Abraham Heifets was a Massey Fellow at the University of Toronto and the Ontario Brain Institute, where his doctoral work used machine learning to help plan organic syntheses, a long-standing challenge in chemistry. Previously, Dr. Heifets researched high-performance data processing at IBM’s T.J. Watson Research Center and contributed to the artificial intelligence system of the world-champion robotic soccer team at Cornell University, from which he holds two previous degrees. Dr. Heifets has presented his work at the National Institutes of Health, the American Chemical Society, and the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence. He is an author on 19 papers, patents, and patent applications. Abraham was also named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year in 2006.
Izhar Wallach received his Masters and Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and his B.Sc. in Computer Science from the Israel Institute of Technology (Technion). His Ph.D. work was primarily focused on algorithms for reducing biases in molecular docking and his research has been published extensively in multiple scientific journals. Dr. Wallach has industrial research experience at Keddem Bioscience, a small-molecule drug discovery start-up, where he developed novel algorithms for pharmacophore inference and designing universal screening libraries.
Andrew W. Lo, who is a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Director of the MIT Laboratory for Financial Engineering. Prof. Lo founded AlphaSimplex Group LLC and QLS Advisors, co-founded BridgeBio Pharma, is a Director of Roivant Sciences, a member of the Board of Overseers of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research, an advisory board member of the NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, and a member of the NIH Cures Acceleration Network Review Board. His awards include Batterymarch, Guggenheim, and Sloan Fellowships; the Paul A. Samuelson Award; the Eugene Fama Prize; the IAFE-SunGard Financial Engineer of the Year; the Global Association of Risk Professionals Risk Manager of the Year; the Harry M. Markowitz Award; the Managed Futures Pinnacle Achievement Award; and he has been named one of TIME’s “100 most influential people in the world.”
John Hamer, who is a managing partner at DCVC Bio. Previously, Dr. Hamer was a Managing Director of Monsanto Growth Ventures and a Managing Director at Burrill & Company. He founded and served as CEO of Arête Therapeutics and was the Chief Scientific Officer and eventually President and CEO of Paradigm Genetics. Earlier, Dr. Hamer was a Professor of Biological Sciences at Purdue University, where he was a David and Lucille Packard Fellow and an NSF Presidential Faculty Fellow.
Mike Varney, who was most recently head of Genentech’s Research and Early Development and a member of the Roche Executive Committee. Dr. Varney had been recruited to Genentech to build its small molecule discovery capability, which now accounts for more than 40% of Genentech’s development pipeline and has delivered Erivedge® and Cotellic® to the market. Earlier in his career, Dr. Varney pioneered structure-based drug design as a founding employee at Agouron, which delivered Viracept®, Xalkori®, and Inlyta®. He was named a Hero of Chemistry in 2018 by the American Chemical Society.
Robert Mittendorff is a general partner and leads healthcare at B Capital Group, a fund with $6 B AUM. Dr. Mittendorff has been involved in investments and associated exits with public equity value or acquisition value that exceed $10 B. Prior to B Capital, Dr. Mittendorff was a Partner and Co-Head of healthcare at Norwest Venture Partners. He is a board certified emergency physician and former public company operating executive. Prior to his career in venture capital, Dr. Mittendorff was the Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Hansen Medical Inc., which was acquired by Auris. He has launched multiple products including the Magellan & Sensei X robots.
Kemal Malik has 30 years of experience in global pharmaceutical research and development. He has been responsible for bringing many innovative medicines through R&D to successful commercialization. From 2014 to 2019 he was a member of the Executive Board of Management of Bayer AG, responsible for innovation across the Bayer group. He was also responsible for Bayer LEAPS, the organizational unit responsible for strategic venturing in areas of disruptive breakthrough innovation. Prior to his appointment to the Bayer Board he was Head of Global Development and Chief Medical Officer at Bayer Healthcare for ten years, responsible for all development and medical governance issues, where he delivered twenty consecutive positive phase III trials including several blockbusters such as Xarelto® and Eylea®. Dr. Malik qualified in medicine at Charing Cross and Westminster Medical School (Imperial College London) and is a Member of the Royal College of Physicians.
Mike Varney, who was most recently head of Genentech’s Research and Early Development (gRED) and a member of the Roche Executive Committee. Dr. Varney had been recruited to Genentech to build its small molecule discovery capability, which now accounts for more than 40% of Genentech’s development pipeline and has delivered Erivedge® and Cotellic® to the market. Earlier in his career, Dr. Varney pioneered structure-based drug design as a founding employee at Agouron, which delivered Viracept®, Xalkori®, and Inlyta®. He was named a Hero of Chemistry in 2018 by the American Chemical Society.