For decades, scientists have dreamed of creating medicines through protein engineering but were limited by the molecules found in nature. Just as custom parts revolutionized personal computing, custom proteins have the potential to revolutionize precision medicine. To create such proteins, better software tools were needed.
At David Baker’s Institute for Protein Design, our founders Marc Lajoie and Scott Boyken pioneered the ability to create new biological functions from scratch by designing proteins with moving parts and precise interactions. For the first time, custom proteins could be made to specifically address the biological mechanisms that stand in the way of curing disease.
The sophistication of living cells makes them an attractive tool for curing disease. The first cell therapy, KYMRIAH®, was approved in 2017. This pioneering treatment showed promise for blood cancers, but cell therapies for solid tumors — which account for over 90 percent of all cancers — lag behind.
Our founders Marc Lajoie and Scott Boyken collaborated with Stan Riddell from Fred Hutch Cancer Center and began creating proteins that help cell therapies kill cancer cells while avoiding healthy tissues. From this we realized protein design will be the key to overcoming long-standing barriers to safely cure solid tumors.
These barriers to treatment are ingrained in the very biology of our cells. To overcome this, we cannot simply repurpose molecules from nature. Protein design is needed to unleash the full potential of cells to become cures.
Recognizing that protein design and engineered cell therapy were poised to improve the lives of patients, Marc, Scott, Stan and David, along with other leaders in the field, co-founded Lyell Immunopharma to industrialize and translate the team’s foundational technologies into cures for solid tumors.
Several of these technologies helped establish Lyell’s pipeline of cell-based therapies.
It became clear that no single company could realize the full potential of what was to come. With support from Lyell and visionary investors, we spun out Outpace to focus on building the efficacy & safety technologies needed to overcome the barriers to cures.
We are building a pipeline of engineered T cell therapies powered by multiple Outpace technologies as well as forging strategic collaborations with industry leaders, which allows us to incorporate our solutions into many cell therapy products that have the potential to improve the lives of cancer patients and their families.
At Outpace, we believe in collaborative science. We co-founded the OpenFold AI Research Consortium to support open-access development of protein folding & design software. These tools can be used by a wide community of researchers to discover new medicines.
We have moved to a new home in Seattle’s Dexter Yard. This facility offers state-of-the-art laboratories that will allow us to develop new technologies for years to come. Seattle remains a world leader for cell therapy research.
We are expanding our collaborations with leading experts in protein design & cellular immunotherapy to ensure that our platform continues to be powered by the best ideas from the frontiers of science. Together, these collaborations with the University of Washington Institute for Protein Design and Fred Hutch Cancer Center will help to advance our mission to create safe and effective cell therapies.
For decades, scientists have dreamed of creating medicines through protein engineering but were limited by the molecules found in nature. Just as custom parts revolutionized personal computing, custom proteins have the potential to revolutionize precision medicine. To create such proteins, better software tools were needed.
At David Baker’s Institute for Protein Design, our founders pioneered the ability to create new biological functions from scratch by designing proteins with moving parts and precise interactions. For the first time, custom protein could be made to specifically address the biological mechanisms that stand in the way of curing disease.
Team (All)
Executive Team
Board of Directors
Advisors
Team (All)
Scott
Boyken
Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer
Scott Boyken, PhD is co-founder and CTO of Outpace Bio. During his postdoctoral work in the Baker lab at the University of Washington, Dr. Boyken pioneered new computational methods to design the first de novo proteins with programmable interaction specificity and moving parts. Applying these methods, he created de novo protein switches and logic gates capable of controlling new biological functions in cells and precisely targeting immunotherapies, resulting in over 20 publications and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface. Based on this technology, he co-founded Lyell Immunopharma, where he led the Protein and Cell Engineering team together with Marc Lajoie, creating new technologies to improve efficacy and safety for anti-cancer T cell therapies. Dr. Boyken earned his PhD from Iowa State University where he was awarded an NSF IGERT Fellowship in Computational Molecular Biology. His dissertation research in the Andreotti and Jernigan labs combined NMR and biochemical assays with computational modeling and MD simulations to study kinase-mediated immune cell signaling. In 2021, Scott was selected for Endpoints 20 under 40. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on 16 published patent families.
