We are an interdisciplinary, STEM-focused team supported by experienced leaders, world-class advisors, and top-notch investors.
Mark is a leader in applying computational and statistical techniques to biomedical challenges in genomics and biochemistry. Before BigHat, he founded the Genomics team in Google Brain, was VP of Informatics at SynapDx, and was Co-Director of Medical and Population Genetics at the Broad Institute. He has a BA in CS and Math from Northwestern, a PhD in Biochemistry from Cambridge as a Marshall Scholar, and was a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellow at Harvard. Dr. DePristo's academic articles are widely published with more than 72,000 citations.
A pioneer of deep learning applied to life science problems, Peyton has developed computational, statistical, and AI/ML techniques to model, understand, and optimize biological sequences in academia and industry. Peyton was an inaugural Schmidt Science Fellow, a computational biologist at the Broad Institute, a scientific founder of Valis, and holds a PhD from Stanford University (Accel Innovation Scholar), an MPhil in Computational Biology from Cambridge University (Herchel Smith Scholar), and a BA in Applied Math from Harvard.
Elizabeth has over 20 years of experience in biopharma and academia drug discovery and development. She found her passion for pharmacology as a biologist in Merck Research Labs, later completing her doctorate in neuropharmacology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. After gaining growth, portfolio, and investment strategy experience at L.E.K. Consulting’s Life Sciences practice, she transitioned to GlaxoSmithKline R&D Strategy team. Most recently, Elizabeth served as the Chief Business Officer at the New York Stem Cell Foundation (NYSCF) Research Institute.
Eddie got his PhD in Philosophy from the University of Massachusetts Amherst while running software development for Boston area start-ups. He has tackled diverse problems from full stack web development to genomics pipelines. Before BigHat he was Senior Director of Engineering at GoDaddy, where he led an organization focused on automation and security and drove the transformation to a cloud native architecture. Previously, he created a web-scale analytics pipeline to match patients with medical specialists at Kyruus and a cloud-based ML for multi-omics biomarker discovery at SynapDx.
Dr. Corbin joins BigHat from Tizona Therapeutics where he served as Chief Technology Officer, leading the antibody discovery and engineering, protein sciences and CMC of therapeutic antibodies for all Tizona pipeline programs. Prior to joining Tizona, Dr. Corbin oversaw antibody discovery and engineering at Gilead Sciences for multiple therapeutic areas including oncology and HIV. Previously, he was at XOMA serving in several roles and most notably led XOMA’s insulin receptor antagonist program (XOMA 358) from inception through lead selection, which was acquired by Rezolute Bio (RZLT) and completed Phase 2 clinical trials. Dr. Corbin received his Ph.D. in Biology from University of California at Santa Cruz and completed his postdoctoral research at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Dr. Corbin has published in numerous peer-reviewed journals and is an inventor on many antibody patents. Several molecules created by Dr. Corbin are undergoing clinical development today.
Ryan is a physician-scientist with expertise in infectious diseases and hematology. He is also an Associate Scholar of Global Health and Lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and contributes to US and UK policy on health security issues. He earned his MD from the University of Pennsylvania (Gamble Scholar), PhD in Infectious and Tropical Diseases from the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (Marshall Scholar), and BSc(Hons) in biochemistry and molecular biology with a focus on structural biology from Penn State’s Schreyer Honors College.
Jeremy has spent the last decade as a full-stack engineer building software in the biomedical and healthcare spaces. Prior to joining BigHat, Jeremy was a Principal Software Engineer at the Broad Institute. There, he led the development of an open-source data repository for securely storing, searching, and sharing biomedical data. Before that, Jeremy was at LevelTrigger, working on initiatives ranging from automating machine learning pipelines to implementing interactive data visualizations. Jeremy’s previous roles also include working with the analytics and ontology teams at Kyruus and supporting drug discovery at Novartis.
Anna graduated from the University of Rhode Island with degrees in Pharmaceutical Science and Biological Science and a master’s from Tufts University in Conservation Medicine. She has previously worked in a range of biological disciplines including immunology, virology, and environmental toxicology. Prior to BigHat, she worked at the Plum Island Foreign Animal Disease and Diagnostics Laboratory and at BioMarin. During her graduate degree, she completed two pilot studies and has been published in the National Center for Case Study Teaching in Science.
