Jessica is a Partner at F-Prime Capital and focuses primarily on the biopharmaceutical and medical technology sectors. Prior to joining F-Prime in 2015, Jessica was an engagement manager in McKinsey and Company’s Boston office, where she focused on pharmaceuticals and medical products and advised companies across a range of strategic, organizational, and operational topics. She began her career at MIT Lincoln Laboratory in the Biodefense Systems group, where she worked on developing novel techniques for the detection of biological agents.

Jessica holds a Ph.D. in genetics from Harvard University and received her BS in biology from Duke University, graduating summa cum laude.

Kevin Bitterman focuses on creating and investing in companies that translate groundbreaking science into innovative medicines.

Kevin serves on the boards of Curie Therapeutics, Disc Medicine, Judo Bio, Kinaset Therapeutics, and Remix Therapeutics. He is board chair at Chroma Medicine and at Vedere Bio II following Novartis’ acquisition of Vedere Bio. Kevin was the founding CEO of Editas Medicine (NASDAQ: EDIT), Morphic Therapeutic (NASDAQ:MORF) and Visterra (acquired by Otsuka), and co-founded Genocea Biosciences (NASDAQ: GNCA). He previously served as a director of Akero Therapeutics (NASDAQ: AKRO), Kala Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: KALA), and Taris Biomedical (acquired by Johnson & Johnson) among other ventures. Prior to joining Atlas Venture in 2017, Kevin was a partner at Polaris Partners, where he had been a member of the healthcare team since 2004.

Kevin is active in the life science and healthcare start-up community serving as Chair Emeritus of the New England Venture Capital Association (NEVCA) and as a member of the Harvard Medical School Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator, BTCA and Q-FASTR Steering Committees.  He is also a member of the Isabella Stuart Gardner Museum Board of Advisors. He received a BA in biology, with highest honors, from Rutgers University before completing his Ph.D. in genetics at Harvard Medical School.

Outside of work Kevin enjoys spending time with his wife and two young daughters.  He also enjoys trail running and whiskey, though generally not at the same time.

Matt joined OUP in 2013 and focuses on investments in therapeutics, diagnostics, medical devices, and research tools. He has been involved with OUP’s investment in several portfolio companies including Biohaven Pharma (NYSE: BHVN), Synthorx (acquired by Sanofi), Kura Oncology (NASDAQ: KURA), Spero Therapeutics (NASDAQ: SPRO), Cell Design Labs (acquired by Gilead), Arrakis Therapeutics, PMV Pharma (NASDAQ: PMVP), Aerovate Therapeutics (NASDAQ: AVTE), Sana Biotechnology (NASDAQ: SANA), and others. Currently, Matt sits on the board of IMMvention Therapeutix and holds board observer seats at Arrakis Therapeutics, Glyphic Biosciences, and Faraday Pharma.

Prior to joining OUP, Matt was a strategy consultant with L.E.K. Consulting serving clients in biopharma, diagnostics, research tools, healthcare, and private equity. Engagements included strategy development, market assessment, commercialization support, portfolio development, acquisition target identification, and diligence / transaction support. As a Ph.D. student at the University of Pennsylvania Matt conducted research on the antibody response to a novel protein-based poxvirus vaccine and advised several startups while working with the Penn Biotech Group.

Matt holds a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from The University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S. in Microbiology from The Pennsylvania State University. Matt resides in Gladwyne, PA with his wife Jenna and their two children.

Deborah Palestrant, Ph.D., M.B.A joined 5AM Ventures in 2018 as Partner and Executive Chair of 4:59 Initiative. Previously, Dr. Palestrant was Vice President of Corporate Development & Strategy at Relay Therapeutics, where she executed business strategy including alliances, partnerships, and other collaborations and led communications. She has over 15 years of life sciences industry experience including drug discovery, company creation, operations, business development, and strategy. Following her postdoctoral fellowship, Dr. Palestrant was a lab head at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, where she advanced multiple structure-based drug discovery programs. In 2010, Dr. Palestrant joined Third Rock Ventures as a senior associate and helped to build and launch Blueprint Medicines (NASDAQ: BPMC). Upon its launch, Dr. Palestrant served an interim role in operations at Blueprint Medicines. Subsequent to her return to Third Rock Ventures, Dr. Palestrant helped to conceive and launch Editas Medicine (NASDAQ: EDIT), and as part of the original founding team, she led the business development group until joining Relay Therapeutics. Dr. Palestrant holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biophysics from Columbia University, an M.B.A from Northeastern University, and was Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation Postdoctoral Fellow at The Scripps Research Institute. She is based in the Boston, MA office.