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Aaron
Foster
Chief Scientific Officer
As Chief Scientific Officer, Aaron Foster, PhD brings more than 30 years of drug discovery experience to Outpace Bio and a record of leading research teams in the translation of advanced engineered immune cell therapies from discovery into the clinic. Prior to joining Outpace, Dr. Foster was Vice President of T Cell Therapeutics at Sana Biotechnology where he oversaw the development of allogeneic and in vivo gene delivery platforms and also led non-clinical and IND-enabling research for T cell therapy pipeline programs. Prior to Sana, he served as Senior Vice President, Head of Research at Bellicum Pharmaceuticals where he oversaw the company’s research strategy and led discovery and product development for CAR T and CAR NK cell therapies. Prior to joining Bellicum, Dr. Foster was an Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, where he led a research group investigating adoptive T cell therapies, cancer vaccines, and nanotherapeutics for the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. Dr. Foster received his PhD from the University of Sydney and conducted postdoctoral work at both the University of Sydney and Baylor College of Medicine. He is the author of 53 peer-reviewed publications and is an inventor on 12 patent families.
Marc
Lajoie
Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer
Marc Lajoie, PhD is co-founder and CEO of Outpace Bio. Prior to Outpace, Dr. Lajoie co-founded Lyell Immunopharma, where he led a technology development team focused on protein and cell engineering, playing a key role in creating product candidates and overcoming the mechanisms driving T cell dysfunction. Dr. Lajoie completed his postdoctoral studies in David Baker’s lab at the University of Washington, where he helped pioneer the ability to create new biological functions with de novo protein design. He completed his PhD in George Church’s lab at Harvard University, where he created the first genomically recoded organism with a reassigned genetic code and co-founded GRO Biosciences. Dr. Lajoie was named 30 under 30 in science by Forbes Magazine in 2012, 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT Tech Review in 2019, and Endpoints 20 under 40 in biopharma in 2021. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on nineteen published patent applications.
Charity
Scripture
Chief Development Officer
Charity is Outpace's Chief Development Officer (CDO) and brings twenty years of oncology drug development experience to the team. Most recently, Charity led several solid tumor CAR T clinical trials as CDO at Bellicum Pharmaceuticals. Prior to that, she was the first employee hired at ACELYRIN and spent a year in the role of VP, Business and Development Operations where she helped to establish the core business capabilities and supported diligence efforts to secure the lead asset. In addition, Dr. Scripture held clinical development leadership positions at AbbVie/Stemcentrx and Pharmacyclics, and spent almost a decade with Amgen in oncology clinical development and medical affairs in the global and international offices (based in Thousand Oaks, California and Zug, Switzerland). Prior to joining industry she worked in clinical practice at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Dr. Scripture holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Hamilton College, a Master’s Degree in Pharmacology and Toxicology from Dartmouth Medical School, and a Doctorate of Pharmacy degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and completed a Clinical Pharmacology Drug Development fellowship at the National Cancer Institute. In her free time, you will find her hiking in the mountains both near and far.
Eric
Soller
Chief Business Officer
As Chief Business Officer, Eric Soller, PhD brings to Outpace Bio more than fifteen years of scientific expertise, company building and transactions leadership in the biotechnology sector. Prior to joining Outpace, Dr. Soller was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Versant Ventures where he co-founded BlueRock Therapeutics, a company with $225 million in initial financing. Dr. Soller led BlueRocks’s corporate development and strategy efforts to create an industry-leading engineered cell therapy platform and pipeline of innovative cell therapies across multiple disease areas. He forged partnerships with leading biotechnology companies, scientists, and academic institutions in the process, and these efforts culminated in the company’s 2019 acquisition by Bayer Pharmaceuticals as the foundation for their cell therapy efforts for a potential value of $1 billion, two and a half years after launch. Dr. Soller also worked as a Junior Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he advised both large and early-stage biotechnology companies on a range of strategic and operational topics. He holds a PhD in mechanical engineering with a biomedical focus from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
Scott
Boyken
Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer
Scott Boyken, PhD is co-founder and CTO of Outpace Bio. During his postdoctoral work in the Baker lab at the University of Washington, Dr. Boyken pioneered new computational methods to design the first de novo proteins with programmable interaction specificity and moving parts. Applying these methods, he created de novo protein switches and logic gates capable of controlling new biological functions in cells and precisely targeting immunotherapies, resulting in over 20 publications and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface. Based on this technology, he co-founded Lyell Immunopharma, where he led the Protein and Cell Engineering team together with Marc Lajoie, creating new technologies to improve efficacy and safety for anti-cancer T cell therapies. Dr. Boyken earned his PhD from Iowa State University where he was awarded an NSF IGERT Fellowship in Computational Molecular Biology. His dissertation research in the Andreotti and Jernigan labs combined NMR and biochemical assays with computational modeling and MD simulations to study kinase-mediated immune cell signaling. In 2021, Scott was selected for Endpoints 20 under 40. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on 16 published patent families.