Emily is an integrative scientist with over 12 years of research experience in genetics, genomics, and evolution. She earned her Ph.D. in Evolutionary Biology from Harvard University and completed a postdoc at UC Davis, receiving grants and fellowships from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, and the University of California-Davis. Emily has authored 10 publications with over 2000 citations and has a history of designing assays to quantify phenotypes.
Phil is an expert in engineering AI and automation solutions for the physical sciences. Prior to joining BigHat he built the brain on a mobile robotic chemist at the Materials Innovation Factory in Liverpool. Phil continues to develop AI tools for materials science as a computational research associate at Brookhaven National Laboratory. He received his DPhil in Chemistry from Oxford as a Marshall Scholar, and a BS in Chemical Engineering at the University at Buffalo. Phil has developed an appreciation for interdisciplinary challenges, publishing across physics, chemistry, and biology.
Joe is an expert in using statistical methods to understand human biology and improve human health. Prior to BigHat, he co-led the team at Prealize Health as a Senior Data Scientist, where he created novel models using large healthcare datasets to enable proactive care. He holds a Ph.D. in Genetics and a MS in Statistics from Stanford University, where he was a Stanford Graduate Fellow, and a BA in Biology from the University of Chicago. His graduate work focused on understanding the impact of rare variation on gene expression, and he has authored a dozen peer-reviewed articles.
Shan is a protein scientist with over 10 years of experience in molecular biology, antibody production, and cell line engineering. She completed her BA at UC Berkeley and her PhD at Yale University, receiving awards and grants from the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health. Prior to joining BigHat, Shan led the antibody engineering team at Gritstone Oncology, designing and generating novel anti-CD3 bispecific antibodies and earning inventorship on multiple patents.
Aaron is an expert in the application of machine learning to the life sciences. He has worked on deep graph learning for spatio-temporal data at the University of Cambridge, probabilistic tissue deconvolution via RNA sequencing at the Alan Turing Institute, and breast cancer therapeutic targeting at UPenn. He has also worked on missions to explore infectious disease risk onboard the International Space Station and led software development teams for federal anti-terrorism efforts. He received graduate degrees in machine learning and genomic medicine from the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London as a Marshall Scholar.
Leon recently graduated from the University of California, Santa Cruz with a degree in Molecular Biology. During his undergraduate studies, he worked in a research lab focused on investigating the mechanisms of telomere regeneration and their relation to cancer. Prior to BigHat, Leon was a Clinical Laboratory Associate Color Health helping to provide rapid-result testing to the public during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Harshitha is a business operations specialist coming from an engineering background, with experience in defining and executing strategic and operational initiatives in the healthtech environment. Prior to joining BigHat, he was part of the founding team at ReThink Medical, a startup that successfully developed a novel heart failure patient management solution, where he provided operational support in a cross functional capacity to win grant awards, raise multiple rounds of financing, negotiate licensing agreements, and conduct clinical studies. He graduated from the University of California, Berkeley with a degree in Bioengineering focusing on Operations Management and Entrepreneurship.
Charbel is a leader in life sciences R&D with over ten years of experience, blending engineering, science, and technology to solve big problems in life sciences and biomedicine. Before joining BigHat, Charbel was Manager of Technology Development at Guardant Health and Head of Lab Technology at Driver. Charbel holds a Ph.D. and M.S. from Stanford University (Lieberman Fellow) specializing in Microfluidic Assay Development and a B.S. from Carnegie Mellon University.
Matt has a breadth of experience getting robotic platforms into production. As a software engineer at Strateos, he worked on the Strateos Common Lab Environment, which runs Eli Lilly's Life Sciences Studio. Before that, he designed a car-mounted robotic system for detecting wind turbine blade defects at Digital Wind Systems. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering and an MS in Robotics from the University of Pennsylvania.
Julia is a software engineer with research development experience in both biology and analytical chemistry automation. She designed and built interfaces to integrate clusters of robots and devices into Strateos's platform at Eli Lilly's Life Sciences Studio. Prior to transitioning to the software team at Strateos, she validated and scaled assays as a research associate. Julia holds a BS in Biomedical Engineering from San Jose State University where she also worked on developing a retrofit to the traditional endoscopic grasper.
