. Ostertag completed his undergraduate training at the University of Wisconsin where he received a B.S. in Genetics with Honors. He went on to do both M.D. and Ph.D. (Molecular Biology) degrees at the University of Pennsylvania. His doctoral thesis work was performed in the laboratory of Dr. Haig Kazazian on the biology of the human L1 retrotransposon, which included the development of the first mouse model of L1 retrotransposition. He later completed a residency program in Clinical Pathology and a Fellowship in Transfusion Medicine at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania. He is the founder and CEO of Transposagen Biopharmaceuticals, Inc.. While at Transposagen, Dr. Ostertag secured greater than $2.4 million in early stage funding from regional networks and the NIH. He is one of the co-inventors of Transposagen's technology and has published nearly twenty peer-reviewed articles and reviews in the field of mobile elements.

Dr. Haig Kazazian is a world-renowned human geneticist who received his undergraduate degree at Dartmouth College and medical degree from Johns Hopkins University (JHU). He trained in Pediatrics at JHU and the University of Minnesota. After genetics research training at JHU and the NIH he joined the faculty in Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins in 1969. He rose through the academic ranks to Professor in 1977, and became Director of the Center for Medical Genetics in 1988. In 1994, he left JHU for the Chair of Genetics at the University of Pennsylvania (Penn) School of Medicine. After a distinguished career as Chair, he stepped down in 2006 and is presently the Seymour Gray Professor of Genetics at Penn. He is a member of a number of professional organizations, including the Association of American Physicians, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Science, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has published some 350 scientific papers. In the course of his work on hemophilia, Dr. Kazazian discovered that transposable elements are active in human beings and cause disease through insertional mutagenesis. His laboratory's work on retrotransposition in mammals was the basis of the initial technology licensed by Transposagen, and his laboratory continues to collaborate with Transposagen with the goal of using L1 retrotransposons for mutagenesis in rats.

Dr. Madison completed his undergraduate studies at Washington University in St. Louis, receiving an A.B. in Biology with High Honors. He then went on to complete a one-year Pre-doctoral Intramural Research Training Award (pre-IRTA) fellowship at the National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Following this, Dr. Madison completed his Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology at the University of Michigan. There he received two competitive fellowships and several awards. At the University of Pennsylvania, Dr. Madison commenced his post-doctoral research with Drs. Klaus Kaestner and Haig H. Kazazian and received a Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) from the NIH for a project he designed on mobile element mutagenesis. Dr. Madison has published twelve peer-reviewed articles and reviews, many in the field of animal models.

Dr. Boeke has studied retrotransposons for 25 years and, together with David Garfinkel, was the first to show the existence of retrotransposition through an RNA intermediate. He coined the term "retrotransposon". More recently, the Boeke lab has pioneered the use of synthetic mammalian retrotransposons in vitro and in vivo. The retrotransposon ORFeus (a synthetic version of the mouse LINE-1 sequence) shows relatively high frequency retrotransposition in both somatic and germ line tissues of the mouse. Several approaches for controlling ORFeus retrotransposition in animals are being explored. ORFeus is being tested in the Boeke lab for activity in the rat through a research collaboration withTransposagen.

Dr. Largaespada's laboratory is working to exploit insertional mutagenesis for cancer gene discovery. A mouse model of murine leukemia virus induced acute myeloid leukemia is being used to identify and characterize genes that have a role in myeloid leukemia development. Dr. Largaespada is focusing on genes that co-operate with known human leukemia gene mutations, including loss of the Neurofibromatosis type 1 gene and expression of the AML1/ETO fusion gene. Ongoing work also includes genetic studies of myeloid leukemia chemoresistance and relapse using mouse models. In addition, the Largaespada lab is adapting a recently constructed transposon system, called Sleeping Beauty, for insertional mutagenesis in mouse somatic and germ line cells, as well as for gene therapy.

Professor Jacob received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa in 1989. After joint post-doctoral work with Victor J. Dzau, M.D. and Eric S. Lander, Ph.D., he received a 1992 appointment as Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School/Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Jacob joined the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1996 as an Associate Professor in the Department of Physiology and became a full Professor in 2001. He was appointed Director of the Human and Molecular Genetics Center and awarded the Warren P. Knowles Chair of Genetics in 1999. Dr. Jacob's research interests have always focused on using cutting-edge technologies which center on physiological genetics, genetic dissection and analysis of complex disease. His laboratory is known for genomics and high throughput phenotyping, as well as comparative genomics and bioinformatics. For nearly four years, Dr. Jacob has been the Chair of the Coordinating Committee for the Program for Genomic Applications (PGA). This 11 center (37 grants) program builds animal models, genomics tools and reagents, and bioinformatic tools. This program freely distributes all data and reagents to the public in advance of publication.

Dr. Geurts received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 2006 in the laboratory of Dr. David Largaespada, focusing on molecular biology and genetics. He has been in the Jacob laboratory at the Medical College of Wisconsin since June of 2006, focusing on implementing novel strategies to manipulate the rat genome. Dr. Geurts is an expert in Sleeping Beauty (SB) transposon biology. He co-developed several of the advanced SB system components and has established the transposon system as a tool for a range of functional genomics applications including reverse and forward-genetic screening, gene therapy and transgenesis in both mice and rats.