Marc
Lajoie
Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer
Marc Lajoie, PhD is co-founder and CEO of Outpace Bio. Prior to Outpace, Dr. Lajoie co-founded Lyell Immunopharma, where he led a technology development team focused on protein and cell engineering, playing a key role in creating product candidates and overcoming the mechanisms driving T cell dysfunction. Dr. Lajoie completed his postdoctoral studies in David Baker’s lab at the University of Washington, where he helped pioneer the ability to create new biological functions with de novo protein design. He completed his PhD in George Church’s lab at Harvard University, where he created the first genomically recoded organism with a reassigned genetic code and co-founded GRO Biosciences. Dr. Lajoie was named 30 under 30 in science by Forbes Magazine in 2012, 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT Tech Review in 2019, and Endpoints 20 under 40 in biopharma in 2021. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on nineteen published patent applications.
Jake
Simson
Board Member, RA Capital
Jake Simson, PhD is a Partner at RA Capital Management. He works on both public and private investments and serves as a Board Director for Janux Therapeutics, Tyra Biosciences, Bicara Therapeutics, Convergent Therapeutics, and Septerna. Previously, he covered solid tumor oncology landscapes. Dr. Simson holds a SB in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. In his doctoral research, he investigated clinically translatable treatments for musculoskeletal tissue repair using injectable hydrogels.
Kate
Miller
Legal Advisor
Kate Miller has over 15 years of experience counseling clients as external and in-house counsel in life sciences, including strategy, IP procurement, diligence and related transactions. Prior to starting her own practice, Dr. Miller served as the VP, Intellectual Property & Legal at Outpace. Previously, Dr. Miller was the Senior Director of Intellectual Property at Silverback Therapeutics. At Cooley LLP, while advising clients across a wide range of biotechnologies, she focused her practice in the fields of cellular therapies, immunology, immuno-oncology and gene editing technologies. Dr. Miller holds a JD from Suffolk University Law School, a PhD in Neurobiology from Yale University and a bachelor of arts degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Chicago, graduating with Honors and with concentrations in both molecular biology and immunology.
Margo
Roberts
Scientific Advisor
Dr. Margo Roberts most recently served as chief scientific officer (CSO) at Lyell Immunopharma, Inc., where she led the clinical development of novel CAR- and TCR- based T cell therapies for solid tumors. Formerly, she served as CSO at Kite Pharma, Inc. (acquired by Gilead Sciences, Inc. in October 2017) starting in 2013, where she built a talented research organization that played an instrumental role in the successful development of the CAR-T therapy Yescarta®, and the clinical advancement of additional CAR/TCR-engineered T-cell therapies. Subsequent to her role as CSO, Dr. Roberts served as senior vice president of Discovery Research at Kite in order to focus on the development of next generation therapeutic approaches, including heading up Kite’s universal allogeneic T-cell programs. Dr. Roberts has almost three decades of biomedical research experience in both biotechnology and academia, and has been recognized as a top R&D leader by Endpoints News’ Top 20 Women Leaders in Biopharma 2020. Prior to her tenure at Kite, Dr. Roberts was principal scientist and director of Immune and Cell Therapy at Cell Genesys, Inc. where she led the development and application of CAR technology to T-cells and stem cells, culminating in the very first CAR T-cell clinical trial in 1994. Dr. Roberts was also an associate professor at the University of Virginia, has authored more than thirty scientific publications, and is the inventor on thirteen issued U.S. patents and three published U.S. patent applications. Dr. Roberts received both her Bachelor of Science degree with honors and her Ph.D. degree from the University of Leeds in England.