Dan has deep experience integrating wet lab data into computational pipelines for the modeling and interpretation of biological phenomena. He completed his PhD in Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, and holds a BA in Molecular & Cell Biology from UC Berkeley. During his graduate work, he developed automated analysis pipelines for a variety of wet lab data sources including: flow cytometry, mass spectrometry, plate reader, next-generation sequencing, and high-content microscopy data.
Srujan is an experienced researcher with in-depth knowledge of a broad range of immunological and cell based assays. He received his B.S. in Biochemistry and Cell Biology from University of California, San Diego where he worked in a research lab investigating eosinophilic asthma. Prior to joining BigHat, Srujan worked in R&D at Inovio Pharmaceuticals where he validated and performed assays for the Analytical Sciences team.
Danielle has a proven track record of creating, implementing, and driving forward best-in-class, scalable, business operations. Before BigHat, Danielle owned Operations for Aether Biomachines, served as Chief of Staff to the CEO at Sentieo, created strategic solutions for global foundations, national universities, and startups as a Case Team Leader for Entangled Solutions, and served Fortune 500 clients as an Analyst at Goldman Sachs. She has a BA in Economics from The University of Chicago.
Anthony is an experienced automation engineer, specializing in bridging the gap between robotics and science. Prior to joining BigHat, Anthony worked at Color Health, designing and building one of the largest COVID-19 testing laboratories in California and developing an NGS platform for hereditary cancer risk screening. He graduated from UC Davis in 2016 with a BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, with additional coursework completed at UC Irvine and UCLA.
Elisabeth recently got her Bachelor of science in biology at Cal Poly Pomona. She went on to work in pharmaceuticals production as a microbiologist technician, performing QC in cleanrooms and on the pharmaceuticals. Before joining BigHat, she worked as a PCR operator and Equipment Coordinator in the clinical testing lab at Verily where she ran testing on patient samples for diseases and monitored equipment.
Natasha is a lab manager with a passion for helping others and experience building systems to optimize laboratory operations. She completed her B.S. in Genetics and Genomics at UC Davis, where she worked in a plant genetics lab investigating CRISPR cas9 induced non-homologous chromosomal translocation. Prior to joining BigHat, Tasha worked at Color Health building and maintaining their COVID-19, NGS, Manufacturing, and R&D laboratories.
Austin is a biochemist with extensive experience in phage display, molecular biology, protein biochemistry, and cell biology. He completed his B.S. at Texas A&M University and his Ph.D. at the University of Missouri. Austin was an NIH T32 fellow at the University of Missouri as a graduate student and also received grants from the NIH during his time as a postdoc at Texas A&M University. During his Ph.D., Austin oversaw several phage display campaigns and developed a novel computational pipeline for the analysis of NGS data from phage display selections.
Michael is a full-stack software engineer with experience building software in the biomedical and healthcare spaces. Prior to joining BigHat, Michael was a Software Engineer at the Broad Institute working on the development of an open-source data repository for securely storing, searching, and sharing biomedical data. He holds a BS in Computer Science from Northeastern University.
Lindsey has extensive experience in experimental and computational biology, primarily with integrating a variety of data types to draw biological conclusions. She completed her BS at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and her PhD at the joint UC Berkeley - UCSF Bioengineering program, receiving fellowships from the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, and the Paul and Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. During her graduate work, she developed data analysis methods for flow cytometry, microscopy, plate reader, and next generation sequencing data.
Paavan is an experienced full-stack engineer with a passion for ML and developer tooling. Before joining BigHat, he worked as the Team Lead of ML Ops at Kensho, where he empowered machine learning engineers with tools for training models that helped clients make sense of their unstructured financial data. Previously, in the healthcare space, he built search and scheduling applications at Kyruus for connecting patients to the right provider. He graduated from Brown University with a BSc. in Computer Science and Math.
Jamie is an immunologist and geneticist with extensive drug development experience in rheumatology, nephrology, and allergic disease. Prior to joining BigHat, Jamie was a Principal Scientist at Genentech in Biomarker Development, where he conceived and led the implementation of biomarker strategies supporting the development of multiple B cell targeted therapies (Phases I-IV). He has a BSc (Biology) from the University of Victoria, earned a PhD (Medical Genetics) from the University of British Columbia as a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Scholar, and was a Canadian Institutes of Health Research Fellow at Stanford University (Immunology & Rheumatology).
