Professor Dane Wittrup attended the University of New Mexico as an undergraduate, graduating Summa Cum Laude with a Bachelors in Chemical Engineering in June, 1984. Wittrup went on to attend the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, where he worked with Prof. James Bailey on flow cytometry and segregated modeling of recombinant populations of Saccharomyces cerevisiae. After obtaining his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering with a minor in Biology in 1988, he spent a brief time working at...

Holden Thorp became Editor-in-Chief of the Science family of journals on 28 October 2019. He came to Science from Washington University, where he was provost from 2013 to 2019 and professor from 2013 to 2023.  He is currently a professor at George Washington University and on leave to serve as the Editor-in-Chief at Science. Thorp joined Washington University after spending three decades at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), where he served as the 10th chancellor from 2008...

Darrell Irvine obtained an Honors Bachelor’s degree in engineering physics from the University of Pittsburgh. As a National Science Foundation graduate fellow, he then studied Polymer Science at MIT. Following completion of his PhD, he was a Damon Runyon-Walter Winchell postdoctoral fellow in immunology at the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic Medicine. He is presently a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute....

Stan Lapidus is an inventor and entrepreneur who currently serves on a number of healthcare and medical technology boards.  He’s been founding CEO of three medical diagnostics companies. Two of them have been among the most successful diagnostics startups of all time: Cytyc Corp., which he founded in 1987 and which revolutionized early detection of cervical cancer through its development of the modern Pap test—the ThinPrep. The two ThinPrep prototypes are at the Smithsonian’s American Museum...

David Epstein joined Seagen as Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors in 2022, bringing more than 30 years of drug development, deal making, commercialization and people leadership experience on a global scale. Prior to Seagen, he was executive partner at Flagship Pioneering. From 2010 to mid-2016 he served as Chief Executive Officer of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, a division of Novartis AG. Previously, David started and led Novartis’ Oncology and Molecular Diagnostic...

Vijay Kuchroo is the Samuel L. Wasserstrom Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School, Senior Scientist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and Co-Director of the Center for Infection and Immunity, at the Brigham Research Institutes, Boston. He is also an associate member of the Broad Institute, and a participant in a Klarman Cell Observatory project that focuses on T cell differentiation. He is the founding Director of the Evergrande Center for Immunologic Diseases at Harvard Medical...

David Weitz is the Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics & Applied Physics and professor of Systems Biology at Harvard University. Weitz is best known for his work in the areas of diffusing-wave spectroscopy, microrheology, microfluidics, rheology, fluid mechanics, interface and colloid science, colloid chemistry, biophysics, complex fluids, soft condensed matter physics, phase transitions, the study of glass and amorphous solids, liquid crystals, self-assembly, surface-enhanced light...

David Liu is the Richard Merkin Professor and director of the Merkin Institute of Transformative Technologies in Healthcare, vice-chair of the faculty at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, the Thomas Dudley Cabot Professor of the Natural Sciences at Harvard University, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator. Liu’s research integrates chemistry and evolution to illuminate biology and enable next-generation therapeutics. His major research interests include the...

Chad Mirkin is the Director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology and the George B. Rathmann Prof. of Chemistry, Prof. of Chemical and Biological Engineering, Prof. of Biomedical Engineering, Prof. of Materials Science & Engineering, and Prof. of Medicine at Northwestern University. He is a chemist and a world-renowned nanoscience expert, who is known for his discovery and development of spherical nucleic acids (SNAs) and SNA-based biodetection and therapeutic schemes, the...

Harvey Lodish is a Founding Member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research. He is a Professor of Biology and a Professor of Biological Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He serves as a Member of the National Academy of Sciences and is an Associate (Foreign) Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization. He is also a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a...

Jeff Bluestone is the President and Chief Executive Officer of Sonoma Biotherapeutics and the A.W. and Mary Margaret Clausen Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the Diabetes Center of The University of California, San Francisco. Bluestone is a highly accomplished scientific researcher and international leader in the field of immunotherapy and has published more than 500 papers over nearly four decades focused on understanding the basic processes that control T-cell activation and immune...

Frank Nestle is global head of research and chief scientific officer at Sanofi, with responsibility for its main therapeutic research areas of immunology and inflammation, oncology, neurology, rare diseases, hematology, and genomic medicine. Before joining Sanofi in 2016, Nestle was a professor and chair of cutaneous medicine and immunotherapy at King’s College London and practiced medicine at Guy’s and St. Thomas’ Hospital. At King’s College, he led research, translational clinical trials,...