Stanley
Riddell
Co-Founder and Scientific Advisor
Dr. Riddell holds the Burke O’Reilly Family Endowed Chair in Cancer Immunotherapy and is Professor at Fred Hutch Cancer Center and the University of Washington. He was a Hans Fischer Senior Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and is now Distinguished Affiliate Professor at the TUM. His research is focused on understanding the differentiation states of human T cells in health and disease and the use of adoptive T cell therapy with genetically modified T cells to treat human cancers. He is a co-founder of ZetaRx, Juno Therapeutics, Lyell Immunopharma, and Outpace Bio. His lab designed the CD19 specific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) used in phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials for adult leukemia and lymphoma that provided foundational data for Breyanzi, an FDA approved CD19 CAR T cell produced by Bristol Myers Squibb. His lab is currently focused on advancing new cancer medicines using engineered T cells for a broad range of human cancers. Dr. Riddell is a Web of Science highly cited researcher (top 1%).
Prasad
Adusumilli
Scientific Advisor
Physician-scientist Prasad Adusumilli, MD, FACS studies solid tumor immunology and the development of T-cell‒mediated immunotherapy for thoracic malignancies. He is currently Deputy Chief and Attending, Thoracic Service, the Vice Chair for Translational Research for the Department of Surgery, the Co-Director of the Mesothelioma Program and the Head of the Solid Tumors Cell Therapy, Cellular Therapeutics Center at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Research led by Prasad S. Adusumilli focuses on investigation of the tumor immune microenvironment and the development of T-cell‒mediated immunotherapy for thoracic malignancies and pleural-based diseases. His team has championed regional immunotherapy delivery strategies, resulting in translation of mesothelin-targeted CAR T-cell immunotherapy for malignant pleural mesothelioma, lung, and breast cancers. Work from Dr. Adusumilli’s lab has led to convincing data showing that T cells function efficiently when targeted to the tumor microenvironment. The strength of his approach is the ability to noninvasively track, monitor, and measure pleural tumor burden and T-cell trafficking to better understand the biology of lung cancers and the efficacy of novel treatments. Dr. Adusumilli trained as a research fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering and subsequently completed his thoracic surgery training at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He then returned to Memorial Sloan Kettering in 2007, after being specifically recruited to bolster the thoracic surgery translational research program within the Department of Surgery.
David
Baker
Collaborator
David Baker, PhD is the director of the Institute for Protein Design, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, a professor of biochemistry, and an adjunct professor of genome sciences, bioengineering, chemical engineering, computer science, and physics at the University of Washington. His research group is focused on the design of macromolecular structures and functions. He received his Ph.D. in biochemistry with Randy Schekman at the University of California, Berkeley, and did postdoctoral work in biophysics with David Agard at UCSF. Dr. Baker has published over 600 research papers, been granted over 100 patents, and co-founded 17 companies. Over 70 of his mentees have gone on to independent faculty positions. Dr. Baker is a recipient of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Gianpietro
Dotti
Scientific Advisor
Gianpietro Dotti, MD, is a research professor of microbiology and immunology at UNC and director of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Immunotherapy Program. Dotti received his medical degree at the University of Milan in Milan, Italy, in 1989 with subsequent clinical training and board certification in hematology at the University of Parma in Parma, Italy, in 1995. From 1996 to 1999, he completed a research fellowship in molecular biology at Ospedali Riuniti di Bergamo in Bergamo, Italy, where he developed technologies to detect minimal residual disease in hematological malignancies and studied molecular mechanisms of post-transplant lymphomas. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in translation research at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. In 2002, he joined the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor initially as an instructor and then ranking all the academic positions up to professor with tenure in 2014. It was there that Dotti studied immunotherapy strategies to treat patients with hematologic malignancies including lymphomas and leukemia. In particular, he developed the program of the CD19-specific chimeric antigen receptor in that institution and cloned a novel chimeric antigen receptor targeting the light chain of human immunoglobulins. Dotti was also involved in developing CAR-based strategies to target neuroblastoma in pediatric patients. In collaboration with Brenner he also developed the clinical phase of a novel safety switch for T-cells based on the human caspase-9. Dotti is continuing his research at UNC with particular interest in developing CAR-T cells for the treatment of solid tumors.