Laura Tadvalkar is a Managing Director on the Venture Team at RA Capital Management. Laura works on new company creation and early-stage investments, and serves as a Board Director for Be Biopharma, Expansion Therapeutics, Hemab, and Aliada Therapeutics. Laura has a BS in Chemistry from Yale University and a PhD in Chemical Biology from Harvard University. Prior to RA, Laura was a Principal at MP Healthcare Venture Management. Prior to MP, she was a Consultant at Clarion Healthcare.

Stacie Weninger is the President of FBRI, and a Venture Partner with F-Prime. Prior to this position, she was the Senior Director of Science Programs for the Fidelity Foundations. In 2005, Dr. Weninger served as the Project Manager and Senior Analyst for the Task Force on Women in Science at Harvard University. From 2001-2005, Dr. Weninger was a Senior Scientist at Cell Press for the journal Neuron. Before joining Cell Press, Dr. Weninger was a postdoctoral research fellow at Children’s Hospital Boston and Harvard Medical School with Dr. Bruce Yankner. She was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute predoctoral fellow in the Program in Neuroscience at Harvard University. While a graduate student and postdoctoral research fellow, Dr. Weninger was actively involved in undergraduate teaching, winning six teaching awards.

Dr. Weninger received a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Harvard University, and a B.S. degree in chemistry with highest honors from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She currently chairs the Collaboration for Alzheimer’s Prevention; serves as CEO and Chairman of the Board of Directors for Rugen Therapeutics; serves as a member of the Board of Directors for Aratome, Atalanta, Eikonizo, Sironax, and Target ALS; serves as a member of the External Advisory Board for Boston Children’s Hospital’s Rosamund Stone Zander Translational Neuroscience Center; serves as a member of the Scientific Advisory Boards for the Breuer Foundation, Brown University’s Carney Center for Alzheimer’s Disease Research, Denali Therapeutics, the Indian Institute of Science’s Centre for Brain Research, the MIT Yang-Tan Center for Molecular Therapeutics, Boston Children’s Hospital Technology Development Fund, the Harvard Blavatnik Biomedical Accelerator Fund, the Tufts Launchpad Accelerator, the UK Dementia Research Institute, and is part of the Harvard Experts in Residence (XIR) network. She served as the President of Alzforum for over a decade and continues as a special advisor to the site. She was a founding member of the Board of Directors for Denali Therapeutics (NASDAQ: DNLI); as well as a member of the Board of Directors for Annexon Biosciences (NASDAQ: ANNX), BRI-Alzan (acquired by MeiraGTx), Digital Cognition Technologies (acquired by Linus Health), Enspectra, Inscopix (acquired by Bruker Corporation), Neumora Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NMRA), and Syllable Life Sciences (acquired by Neumora).

Vyas Ramanan, Ph.D., is a Venture Partner at Third Rock Ventures, where he has worked since 2016 on building exciting biopharmaceutical companies. As part of Third Rock, Vyas played key roles in the creation and R&D activities of Maze Therapeutics and Marea Therapeutics. Vyas currently serves as a board observer for Marea Therapeutics and ARTBIO. Vyas received his BS in Economics and BSE/MSE in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania, and his Ph.D. from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

Jasmina is currently Partner at Takeda Ventures, having joined the team in June 2023.

Jasmina is trained scientist with over a decade of combined experience in academia, drug discovery, business development and Venture investing. Prior to joining Takeda Ventures, Jasmina spent 10 years with AbbVie. Her latest role was within AbbVie’s Venture team with focus on strategic investments for the company. Prior to joining AbbVie Ventures, she was part of AbbVie’s Search and Evaluation team sourcing strategic partnerships across all stages of asset development. As trained chemist with experience in chemical biology, Jasmina began her career in drug discovery at AbbVie and has spent part of her career as part of clinical development team.

Before joining Abbott/AbbVie, Jasmina conducted her post-doctoral training at Harvard University, after receiving her PhD in organic chemistry from The University of Chicago.

Jeff Goater is a Partner at The Column Group (TCG). Previously, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Surface Oncology. During his tenure at Surface, the company fostered an award-winning culture, advanced four programs into clinical development, completed its initial public offering and secured multiple strategic collaborations. Prior to Surface, he served as Chief Financial Officer of Voyager Therapeutics where he was one of the members of the founding management team. While at Voyager, he led its crossover financing, initial public offering and strategic partnership with Sanofi Genzyme.  Previously, Jeff spent nearly a decade in investment banking, most recently as a managing director at Evercore, advising on more than $100 billion in strategic transactions in the biopharma industry. He began his career as a research scientist in the field of AAV gene therapy and holds master’s degrees in microbiology/immunology, pathology and business administration from the University of Rochester. Jeff currently serves on the boards of Atavistik Bio, AviadoBio, Judo Bio, Kallyope, Kenai Therapeutics, Nilo Therapeutics, Remix Therapeutics, and Topo Therapeutics. He also serves on the board of advisors of Life Science Cares in Boston.