Eva is a molecular biologist with six years of experience as an agricultural research technician at the USDA. She obtained a B.S. in molecular and cell biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Before joining BigHat, Eva worked as a lead manufacturing technician at Color Health, where she contributed to consolidating and optimizing the reagent manufacturing processes.
Nithin is a software engineer with a breadth of experience ranging from full-stack software development to site reliability engineering and everything in between. Prior to joining BigHat, Nithin worked at Invitae, where he prototyped and built the LIMS software and later managed the team responsible for it. Nithin then transitioned to site reliability engineering, where he improved the resilience of several key services as they went from processing 100,000 to 1 million samples per year. Nithin's earlier experience includes developing in-house applications for discovering antibody therapeutics at XOMA and writing software for high throughput protein crystallography robots at Axygen. Nithin has a BA in Molecular Cell Biology from UC Berkeley and a BS in Computer Science from San Jose State University.
Hunter is an interdisciplinarian with nearly a decade of experience developing machine learning tools to solve biomedical research problems. Lured from biophysics into computer vision during his PhD research at The Scripps Research Institute and Harvard Medical School, he then founded and led the Image and Data Analysis Core at Harvard Medical School. Prior to joining BigHat he was an early member of PathAI where he helped build the machine learning tech, platform, and team before taking over leadership of ML research.
Cameron is a biochemist with experience in pharmaceutical quality control and cell-free protein synthesis (CFPS). He recently earned a B.A. in biochemistry from Wartburg College, where he also conducted research regarding the accumulation of specific proteins in fruit flies with ALS. Before joining BigHat, he worked at Frugi Biotechnology, focusing on optimizing the production of cellular extract for use in their CFPS platform.
Adam is a chemical engineer with experience in cell-free protein synthesis for diagnostics and rapid protein prototyping. He completed his BS at Brigham Young University and received his PhD from Iowa State University. His PhD work concentrated on biosensors for environmental and human health applications including development of a cell-free based diagnostic test for SARS-CoV-2. During his graduate studies and before joining BigHat he was VP of Technology and Co-founder of Frugi Biotechnology Inc. focused on development of frugal, efficient, and consistent reagents for cell-free expression.
AJ is a recent graduate with two years of experience in a clinical lab setting. He graduated from the University of San Francisco with a BS in Biology, with focuses in both public health and lab work. Before joining BigHat, AJ worked as a Clinical Lab Associate at Freenome, where he worked on blood sample processing for early cancer detection.
Timothy has extensive experience in designing and executing various in vivo disease models. Prior to joining the BigHat team, Timothy worked at Arcus Biosciences and Soteria Biotherapeutics, and was integral in building out the in vivo infrastructure to contribute to the various oncology programs. Timothy graduated from UC Davis with a B.S. in animal biotechnology and has been in the industry for 18+ years.
Sandra is a biochemist with a background in molecular and cellular biology, protein biochemistry, and phage display. She recently earned her MS in Chemistry from Boston College and graduated from Worcester State University with a BS in Chemistry. She generated several phage libraries suited for covalent warhead modification throughout her doctoral studies and concentrated on perfecting the phage display screening platform against cells in-vitro in order to probe the cell-surface proteome of cancer cells.
Jennifer is a protein biochemist with 15 years of experience in the field who specializes in protein analytics and purification. She graduated from the University of California, Davis with a BS in genetics and an MS in biochemistry and molecular biology. Jennifer designed and built out mid to large scale antibody purification and characterization technologies at Alector in support of the immuno-neurology and immuno-oncology initiatives prior to joining BigHat.
Zach is a recent graduate of Sonoma State University. For the two years prior to joining BigHat, Zach worked as a senior lab associate at Color Health providing a rapid-response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Danielle is a research technician that has 7+ years experience in animal healthcare and handling. She was a veterinarian technician before transitioning into in vivo study work. Prior to joining BigHat, Danielle supported various in vivo studies for biotech companies at Charles River ranging from oncology, paralysis, opthalmology studies and more. Danielle completed her BS in Biology at The University of Hawaii, focusing on animal science. She worked at an urgent care animal hospital, joined a non-profit organization that provided free neuters and ovariohysterectomies in Central America, and performed leptospirosis research; monitoring the effects of the bacterial disease from wild rodents and mongoose.