Jenna
Chheav
John
Chukinas
David
Clausen
Ty
Crowl
Greg
Curhan
Tad
Davenport
Scott
Boyken
Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer
Scott Boyken, PhD is co-founder and CTO of Outpace Bio. During his postdoctoral work in the Baker lab at the University of Washington, Dr. Boyken pioneered new computational methods to design the first de novo proteins with programmable interaction specificity and moving parts. Applying these methods, he created de novo protein switches and logic gates capable of controlling new biological functions in cells and precisely targeting immunotherapies, resulting in over 20 publications and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface. Based on this technology, he co-founded Lyell Immunopharma, where he led the Protein and Cell Engineering team together with Marc Lajoie, creating new technologies to improve efficacy and safety for anti-cancer T cell therapies. Dr. Boyken earned his PhD from Iowa State University where he was awarded an NSF IGERT Fellowship in Computational Molecular Biology. His dissertation research in the Andreotti and Jernigan labs combined NMR and biochemical assays with computational modeling and MD simulations to study kinase-mediated immune cell signaling. In 2021, Scott was selected for Endpoints 20 under 40. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on 16 published patent families.
Aaron
Foster
Chief Scientific Officer
As Chief Scientific Officer, Aaron Foster, PhD brings more than 30 years of drug discovery experience to Outpace Bio and a record of leading research teams in the translation of advanced engineered immune cell therapies from discovery into the clinic. Prior to joining Outpace, Dr. Foster was Vice President of T Cell Therapeutics at Sana Biotechnology where he oversaw the development of allogeneic and in vivo gene delivery platforms and also led non-clinical and IND-enabling research for T cell therapy pipeline programs. Prior to Sana, he served as Senior Vice President, Head of Research at Bellicum Pharmaceuticals where he oversaw the company’s research strategy and led discovery and product development for CAR T and CAR NK cell therapies. Prior to joining Bellicum, Dr. Foster was an Assistant Professor at Baylor College of Medicine at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy, where he led a research group investigating adoptive T cell therapies, cancer vaccines, and nanotherapeutics for the treatment of cancer and infectious diseases. Dr. Foster received his PhD from the University of Sydney and conducted postdoctoral work at both the University of Sydney and Baylor College of Medicine. He is the author of 53 peer-reviewed publications and is an inventor on 12 patent families.
Marc
Lajoie
Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer
Marc Lajoie, PhD is co-founder and CEO of Outpace Bio. Prior to Outpace, Dr. Lajoie co-founded Lyell Immunopharma, where he led a technology development team focused on protein and cell engineering, playing a key role in creating product candidates and overcoming the mechanisms driving T cell dysfunction. Dr. Lajoie completed his postdoctoral studies in David Baker’s lab at the University of Washington, where he helped pioneer the ability to create new biological functions with de novo protein design. He completed his PhD in George Church’s lab at Harvard University, where he created the first genomically recoded organism with a reassigned genetic code and co-founded GRO Biosciences. Dr. Lajoie was named 30 under 30 in science by Forbes Magazine in 2012, 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT Tech Review in 2019, and Endpoints 20 under 40 in biopharma in 2021. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on nineteen published patent applications.
Charity
Scripture
Chief Development Officer
Charity is Outpace's Chief Development Officer (CDO) and brings twenty years of oncology drug development experience to the team. Most recently, Charity led several solid tumor CAR T clinical trials as CDO at Bellicum Pharmaceuticals. Prior to that, she was the first employee hired at ACELYRIN and spent a year in the role of VP, Business and Development Operations where she helped to establish the core business capabilities and supported diligence efforts to secure the lead asset. In addition, Dr. Scripture held clinical development leadership positions at AbbVie/Stemcentrx and Pharmacyclics, and spent almost a decade with Amgen in oncology clinical development and medical affairs in the global and international offices (based in Thousand Oaks, California and Zug, Switzerland). Prior to joining industry she worked in clinical practice at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Dr. Scripture holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Hamilton College, a Master’s Degree in Pharmacology and Toxicology from Dartmouth Medical School, and a Doctorate of Pharmacy degree from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and completed a Clinical Pharmacology Drug Development fellowship at the National Cancer Institute. In her free time, you will find her hiking in the mountains both near and far.
