Grace Chen
Roel Schaapveld
Roel served as Chief Operating Officer when InteRNA became operational until he was appointed Chief Executive Officer in May 2009. Prior to InteRNA, Roel was senior manager in the corporate finance biotech team at the Dutch merchant bank Kempen & Co involved in private funding, M&A and IPO’s at Euronext of life sciences companies.
Previously, he held several management positions at Kreatech Diagnostics (sold to Leica Biosystems), among which VP Corporate and Business Development.
Roel holds MSc and PhD degrees from Radboud University Nijmegen (NL). During his academic career he worked at the Roche Institute for Molecular Biology (Nutley, NJ), at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Boston, MA) and at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. Roel received his MBA from Nyenrode Business School (NL).
Raymond Deshaies
Lior Zangi
Lior Zangi, PhD, is an Associate Professor with Tenure at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. He completed his education and training at the Weizmann Institute of Science, and Harvard University. He has established a new method, mRNA based, for gene delivery into skeletal and cardiac muscle. In the last two years, these mRNA delivery methods have been used for COVID19 vaccinations and promoting cardiovascular regeneration in ischemic heart disease. Currently, Prof. Zangi’s laboratory investigates mRNA delivery method into healthy or unhealthy specific cell types and organs, to fight different diseases such as heart failure and cancer.
Karin Jooss
Karin Jooss, Ph.D., is the head of research and development. She had most recently served as the executive vice president of research and chief scientific officer at Gritstone since April 2016. Prior to Gritstone, from May 2009 to April 2016, Dr. Jooss was the head of cancer immuno-therapeutics in the vaccine immuno-therapeutics department at Pfizer, Inc., a public pharmaceutical company, where she was also a member of the vaccine immuno-therapeutics leadership team and served as head of the immuno-pharmacology team with responsibilities including clinical development. Prior to joining Pfizer, Dr. Jooss served as vice president of research at Cell Genesys, Inc., from June 2005 to April 2009, and as senior director of research at Cell Genesys from July 2001 to June 2005. She is on the editorial board of Molecular Therapy and the Journal of Gene Medicine and is a member of the Immunology and Educational Committee of the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy and the Industry Task Force of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer. Dr. Jooss serves on the board of directors of Fate Therapeutics, Inc. Dr. Jooss received her diploma in theoretical medicine from the University of Marburg in Germany, a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Marburg in Germany and performed postgraduate work in gene therapy and immunology at the University of Pennsylvania.
Iris Alroy
Dr. Iris Alroy has broad background and more than 20 years of experience in small molecule drug discovery, preclinical development, and development of IND-enabling studies. Dr. Alroy was VP of Discovery at Proteologics, where she established several research programs for the identification of small molecules inhibiting the activity of E3 ubiquitin ligases in HIV-1 and Cancer. Subsequently, she was VP R&D at Pharmos Corp., in which she managed organic and medicinal chemistry, biology and pharmacology groups. Under her guidance efficacy animal models were set up, validated and used for testing lead molecules in pain and inflammation up to Phase I study in inflammatory pain.
Dr. Alroy was entrepreneur and CEO of startup biotech companies, Fusimab, Ltd., ProMining Therapeutics Ltd., developing bispecific antibodies and small molecules, respectively. Dr. Alroy successfully managed drug discovery and development projects (e.g. staffing, patent protections, budget), collaborated with researchers in academia and large pharmaceutical companies, and produced peer-reviewed publications.
Gene Yeo
Gene Yeo PhD MBA is a Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). Dr. Yeo has a BSc in Chemical Engineering and a BA in Economics from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, a Ph.D. in Computational Neuroscience from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from the UCSD Rady School of Management. His primary research interest is in understanding the importance of RNA processing and the roles that RNA binding proteins (RBPs) play in development and disease. Dr. Yeo has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications including invited book chapters and review articles in the areas of neurodegeneration, RNA processing, computational biology and stem cell models; and served as Editor on two books on the biology of RNA binding proteins.
Gene is on the Editorial Boards of the journals RNA, Cell Reports, Cell Research and eLife, and on the Advisory Board of Review commons. Gene is also a Paul Allen Distinguished Investigator (2020) and received the 2021 Elisa Izaurralde Award for Innovation in Research, Teaching and Service from the RNA Society. Gene is a co-founder of biotech companies which includes Locanabio, Eclipse Bioinnovations, Proteona, CircBio and Trotana Therapeutics. Gene serves or had served on the scientific advisory boards of the Allen Institute of Immunology, Locanabio, Eclipse Bioinnovations, Proteona, Aquinnah, Cell Applications, Tecan, LGC, Nooma, Insitro and Ribometrix. Gene is a senior advisor to Accelerator Life Sciences Partners.
Dmitry Samarsky
Dmitry Samarsky, PhD has been at the inception of RNAi technology and drug development - starting in 2001 as Director of Technology Development at Sequitur (acquired by Invitrogen) and (in 2005) as Director of Technology Development at Dharmacon (now part of GE). He then served as VP of Technology Development at RXi Pharmaceuticals, USA (2007-2011), SVP of Technology and International Business Development at RiboBio, China (2011-2016) and, most recently, as Chief Scientific Officer at Silence Therapeutics, Germany/UK (2016-2018).
Dr. Samarsky has authored more than 40 scientific papers, articles, book chapters, patents and patent applications. He has been an invited speaker at more than 100 international conferences, and currently serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards for the OTS (Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society). Dr. Samarsky received his doctorate in biochemistry and molecular biology from University of Massachusetts, Amherst (1998), followed by a postdoctoral position as an H. Arthur Smith Fellow for Cancer Research in Michael Green's lab at University of Massachusetts Medical School (1998-2001).
Denis Drygin
Branden Ryu
Branden Ryu is the founder, the chief executive officer, and the chairman of BIORCHESTRA.
Branden earned his Ph.D. degree from the Graduate school of medicine at the University of Tokyo and completed the Harvard MIT health science and technology internship program at MGH. Also, he has experience as a researcher at Harvard medical school.
After his research career, he found BIORCHESTRA to focus on developing RNA-based therapeutics in 2016. He has discovered the novel RNA biomarker and invented the novel ASO modality to treat neurodegenerative diseases. Under his leadership, BIORCHESTRA has expanded the new RNA modalities to cure neurological disorders including genetic rare diseases. Based on these scientific results, he has filed more than 70 patent applications since 2017.