Jay Keasling is the Philomathia Professor of Alternative Energy at the University of California, Berkeley in the Departments of Bioengineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, senior faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and Chief Executive Officer of the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI). Dr. Keasling’s research focuses on the metabolic engineering of microorganisms for degradation of environmental contaminants or for environmentally friendly synthesis of...

Carolyn Bertozzi is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Chemical & Systems Biology (by courtesy) at Stanford University, the Baker Family Director at Sarafan ChEM-H, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. She completed her undergraduate degree in Chemistry from Harvard University in 1988 and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley in 1993. After completing postdoctoral work at UCSF in the field of cellular immunology, she joined the...

Joel Dudley is a Partner @ Innovation Endeavors and an experienced leader, medical professional, researcher, and entrepreneur.  Joel previously served as the Chief Scientific Officer at Tempus, a company focused on bringing the power of data and artificial intelligence to healthcare. Before joining Tempus, Joel was an Associate Professor of Genetics and Genomic Sciences and founding Director of the Institute for Next Generation Healthcare at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. He...

Carlos Bustamante, over the past 15 years, has led a multidisciplinary team working on problems at the interface of computational and biological sciences. Much of his research has focused on genomics technology and its application in medicine, agriculture, and evolutionary biology. His first academic appointment was at Cornell University's College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. There, much of his work focused on population genetics and agricultural genomics motivated by a desire to improve...

Lee Cooper is Senior Director of Venture Investments @ Leaps by Bayer, where he aims to contribute to new biotechnologies that enable patients and communities to live healthier lives. Lee is on the faculty of Dartmouth’s Thayer School of Engineering and teaches “The Ecosystem for Bio-Innovation.” Prior to joining Leaps, Lee was Entrepreneur-in-Residence with RA Capital and founder of Enlight Bio, a biotech focused on genetic disease. Previously, Lee worked in corporate development for Moderna...

Patrick Hsu is an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley, and is a co-founder and core investigator at the Arc Institute. He is a pioneer of CRISPR technology. In his Lab at Berkeley, Patrick seeks to improve our understanding and ability to control genetic circuits for the advancement of human health. His academic work has been featured in multiple prestigious awards, including Forbes’ 30 Under 30, the NIH Early Independence Award, and the MIT...

David Kaufman is a Partner @ Third Rock Ventures. Before joining TRV, he was Chief Medical Officer and head of translational development at the Bill and Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute (MRI). He helped establish the Gates MRI as a "nonprofit biotech," developing novel drugs and vaccines for tuberculosis, malaria, enteric diseases, neonatal health, and other global health challenges. Prior to that, Kaufman led translational oncology at Merck Research Laboratories, where he oversaw...

Chris Garabedian is the Chairman & CEO of Xontogeny where he supports companies with cutting-edge technologies from early development through clinical proof of concept. Chris has decades of leadership experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. From 2011 to 2015, Chris led the turnaround of Sarepta Therapeutics as CEO. Prior to that, Chris served as VP of Corporate Strategy at Celgene and has held multiple executive roles at Gilead across corporate development, marketing, and medical...

Ben Oakes is Co-founder, President, & CEO @ Scribe Therapeutics. He has contributed to over 25 publications and patent applications across synthetic biology, molecular engineering, CRISPR, and zinc finger-based genetic modification. A previous Innovative Genomics Institute Entrepreneurial Fellow, Ben has been named to the San Francisco Business Times 40 Under 40, Endpoints 20 Under 40 in biopharma, Business Insider 30 Under 40 transforming healthcare, and the Biocom Life Sciences Catalyst...

Becky Pferdehirt is a Partner on the a16z bio investing team. She focuses on early stage companies building technology platforms for therapeutic discovery and development. Prior to joining Andreessen Horowitz, Becky worked at Amgen where she most recently led business development efforts for therapeutic platform partnerships. Before moving to BD Becky was a research scientist in Amgen R&D, focused on cell and gene therapy technology innovation. Becky completed her postdoctoral education...

Michael Jewett is the Charles Deering McCormick Professor of Teaching Excellence, a Professor of Chemical & Biological Engineering, & Co-Director of the Center for Synthetic Biology @ Northwestern University. He is also an Institute Fellow at the Northwestern Argonne Institute for Science & Engineering. Jewett’s lab seeks to re-conceptualize the way we engineer complex biological systems for compelling applications in medicine, materials, and energy by transforming biochemical...

Vik Bajaj is a Managing Director @ Foresite, evaluating and pursuing investments at the intersection of technology and life sciences, including in personalized and precision healthcare. Prior to joining Foresite Capital, Vik was the chief scientific officer of GRAIL, a life sciences company working to detect cancer early when it can be cured, and remains on its Scientific Advisory Board. He is also the co-founder and former chief scientific officer of Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences)...