Eric
Soller
Chief Business Officer
As Chief Business Officer, Eric Soller, PhD brings to Outpace Bio more than fifteen years of scientific expertise, company building and transactions leadership in the biotechnology sector. Prior to joining Outpace, Dr. Soller was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Versant Ventures where he co-founded BlueRock Therapeutics, a company with $225 million in initial financing. Dr. Soller led BlueRocks’s corporate development and strategy efforts to create an industry-leading engineered cell therapy platform and pipeline of innovative cell therapies across multiple disease areas. He forged partnerships with leading biotechnology companies, scientists, and academic institutions in the process, and these efforts culminated in the company’s 2019 acquisition by Bayer Pharmaceuticals as the foundation for their cell therapy efforts for a potential value of $1 billion, two and a half years after launch. Dr. Soller also worked as a Junior Partner at McKinsey & Company, where he advised both large and early-stage biotechnology companies on a range of strategic and operational topics. He holds a PhD in mechanical engineering with a biomedical focus from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor of science in mechanical engineering from the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.
Scott
Boyken
Co-founder & Chief Technology Officer
Scott Boyken, PhD is co-founder and CTO of Outpace Bio. During his postdoctoral work in the Baker lab at the University of Washington, Dr. Boyken pioneered new computational methods to design the first de novo proteins with programmable interaction specificity and moving parts. Applying these methods, he created de novo protein switches and logic gates capable of controlling new biological functions in cells and precisely targeting immunotherapies, resulting in over 20 publications and the Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface. Based on this technology, he co-founded Lyell Immunopharma, where he led the Protein and Cell Engineering team together with Marc Lajoie, creating new technologies to improve efficacy and safety for anti-cancer T cell therapies. Dr. Boyken earned his PhD from Iowa State University where he was awarded an NSF IGERT Fellowship in Computational Molecular Biology. His dissertation research in the Andreotti and Jernigan labs combined NMR and biochemical assays with computational modeling and MD simulations to study kinase-mediated immune cell signaling. In 2021, Scott was selected for Endpoints 20 under 40. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on 16 published patent families.
Marc
Lajoie
Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer
Marc Lajoie, PhD is co-founder and CEO of Outpace Bio. Prior to Outpace, Dr. Lajoie co-founded Lyell Immunopharma, where he led a technology development team focused on protein and cell engineering, playing a key role in creating product candidates and overcoming the mechanisms driving T cell dysfunction. Dr. Lajoie completed his postdoctoral studies in David Baker’s lab at the University of Washington, where he helped pioneer the ability to create new biological functions with de novo protein design. He completed his PhD in George Church’s lab at Harvard University, where he created the first genomically recoded organism with a reassigned genetic code and co-founded GRO Biosciences. Dr. Lajoie was named 30 under 30 in science by Forbes Magazine in 2012, 35 Innovators Under 35 by MIT Tech Review in 2019, and Endpoints 20 under 40 in biopharma in 2021. He has authored more than thirty scientific publications and is an inventor on nineteen published patent applications.
Jake
Simson
Board Member, RA Capital
Jake Simson, PhD is a Partner at RA Capital Management. He works on both public and private investments and serves as a Board Director for Janux Therapeutics, Tyra Biosciences, Bicara Therapeutics, Convergent Therapeutics, and Septerna. Previously, he covered solid tumor oncology landscapes. Dr. Simson holds a SB in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT and a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. In his doctoral research, he investigated clinically translatable treatments for musculoskeletal tissue repair using injectable hydrogels.