Since joining MRL Ventures Fund in 2018, Olga Danilchanka has focused on preclinical stage investments, championing companies that harness cutting-edge biology to devise therapeutic solutions in significant unmet medical arenas. Currently, she serves as a Director on the boards of Therini Bio and PAQ Therapeutics and as an Observer on the board of Ambagon Therapeutics. Olga’s previous board experiences include Eyebiotech Limited (EyeBio, acquired by Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA), Caraway Therapeutics (acquired by Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA), HotSpot Therapeutics and Lava Therapeutics (NASDAQ: LAVA). Before her work with MRLV, Olga expanded her operational and scientific expertise at both Epiva Biosciences, a Flagship Pioneering newco, and the MRL Cambridge Exploratory Science Center, a subsidiary of Merck & Co., Inc., Rahway, NJ, USA. She holds a PhD from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and completed her postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School.

Omar H. Khalil manages Santé’s Boston Office and concentrates on biotechnology, where he partners with scientific founders and entrepreneurs across multiple therapeutic areas and modalities. Omar joined Santé in 2007 and rejoined in 2020 after holding various transactional and operational leadership roles within the pharmaceutical and biotech industry. He held senior leadership roles with Baxter International, Baxalta (now part of Takeda), and Kaléo, a commercial-stage biotech company. In these positions, he led and managed businesses ranging from early clinical development to commercial launch, which scaled to more than $3 Billion in annual sales. Earlier in his career, he worked at McKinsey & Company in the healthcare practice, advising leading pharmaceutical and medical device companies on growth and M&A strategies. Omar serves as a board member, advisor, and mentor to several organizations focused on biotech entrepreneurship and is a member of the Leadership Advisory Board at the University of Michigan College of Engineering. He received his MSE and BSE in Biomedical Engineering summa cum laude from the University of Michigan with a concentration in Tissue Engineering.

Sylvia is currently Managing Director at the T1D Fund. She is an experienced biotech industry professional with over ten years of experience in the sector. Prior to joining the T1D fund, she was a Principal on the investment team at Omega Funds, where she focused on early stage investments and company creation across various therapeutic areas including neurology, immunology and rare diseases. She also served as a Board observer for Vanqua Bio, Aerium Therapeutics and Rectify Pharma.

Prior to Omega Funds, Sylvia spent 7 years at Ra Pharmaceuticals, a peptide drug discovery company focused on rare diseases associated with complement dysregulation. At Ra, she was involved in the early development of the company’s discovery platform, as well as developing preclinical and translational models for first-in-human studies of its lead product, Zilucoplan, which was recently approved in various countries for generalized myasthenia gravis (gMG). She also provided scientific leadership for multiple discovery programs within the company’s internal pipeline and in collaboration with Merck.

Sylvia earned her Ph.D in Biochemistry Summa Cum Laude from the University Pierre-and-Marie-Curie in Paris, France, while being a full-time visiting fellow in the Department of Genetics at Harvard University where she worked in synthetic biology. She holds an M.S. from Pierre-and-Marie-Curie University in Paris, France and a B.S. in Biochemistry from Joseph-Fourier University in Grenoble, France.

Anna French, D.Phil., joined Qiming US in 2017 from the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where she was a healthcare management consultant advising leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies on their strategy and operations, with a focus in advanced therapies. Previously, she led a global industry-academic consortium centered on cell therapy commercialization, the Centre for the Advancement of Sustainable Medical Innovation (CASMI)’s Translational Stem Cell Consortium, a partnership between Oxford University and University College London.

Anna is a Managing Partner with the fund and currently serves on the boards of Umoja Biopharma, Empirico Inc., Auron Therapeutics, Entact Bio, and several stealth company incubations. She led Qiming’s investment in Cadent Therapeutics (acquired by Novartis) and Jasper Therapeutics (NASDAQ:JSPR).

Anna earned a D.Phil. from the University of Oxford, UK, where her research focused on the hematological differentiation of human-induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells. She has authored over 20 publications in the field of stem cell research. Anna received her BSc in Biochemistry with first class honors from the University of Bristol.

Aaron Nelson MD, PhD is a Managing Director at the Novartis Venture Fund in Cambridge, MA, USA. Prior to NVF, he was an investor at dRx Capital, a joint investment company of Novartis and Qualcomm, focused on Digital Medicine. Previously, Aaron worked on technology strategy across multiple Business Units within Novartis, including the Trials of the Future program and Investigative Toxicology organization. Aaron studied Medicine at Tufts University, Cell and Microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania and the Karolinska Institutet, and completed his BSc at Cornell University.