Suchitra is an immunologist and cell biologist with deep experience with the design and study of multispecific therapeutic antibodies, including immune cell engagers, in culture and animal models of diseases including solid malignancies and autoimmunity. Suchitra graduated from Northwestern University with her PhD in Immunology, where she studied mechanisms of tolerance in T cell mediated autoimmunity. Prior to BigHat, she was an early member of the therapeutics and immunology team at Soteria Biotherapeutics, advancing several T cell engagers into preclinical development.
Johnny has extensive experience in protein biochemistry and lab automation in both clinical and research laboratory settings. He received his B.S. in Molecular, Cell, and Developmental biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Prior to joining BigHat, Johnny was a RA working in process development supporting HT-IgG manufacturing at Twist Bioscience.
Jon is passionate about developing new biologics to treat cancer and other diseases with unmet need. Jon started his training at the University of Minnesota where he received a BS in Chemistry. From there, he received a PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UCLA followed by a postdoctoral fellowship at The Scripps Research Institute. Jon has over 15 years’ experience in the biopharmaceutical industry with over 25 peer-reviewed publications. He has led antibody discovery, protein science, CMC and bioanalytical teams and advanced several programs through preclinical and early-stage clinical development.
Harsh is a researcher with in-depth knowledge in molecular biology, protein biochemistry and cell biology. He recently graduated from Drexel University with a Masters degree in Biotechnology. During his graduate studies, he worked in a research lab focusing on protein expression and purification. Prior to joining BigHat, Harsh worked as an intern at GreenLight Biosciences and helped them synthesize mRNA molecules using high throughput technology.
Max is a recent graduate from Georgia Tech with a B.S. in chemical and biomolecular engineering and a minor in computer science. He has experience with wet-lab research on genetic code expansion as well as cell-free biosensor development. Previously, Max interned at Dyno Therapeutics and Ring Therapeutics, where he worked on ML pipelines for developing gene therapy vectors. Prior to joining as a full-time employee, Max was an ML intern at BigHat where he built models for antibody design.
Natalie is a people leader and DEIB practitioner with practical experience building, growing, and scaling early-stage AI and Biotech startups. They hold a PhD in Comparative Literature from UC Berkeley and an MBA from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign. They are a former Fulbright Scholar and a current SHRM Senior Certified Professional. They believe that an equitable and inclusive culture is the essential foundation for efficient and productive teams.
Snigdha brings experience from Flipkart and Walmart, writing REST APIs and interfacing with Big Data Technologies like Spark, Scala and GraphDBs. She received her Masters Degree in Computational Biology from Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating, she joined Chan Zuckerberg Biohub where she built Napari plugins for visualizing and manipulating large bio-image datasets such as multi-channel spatial transcriptomics images.
Tamas has over 4 years of experience in AI-driven drug discovery, business development, and investment strategy. Before joining BigHat, Tamas co-founded Menten AI, a pioneering peptide discovery company and led the company through the Y Combinator program, secured venture capital funding, and transformed it from a science project into a business. He holds a MSc in Chemistry from the University of Szeged and a PhD in Organic Chemistry from Stockholm University. He has also served as a visiting researcher in protein engineering at the Frances H. Arnold Lab at Caltech.
Leslie has 15 years of experience building IP portfolios and advising on legal matters for companies at the intersection of biotechnology and healthcare. Prior to BigHat, Leslie was VP of IP and Chief Privacy Officer at Personalis and Senior Counsel for Patent and Employment at Verily Life Sciences. Leslie has a JD from University of North Carolina School of Law, a PhD in Biochemistry from Wake Forest University, and is passionate about biotechnology, innovation, and equity to enable access to life improving technologies for all people.