Kate
Miller
Legal Advisor
Kate Miller has over 15 years of experience counseling clients as external and in-house counsel in life sciences, including strategy, IP procurement, diligence and related transactions. Prior to starting her own practice, Dr. Miller served as the VP, Intellectual Property & Legal at Outpace. Previously, Dr. Miller was the Senior Director of Intellectual Property at Silverback Therapeutics. At Cooley LLP, while advising clients across a wide range of biotechnologies, she focused her practice in the fields of cellular therapies, immunology, immuno-oncology and gene editing technologies. Dr. Miller holds a JD from Suffolk University Law School, a PhD in Neurobiology from Yale University and a bachelor of arts degree in Biological Sciences from the University of Chicago, graduating with Honors and with concentrations in both molecular biology and immunology.
Margo
Roberts
Scientific Advisor
Dr. Margo Roberts most recently served as chief scientific officer (CSO) at Lyell Immunopharma, Inc., where she led the clinical development of novel CAR- and TCR- based T cell therapies for solid tumors. Formerly, she served as CSO at Kite Pharma, Inc. (acquired by Gilead Sciences, Inc. in October 2017) starting in 2013, where she built a talented research organization that played an instrumental role in the successful development of the CAR-T therapy Yescarta®, and the clinical advancement of additional CAR/TCR-engineered T-cell therapies. Subsequent to her role as CSO, Dr. Roberts served as senior vice president of Discovery Research at Kite in order to focus on the development of next generation therapeutic approaches, including heading up Kite’s universal allogeneic T-cell programs. Dr. Roberts has almost three decades of biomedical research experience in both biotechnology and academia, and has been recognized as a top R&D leader by Endpoints News’ Top 20 Women Leaders in Biopharma 2020. Prior to her tenure at Kite, Dr. Roberts was principal scientist and director of Immune and Cell Therapy at Cell Genesys, Inc. where she led the development and application of CAR technology to T-cells and stem cells, culminating in the very first CAR T-cell clinical trial in 1994. Dr. Roberts was also an associate professor at the University of Virginia, has authored more than thirty scientific publications, and is the inventor on thirteen issued U.S. patents and three published U.S. patent applications. Dr. Roberts received both her Bachelor of Science degree with honors and her Ph.D. degree from the University of Leeds in England.
Stanley
Riddell
Co-Founder and Scientific Advisor
Dr. Riddell holds the Burke O’Reilly Family Endowed Chair in Cancer Immunotherapy and is Professor at Fred Hutch Cancer Center and the University of Washington. He was a Hans Fischer Senior Fellow of the Institute for Advanced Study at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and is now Distinguished Affiliate Professor at the TUM. His research is focused on understanding the differentiation states of human T cells in health and disease and the use of adoptive T cell therapy with genetically modified T cells to treat human cancers. He is a co-founder of ZetaRx, Juno Therapeutics, Lyell Immunopharma, and Outpace Bio. His lab designed the CD19 specific chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) used in phase 1 and phase 2 clinical trials for adult leukemia and lymphoma that provided foundational data for Breyanzi, an FDA approved CD19 CAR T cell produced by Bristol Myers Squibb. His lab is currently focused on advancing new cancer medicines using engineered T cells for a broad range of human cancers. Dr. Riddell is a Web of Science highly cited researcher (top 1%).
Prasad
Adusumilli
Scientific Advisor
Physician-scientist Prasad Adusumilli, MD, FACS studies solid tumor immunology and the development of T-cell‒mediated immunotherapy for thoracic malignancies. He is currently Deputy Chief and Attending, Thoracic Service, the Vice Chair for Translational Research for the Department of Surgery, the Co-Director of the Mesothelioma Program and the Head of the Solid Tumors Cell Therapy, Cellular Therapeutics Center at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Research led by Prasad S. Adusumilli focuses on investigation of the tumor immune microenvironment and the development of T-cell‒mediated immunotherapy for thoracic malignancies and pleural-based diseases. His team has championed regional immunotherapy delivery strategies, resulting in translation of mesothelin-targeted CAR T-cell immunotherapy for malignant pleural mesothelioma, lung, and breast cancers. Work from Dr. Adusumilli’s lab has led to convincing data showing that T cells function efficiently when targeted to the tumor microenvironment. The strength of his approach is the ability to noninvasively track, monitor, and measure pleural tumor burden and T-cell trafficking to better understand the biology of lung cancers and the efficacy of novel treatments. Dr. Adusumilli trained as a research fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering and subsequently completed his thoracic surgery training at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He then returned to Memorial Sloan Kettering in 2007, after being specifically recruited to bolster the thoracic surgery translational research program within the Department of Surgery.