Issi Rozen is a General Partner at Google Ventures, where he primarily focuses on the formation of new companies and early-stage investments. Issi is an experienced biotech executive and a serial entrepreneur who co-founded multiple startups, including GV portfolio company Verve Therapeutics. “My background is quite unusual for life sciences,” he explains. “I started in music, got excited about biotech in business school, led strategy and business development efforts at several biotech companies, and then spent a decade at the Broad Institute, spinning out more than 20 companies and co-founding another five.”

Issi served as the Chief Business Officer and a member of the executive leadership team at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he led the creation of the Office of Strategic Alliances and Partnering. He was responsible for developing innovative scientific and business collaborations, initiating and establishing new ventures around novel technologies, and overseeing strategy and licensing of the Institute’s intellectual property portfolio.

“I’ve seen many different shades of companies, and I’ve always loved the opportunity to partner with founders and experiment with different structures to advance early-stage science,” he says. “Closely following the many startups spinning out of the Broad helped me learn to identify why some did better than others when all had potential.”

An accomplished jazz guitarist who spent his early career touring and recording, Issi is a former professor at Berklee College of Music. “Working with great jazz musicians is very similar to working with successful founders and academics,” he says. “They are extremely talented, passionate, and dedicate their lives to one particular thing. That love drives them, and they are willing to invest everything to make it happen.”

Issi earned his MBA at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Spt5-Pol II Inhibitors as an Effective Therapeutic Approach for Huntington’s Disease

We have discovered a novel class of Spt5-Pol II inhibitors (SPIs) that selectively lower mutant huntingtin associated with Huntington’s disease (HD), while effectively crossing the the blood-brain-barrier. Administration of SPIs in HD mouse models significantly improves HD biomarkers, disease symptoms and delays disease progression. SPIs show promise for further development and clinical evaluation as potential therapy for HD.

Broadening Glioblastoma Responses with Tri-Specific T cell Engaging Antibody

A rapid and aggressive cancer, GBM is challenging to treat, and 50% of patients die within two years of diagnosis. Unfortunately, there has not been an impactful therapeutic approved for GBM since TMZ in 1999 because drugs must penetrate the blood-brain barrier (BBB), reverse the tumor’s immunosuppressive local environment, and target the tumor’s plasticity and inter and intra-tumor antigen variability. The T-cell engaging proteins developed in Dr. Balyasnikova’s lab are positioned to overcome the three central challenges and address the unmet therapeutic need in GBM by mediating T-cell interactions, localizing into the brain, and providing multi-target coverage. Furthermore, the BiTE and TriTE assets developed by Dr. Balyasnikova may be applied beyond GBM to cancers expressing tumor-associated antigens, IL13R𝛂2 and EGFRvIII, such as non-small cell lung, ovarian, colorectal, and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

Development of a Therapeutic with the Benefits of Estrogen but without the Risk for Breast Cancer

Estrigenix has developed a highly selective, non-steroidal estrogen receptor beta agonist, EGX358. We have demonstrated that EGX358 is effective in moderating hot flashes and improving memory in an animal model for menopause. Of equal importance, EGX358 does not increase proliferation of ER+ breast cancer cells. This represents a safe alternative to traditional estrogen therapy for menopausal women.

A novel pharmacological approach for the treatment of glutaric aciduria type 1

Glutaric aciduria type 1 is a serious inborn error of lysine metabolism. The team is developing pharmacological substrate reduction as a novel therapeutic approach for the treatment of glutaric aciduria type 1. Their work indicates that this approach is safe, and more efficacious and convenient compared to current treatment options.

Targeting Opportunistic Kinases for Treatment of Endometriosis

Our overarching objective is to perform preclinical development and IND-enabling studies to create potent, selective, metabolically stable, and peripherally restricted kinase-selective inhibitors that can provide a foundation as first-in-class non-steroidal drugs for the treatment of endometriosis in girls and women.

Restoring natural ovarian endocrine function for pediatric cancer survivors

Very brief presentation description: Premature ovarian insufficiency (POI) is a common complication of anticancer treatments, such as chemotherapy and bone marrow transplantation, due to treatment toxicity. In female cancer survivors POI causes sterility and loss of the ovarian endocrine function, which in turn results in premature osteopenia, muscle wasting, and accelerated cardiovascular disease. We developed a novel immuno-isolating capsule technology for cell therapy that promotes restoration of ovarian endocrine function in young women with POI by utilizing allogeneic transplantation of ovarian tissue.

Phosphatase-targeted biologics for autoimmunity

Knoubis Bio, Inc is an early-stage biopharmaceutical spin-out company focused on developing biologic therapies for autoimmunity. Knoubis Bio will present their strategy for developing a non-immunosuppressive therapy for lupus nephritis, cutaneous lupus, and rheumatoid arthritis.

Cyclimid therapeutics

Leveraging endogenous cereblon ligands as warheads to precisely control the degradation of unwanted proteins.