Avi Ben-Abraham

Dr. Avi Ben-Abraham is an Israeli-American scientist who was involved in research in the fields of low temperature medicine, cryonics, and human and stem cell cloning.

A pioneer in the fields of cloning and cryonics, Ben-Abraham was the chairman and president of the American Cryonics Society.

Dr. Ben-Abraham is the founder, former chairman and chief executive officer of Ben-Abraham Technologies Inc. (now ANI Pharmaceuticals Inc.- NASDAQ : ANIP), an American biotechnology and biopharmaceutical company. Dr. Ben-Abraham assembled a powerful board of directors for Ben-Abraham Technologies, that included Dr. Louis Sullivan, former US Secretary of Health and Human Services (later chairman of the board). Dr. Ben-Abraham oversaw the development of the calcium phosphate nanotechnology (CaP) for vaccine adjuvants and delivery technology for biodefense vaccines. The company signed a CRADA with the U.S. Army for the development of non-injected biodefense vaccines against Anthrax, Ricin and Staphylococcus. Prior to founding Ben-Abraham Technologies, he served as chairman and CEO of Structured Biologicals Inc., a public Canadian biotechnology company (ASE- SBL). The company developed it's proprietary, advanced biomedical research in the United States, at the UCLA Medical Center, and obtained 12 United States patents.

In 1999, Ben-Abraham was endorsed by Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and won the primaries for a top seat on the governing Likud party list of candidates for the Knesset,. He was ultimately not elected as both the Likud party and Netanyahu were defeated by Labor party leader, former Israeli Defense Forces chief of staff Lt. General Ehud Barak.

In 2001 Ben-Abraham, along with Panayiotis Zavos, a reproductive physiologist, and Severino Antinori, an infertility specialist, announced their attempt at cloning the first human in an undisclosed country by 2003. The group attempted the procedure, but stated that it was unsuccessful.