Katrina is an immunologist who specializes in T cell biology and cell-based assay development. Katrina graduated with a Bachelors in genomics and molecular genetics from Michigan State University and a Masters of Science in infectious disease immunology from the University of Pittsburgh. Prior to joining BigHat she was a member of T cell engager company Harpoon Therapeutics, designing assays for proof of concept experiments for the advancement of several drug programs and Adaptive Biotechnologies in T cell discovery to find diagnostic and therapeutic candidates for cancer and autoimmune diseases.
Mitchell is an automation engineer with experience across the synthetic biology and clinical diagnostics spaces. He got his start in automation at Driver translating benchtop assays to integrated robotic systems. Prior to BigHat, Mitchell worked at Aether Biomachines, an enzyme engineering company, building integrated workcells to design, optimize, and test novel proteins. Mitchell graduated from University of California, Berkeley in 2017 with degrees in Chemistry and Interdisciplinary Fields.
Akhila recently graduated from San Jose State University with an MS in Stem Cell Biology and received her BS in Biology from Saint Mary’s College of California. Prior to BigHat, she interned in the immuno-oncology team at Soteria Biotherapeutics, a T-cell engager company, where she developed several in vitro assays and studied on-target, off-tumor activity of T-cell engagers on colon organoids.
Reggie has almost a decade of experience administering modern IT infrastructure. He is eager to share his experience in securing internal systems, SaaS application management, and Device Management. Reggie has also worked with a wonderful team to achieve ISO27001 certifications at two different companies. His current role is that of a Systems Engineer at Markforged.
Daniel graduated from University College Dublin with a BSc. in Biomedical, Health and Life Sciences. During his studies, he gained an appreciation for human health and disease, in addition to the diagnostics and therapeutics which aim to address unmet clinical needs. As part of his final stage thesis, he worked within the translational oncology group of Professor Amanda McCann, PhD in the UCD Conway Institute of Biomolecular and Biomedical Research. During his time there, he assessed the impact of CXCL8 on cutaneous malignant melanoma progression in vitro in further elucidating the proteomic signatures of patients with cutaneous malignant melanoma.
Mark is a leader in applying computational and statistical techniques to biomedical challenges in genomics and biochemistry. Before BigHat, he founded the Genomics team in Google Brain, was VP of Informatics at SynapDx, and was Co-Director of Medical and Population Genetics at the Broad Institute. He has a BA in CS and Math from Northwestern, a PhD in Biochemistry from Cambridge as a Marshall Scholar, and was a Damon Runyon Cancer Research Fellow at Harvard. Dr. DePristo's academic articles are widely published with more than 72,000 citations.
A pioneer of deep learning applied to life science problems, Peyton has developed computational, statistical, and AI/ML techniques to model, understand, and optimize biological sequences in academia and industry. Peyton was an inaugural Schmidt Science Fellow, a computational biologist at the Broad Institute, a scientific founder of Valis, and holds a PhD from Stanford University (Accel Innovation Scholar), an MPhil in Computational Biology from Cambridge University (Herchel Smith Scholar), and a BA in Applied Math from Harvard.
Francisco previously was the Resident Data Scientist at Formation8 Partners where he worked with portfolio companies to strategize, prototype, and recruit for data products. He was the founder of Catenus Science, a data science consulting and recruiting firm that used an apprenticeship model to help early stage companies build data science teams. Francisco received his Ph.D. from Stanford in Biomedical Informatics, where he was a Ruth L. Kirchstein Fellow. His research focused on clinical decision support for Radiology which won him the Martin Epstein award for best paper at the American Medical Informatics Association in 2014. He was the commencement speaker for the Stanford School of Medicine in 2015. Prior to that he got his B.S. in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences from UC Berkeley while doing research in Parkinson’s disease at UCSF.
Prior to joining a16z, Vineeta held many different roles in the healthcare space: as a physician taking care of patients; as an operator at healthtech startups; and as a venture investor on the Google Ventures life sciences team. She was an early data scientist at Kyruus; a management consultant for biotech, pharmaceutical, and medical device clients at McKinsey & Co; and a Director of Product Management at Flatiron Health, where she led the company’s partnership with Foundation Medicine to integrate real-world clinical and genomic data into national-scale data products to accelerate research and development in oncology. She has collaborated with academic researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and the Broad Institute, where she did graduate work in computational biology and human genetics. Vineeta holds a B.S. in biophysics from Stanford University, and MD and PhD degrees from Harvard Medical School / MIT.
