Team

Thomas F. Bumol, Ph.D., is the Executive Director of the Allen Institute for Immunology in Seattle, Washington, a position he assumed on March 1, 2018.  He was the Senior Vice-President of the Biotechnology and Immunology Research component at Lilly Research Laboratories, and the Site Head of Lilly’s Biotechnology Center of San Diego, which included the former Applied Molecular Evolution subsidiary of Lilly Research Laboratories and early clinical development for immunology assets from Lilly (phase I and phase II) until his retirement in December of 2017.

A native of Detroit, Michigan, he received his B.S. degree in microbiology with distinction from the University of Michigan in 1975. He subsequently completed his Ph.D. in microbiology-immunology from the University of Minnesota in 1980. Bumol was the recipient of a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell Cancer Research Fellowship for his postdoctoral studies in the Department of Molecular Immunology at Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, California from 1980-1982.  He joined Lilly Research Laboratories as a Senior Immunologist in 1982 where he remained for his career of over 35 years until his retirement. Bumol has over 50 publications and reviews, 8 issued U.S. patents and his team and collaborators have nominated over 100 molecules into clinical development including dulaglutide (Trulicity), ixekizumab (Taltz), galcanezumab (Emgality) and mirikizumab while at Lilly Research Laboratories. In addition, through strategic alliances his teams helped develop and support ReoPro with Centocor and baricitinib (Olumiant) with Incyte. 

He serves on the University of Michigan Technology Transfer National Advisory Board, and Bumol continues to advise Lilly Ventures and several start-up biotechnology companies.

Lynne Becker joined the Allen Institute for Brain Science in 2014 and currently serves as the Program Manager for the Connectivity and Local Circuits Programs. Before joining the Allen Institute, Becker held project management positions in biopharma, research and healthcare environments. Following a postdoctoral fellowship, she joined the Molecular Profiling Program Management team at Rosetta Inpharmatics supporting Merck’s Oncology Franchise. At Covance Genomics Laboratory, Becker served as a Functional PM Lead managing a team of execution project managers responsible for project development and execution, as well as leading cross-functional teams to successfully plan and complete client projects, ranging from pre-clinical discovery to Phase III clinical trials across diverse therapeutic areas. While at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance, Becker managed all aspects of planning and execution for a large LIMS implementation project in an FDA regulated clinical laboratory. Becker received her Ph.D. from the University of Nebraska and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Washington in the Department of Laboratory Medicine where she focused on understanding the molecular mechanisms by which microbial pathogens survive host innate immunity.

Ernie Coffey has more than 20 years of research operations and commercial experience in pharma, biotech, academic, and contract research organization environments. He began his career at The Institute for Genomic Research (TIGR), where he was a part of the research team that completed the first human genome sequence. From TIGR, Coffey joined the original Rosetta Inpharmatics team responsible for developing microarray technology and manufacturing processes. He and his colleagues successfully transitioned this small startup technology into the Merck Gene Expression Lab (GEL), scaling the processes by orders of magnitude. Coffey led the implementation of the commercial infrastructure to transition GEL from a Merck resource to the Covance Genomics Laboratory (CGL), rapidly building a successful client services and project management organization. He was also the Director of Operations for CGL, where he had responsibility for all facets of operations and infrastructure at the Seattle site.

In 2012, Coffey expanded beyond the Seattle lab to become Director of Client Services for Covance Discovery and Translational Services, integrating commercial practices across North America for multiple businesses. In his most recent role at Covance, he led a global team of client managers and contract analysts supporting clients that included pharma, biotech, and academic accounts. Coffey obtained a BS in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University of Michigan and an MBA from the University of Washington.

Adam Savage is a scientist in the Immunology group at the Allen Institute. He completed his post-doctoral training with Dr. Richard Locksley at the University of California-San Francisco, where he focused on diverse aspects of intestinal immunity. These included the functional-anatomic relationship of type 3 innate lymphoid cells and intestinal macrophages, as well as the response of the intestinal epithelial stem cell compartment to injury, infection, and immunity. Savage received a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago for his work elucidating the transcriptional regulation of innate-like T cells with Dr. Albert Bendelac, an MFA from Sarah Lawrence College, and a B.A. from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He is a strong believer in the immune system as an integral partner of healthy tissue as well as a potent mediator of immunity and pathology, and is excited about our potential to positively impact human health and disease.