David
Baker
Collaborator
David Baker, PhD is the director of the Institute for Protein Design, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, a professor of biochemistry, and an adjunct professor of genome sciences, bioengineering, chemical engineering, computer science, and physics at the University of Washington. His research group is focused on the design of macromolecular structures and functions. He received his Ph.D. in biochemistry with Randy Schekman at the University of California, Berkeley, and did postdoctoral work in biophysics with David Agard at UCSF. Dr. Baker has published over 600 research papers, been granted over 100 patents, and co-founded 17 companies. Over 70 of his mentees have gone on to independent faculty positions. Dr. Baker is a recipient of the Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Gianpietro
Dotti
Scientific Advisor
Gianpietro Dotti, MD, is a research professor of microbiology and immunology at UNC and director of the Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center Immunotherapy Program. Dotti received his medical degree at the University of Milan in Milan, Italy, in 1989 with subsequent clinical training and board certification in hematology at the University of Parma in Parma, Italy, in 1995. From 1996 to 1999, he completed a research fellowship in molecular biology at Ospedali Riuniti di Bergamo in Bergamo, Italy, where he developed technologies to detect minimal residual disease in hematological malignancies and studied molecular mechanisms of post-transplant lymphomas. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in translation research at the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. In 2002, he joined the Center for Cell and Gene Therapy at Baylor initially as an instructor and then ranking all the academic positions up to professor with tenure in 2014. It was there that Dotti studied immunotherapy strategies to treat patients with hematologic malignancies including lymphomas and leukemia. In particular, he developed the program of the CD19-specific chimeric antigen receptor in that institution and cloned a novel chimeric antigen receptor targeting the light chain of human immunoglobulins. Dotti was also involved in developing CAR-based strategies to target neuroblastoma in pediatric patients. In collaboration with Brenner he also developed the clinical phase of a novel safety switch for T-cells based on the human caspase-9. Dotti is continuing his research at UNC with particular interest in developing CAR-T cells for the treatment of solid tumors.
Matt
Fust
Corporate Finance & Strategy Advisor
Matt Fust is a board member and an advisor to life sciences companies. Mr. Fust served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. from January 2009 until January 2014, when he retired. From May 2003 to December 2008, Mr. Fust served as CFO of Jazz Pharmaceuticals, Inc. From 2002 to 2003, Mr. Fust served as CFO at Perlegen Sciences. Previously, he was senior vice president and CFO at ALZA Corporation, where he was an executive from 1996 until 2002. From 1991 until 1996, Mr. Fust was a manager in the healthcare strategy practice at Andersen Consulting. Mr. Fust serves on the board of directors of Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc., Crinetics Pharmaceuticals, Inc., ArsenalBio and Neumora. He is on the Inclusive Governance Advisory Council of the National Association of Corporate Directors and serves as senior advisor to Out Leadership. Mr. Fust received a B.A. from the University of Minnesota and an M.B.A. from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.
Ann
Lee-Karlon
Corporate & Portfolio Strategy Advisor
Ann Lee-Karlon, PhD, is the CEO and Board member of EpiBiologics, focusing on new bispecific antibody protein degrader therapeutics. She previously served as COO of Altos Labs and SVP at Genentech. During her 18 years at Genentech, Ann led portfolio strategy and operations and had project leadership oversight for over 80 drug development teams from research and development through FDA approval and global launch. She led major corporate partnerships and programs, including Ocrevus for multiple sclerosis and Rituxan in immunology. Before Genentech, Ann served in the new ventures group at Lilly. Ann holds a BS in bioengineering from UC Berkeley, MBA from Stanford University, and PhD in bioengineering from UC San Diego, where she was a National Science Foundation Fellow. Ann was the president and board chair of the Genentech Patient Foundation and president and board chair of the Association for Women in Science, based in Washington, D.C. She is a board member of Eko Health and serves on the Dean’s advisory boards for UC Berkeley and UCSD schools of engineering. Ann was elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and is a Fellow of the Aspen Institute.
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