Rob Chess is a serial entrepreneur in the life sciences field and is the former CEO and current Chairman of Nektar Therapeutics, (NASDAQ:NKTR), as well as the Lead Director of Twist Biosciences (NASDAQ:TWST) and a lecturer at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. His previous experiences includes Cofounder and President of Penederm (Acq. by Mylan Laboratories), start-up CEO and Chairman of OPX Biotechnologies (Acq. by Cargill), Co-founder and Chairman of Biota Technologies. Rob also served as a White House Fellow and Associate Director of the White House Office of Economic and Domestic Policy. In addition to his entrepreneurial endeavors and activities at the Stanford GSB, Rob is a trustee of Caltech and Chairman of the Caltech Board Technology Transfer Committee, and on the boards of Bio Ventures for Global Health. Rob received a BS in engineering from Caltech and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Steve works with exceptional scientists and entrepreneurs to help build companies that seek to create vast improvements in patient care and rewarding professional opportunities for employees. Steve co-led investment and served as both founding CEO and Executive Chairman of Thrive Earlier Detection, a healthcare company advancing a breakthrough blood test for the earlier detection of multiple types of cancer. Thrive was acquired by Exact Sciences in January 2021. Steve also served as Executive Chairman at the molecular technology company ArcherDX, Inc., which was acquired by Invitae in October 2020. Steve also led Section 32’s investments in C2i Genomics, CelsiusTx, and Glympse Bio where he is also Chairman. Earlier, Steve was President and Chief Operating Officer at Foundation Medicine, which was acquired by Roche in 2018, and also held leadership roles with several biotechnology companies. Steve holds a PhD degree in political economy and government from Harvard University and a BA degree in economics and political science from Stanford University.
Amol is a healthcare finance executive and Head of Corporate Development at Zentalis Pharmaceuticals. Prior to Zentalis Amol was an investment banker at PJT Partners and Deutsche Bank with additional time in equity research covering SMID-cap biotech companies at Stifel. Amol has also spent time at healthcare startup companies in the fields of neurology and high throughput histopathology. He received a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Cambridge as a Gates Scholar as well as an MS (Chemistry) and BA (Biochemistry) at the University of Pennsylvania as a Vagelos Scholar.
Andrew is an Assistant Professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Center for Data Science at New York University. His research focuses on probabilistic machine learning, Gaussian processes, Bayesian deep learning, and geometric deep learning. He co-founded the popular GPyTorch and BoTorch libraries for scalable Gaussian processes and Bayesian optimization. Andrew is an area chair for all the major machine learning conferences. He received his PhD in statistical machine learning at the University of Cambridge, was a research fellow at Carnegie Mellon University, and faculty at Cornell University.
Brian K. Kay earned his A.B. and Ph.D. degrees in cell biology at the University of Chicago and Yale University, respectively. He then did post-doctoral training at the National Institutes of Health, where he learned cell and developmental biology and honed his skills in molecular biology. He has had academic appointments at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Argonne National Laboratory, and finally at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where he was Professor and Head of the Department of Biological Sciences. His research focused on mapping protein-protein interactions, generating recombinant affinity reagents, and phage-display, and has a h Index of 59. He has co-founded two companies, Novalon Pharmaceuticals and Tango Biosciences, based on his phage-display expertise. Novalon was acquired in 2000 for $104M.
Brian is Professor of Molecular and Cellular Physiology at Stanford University focused on characterizing the structure and mechanism of activation of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), for which he received the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.
Gregory has over 37 years of biotechnology industry experience with broad expertise in target discovery and validation, antibody and ADC drug discovery and preclinical development, molecular biology, genetics, genomics, and biochemistry. Previously, he held positions with Takeda (VP Biology/VP Discovery, Research and Preclinical Development), Lexicon Pharmaceuticals (VP, Biotherapeutics), Abgenix (VP, Product Discovery), Genzyme and Integrated Genetics.
Jacob is an Assistant Professor of Computer and Information Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Jacob's research is in machine learning, with a focus on scalable methods for probabilistic machine learning and Bayesian optimization. Jacob co-created GPyTorch, one of the most popular OSS packages for Gaussian processes; was a Research Scientist in Uber AI Labs; and completed his Ph.D. in Computer Science at Cornell University.
Javin is Assistant Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. His research leverages cell-free protein synthesis technology and an expanded genetic code to manufacture, on-demand, previously intractable proteins and to elucidate how these proteins support the physiology of healthy and diseased cells. Before joining the faculty, Javin completed his post-doctoral training at Northwestern; he holds a Ph.D. Biochemistry from UC Santa Barbara.
Mark Pegram, MD, is the Suzy Yuan-Huey Hung Endowed Professor of Medical Oncology at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He currently serves as the Associate Director of Clinical Research at the Stanford Comprehensive Cancer Institute (SCCI). He also serves as the Associate Dean for Clinical Research Quality at the Stanford University School of Medicine, and is the Medical Director of the Stanford Clinical Translational Research Unit. He has authored more than 150 publications in medical oncology, hematology, and biosimilars across different cancer types. Dr. Pegram received his medical degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed his residency at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. He concluded his training with a fellowship at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine.
Michael Jewett is the Walter P. Murphy Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering and Director of the Center for Synthetic Biology at Northwestern University. He is the recipient of the NIH Pathway to Independence Award, David and Lucille Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, and a Camille-Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, among others. He is the co-founder of SwiftScale Biologics (Acq. by Resilience), Stemloop Inc., and Design Pharmaceuticals, among others, and serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of Tierra Biosciences. Dr. Jewett received his PhD in 2005 from Stanford University, completed postdoctoral studies at the Center for Microbial Biotechnology in Denmark and the Harvard University Medical School.
Nigel is Assistant Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering at Iowa State University. In his lab, Nigel develops cell-free protein synthesis technologies and biosensors for biomedical and agricultural applications, with a particular emphasis on multifunctional, protein-based materials for medical, consumer, and sensor applications. Nigel is a founder of Skroot Labs, carried out biomaterials research and technology scouting at DuPont, and holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from MIT.
Pauline is a Partner at Red Sky Partners, an advisory firm in Cambridge, MA serving biotech companies and Boards in interim C-level management roles, driving corporate strategy and corporate development, and planning, executing, and completing strategic transactions. She has 30 years of experience in the biotech industry and has closed over 100 transactions during this time. Pauline was a founding member of the Biotechnology Industry Organization's Business Development Advisory Committee and launched the BIO Business Development Fundamentals course. Pauline has an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.
Stan is an experienced life-science entrepreneur and inventor with over 30 issued U.S. patents. He founded and led SynapDX, Helicos BioSciences, Exact Biosciences ($EXAS), Cytyc ($CYTC) and is a member of the Board of Directors at Glympse Bio, Binx Health, PathAI, Fractyl Biosciences, and T2 Biosystems. Stan has held academic appointments at Tufts and MIT and is a fellow of the American Institute of Medical and Biological Engineering. He received his B.S. in engineering from Cooper Union.
Steve is an expert in protein engineering with over 20 years of experience in the design and development of antibody, cytokine, and fusion protein drugs. After receiving a PhD in Cell Biology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and postdoctoral training at UC Berkeley, he held positions at successful biotech companies including Director Cell Biology at Exelixis and was VP, Research at Xencor, FivePrime Therapeutics, and Xoma. He most recently served as Chief R&D Officer at Nektar Therapeutics. Steve sits on the Board of Directors of Dicerna, and the Biotechnology Advisory Board of the University of Delaware.
Theresa is a founding advisor to BigHat and is a C-suite leader with a passion for cutting-edge science and solving big problems that drive societal impact. She is an Entrepreneur in Residence (EIR) at The Engine, a venture capital firm, and the founder of Nebula Industries, a strategic consulting firm for the diagnostic and medical device industries and currently the CEO at Droplet Biosciences. Previously, Theresa also served as the Chief Business Officer at EverlyWell, a direct-to-consumer diagnostic testing firm, the Life Sciences EIR at Harvard Business School, VP of Commercial Strategy at SynapDx, and a business consultant at Putnam. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.
BigHat Biosciences is supported by world-class investors including those listed below and others. The company closed a $75 million Series B in July 2022, $19 million Series A in January 2021, and $5 million Seed in October 2019.
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