Diverse in our backgrounds, training, and thinking
United in our mission
We are a lively mix of biologists, data scientists, chemists, engineers, drug developers, and operators. We were founded with the mindset that great talent and science transcend borders and important unmet needs exist everywhere, and we are proudly situated in Singapore and the San Francisco Bay Area. Operating closely and collaboratively across sites, functions, and disciplines is in our DNA, and our diversity makes us stronger.
Our Team
Jeffrey Lu
Co-Founder & CEO
Jeffrey Lu
In addition to Engine, Jeff has played founding and leadership roles in several biotechnology and technology companies. This includes Enleofen Bio (developing therapeutics targeting IL-11 for fibrosis; preclinical pipeline acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim for >$1 billion), PairX Bio (venture-backed cancer immunotherapy company), and AAE (travel technology company built to >$100 million revenue and profitability within three years of inception; acquired by Expedia Inc in transactions valuing AAE at ~$300 million), among others.
Jeff began his career as a management consultant at Bain & Company. Subsequently he joined AirAsia as Head of Strategy and Group Head of Commercial Strategy, leading teams covering strategy, commercial strategy, data analytics, and digital marketing. He played a principal role in establishing several new joint ventures and businesses for the group.
Jeff has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He received his BA summa cum laude from University of Pennsylvania.
Stephen Harrison PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Stephen Harrison PhD
Prior to joining Engine, Stephen was Senior Vice President and CSO at Relypsa (acquired by Galencia for $1.53 billion) where he developed a pipeline of gut-restricted polymer therapeutics targeting systemic diseases. Before that he was Vice President, Research Biology at Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NKTR), a leader in polymer conjugate therapeutics, where for four years he managed global oncology and pain research efforts. Prior to Nektar, he was Senior Vice President, Research at KAI Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Amgen for $315 million), a company focused on peptide modulators of protein interactions. While at KAI, Stephen generated one development candidate per year and led discovery efforts, including the company’s lead compound for the treatment of secondary hyperparathyroidism, which served as the basis for the company’s eventual acquisition by Amgen. Earlier in his career, Stephen held senior research positions at Chiron Corporation and Thios Pharmaceuticals.
He holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, a M.A. and B.A. in Biochemistry, all from University of Cambridge, England.
Yaron Turpaz PhD
Chief Information Officer
Yaron Turpaz PhD
Previously, he held senior R&D informatics roles at Human Longevity Inc (Chief Information Officer), AstraZeneca (VP R&D IT), Eli Lilly (Director), and Affymetrix in California, Boston, and Singapore. He has led global teams of up to 300 headcount and has worked across many therapeutic areas including oncology, neuroscience, infectious diseases, diabetes, and cardiovascular. He also has a role at Global Gene Corp as Chief Data and Technology Officer.
Yaron has a BS in Biology from Tel Aviv University, a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Illinois and an MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. He also held an adjunct assistant professor at the Centre for Quantitative Medicine of Duke-National University of Singapore, Graduate Medical School.
Hareesh Nair
Chief Operating Officer
Hareesh Nair
Hareesh started his career in various healthcare operating roles in the United States, including research and development at Becton Dickinson (BD), financial planning and analysis at Gilead, and corporate development and market development leadership at Medtronic. He earned his MBA from UPenn’s Wharton School as a H.O. West Fellow, and BS in Chemical Engineering from MIT.
Taylor Brew PhD
Executive Director, Research Biology
Taylor Brew PhD
Prior to joining Engine, Taylor was Director of Research Biology at Relypsa where she led the cross-functional team that prioritized the research pipeline for Relypsa’s gut-restricted polymer platform. She was the lead of the project team that developed multiple candidate ammonia binding polymers directed towards the treatment of Hepatic Encephalopathy. As the functional leader of the research biology group, she was also responsible for in vitro and in vivo biology support for Relypsa’s programs in research and development. Previously, Taylor was a Senior Scientist in Research Biology at Nektar Therapeutics, where she led several discovery stage projects including a discovery oncology program that identified multiple novel applications for polymer modified oncology drugs.
She earned her B.S. in Chemistry (cum laude) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology from Cornell University, and she performed her postdoctoral studies at the University of California at Berkeley.
Toni Kline PhD
Senior Director, Chemistry
Toni Kline PhD
Prior to Engine, Toni formed the Chemistry team at Sutro Biopharma, where their novel payload-linker became the “DC” component of the antibody drug conjugate (ADC) STRO-002, which is currently in Phase I studies for ovarian cancer. While at Sutro, Toni submitted, and encouraged her team to submit, a number of invention disclosures describing new approaches to oncology, immune-oncology, and protein bioconjugation to enrich the IP portfolio of the company. Before joining Sutro, Toni created a small chemistry team at the University of Washington, primarily focused on novel antibiotics, virulence, and the bacterial-host ecology. Before her University of Washington appointment, she was Principal Scientist at Seattle Genetics during the seminal years of ADC discovery, and before that, she was Senior Scientist at PathoGenesis (later Chiron) where she led a chemistry team in the discovery of the first LpxC inhibitor active against the Gram-negative pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Her other previous discovery chemistry contributions were at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Biogen, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Toni received her PhD from the University of Alabama in Birmingham, followed by postdoctoral training at Oregon State University and SUNY Stony Brook. She is the author of 43 peer-reviewed publications and an inventor on 13 patents.
Michael Winther PhD
Senior Director, Target Discovery
Michael Winther PhD
Prior to moving to Singapore he had a long career working in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry in Canada and the UK, as Senior Director of Drug Discovery at Xenon Pharmaceuticals in Vancouver and as President of QuantaNova Canada in Nova Scotia. His work resulted in several novel drug targets leading to compounds tested in clinical studies.
Michael graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, obtained a PhD from the University of Stirling, Scotland and conducted postdoctoral training at the University of Essex. His work has spanned diverse areas including vaccine, biological products, lipids, anti-sense oligonucleotides and small molecule drug discovery.
Jeffrey Lu
Co-Founder & CEO
Jeffrey Lu
In addition to Engine, Jeff has played founding and leadership roles in several biotechnology and technology companies. This includes Enleofen Bio (developing therapeutics targeting IL-11 for fibrosis; preclinical pipeline acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim for >$1 billion), PairX Bio (venture-backed cancer immunotherapy company), and AAE (travel technology company built to >$100 million revenue and profitability within three years of inception; acquired by Expedia Inc in transactions valuing AAE at ~$300 million), among others.
Jeff began his career as a management consultant at Bain & Company. Subsequently he joined AirAsia as Head of Strategy and Group Head of Commercial Strategy, leading teams covering strategy, commercial strategy, data analytics, and digital marketing. He played a principal role in establishing several new joint ventures and businesses for the group.
Jeff has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He received his BA summa cum laude from University of Pennsylvania.
Timothy Lu MD PhD
Co-Founder and Co-Chair of Scientific Advisory Board
Timothy Lu MD PhD
Tim is an Associate Professor leading the Synthetic Biology Group in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. Tim graduated with his SB and MEng from MIT, and his MD/PhD from the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program. He is a core member of the MIT Synthetic Biology Center and a co-founder of multiple biotechnology companies innovating new diagnostic and therapeutic technologies for human health, including Sample6, Senti Biosciences, Synlogic, Eligo Biosciences, BiomX, and Engine Biosciences. He currently serves as CEO of Senti Biosciences.
Tim’s research at MIT focuses on engineering platforms for computing and memory in living cells and applying these to create adaptive medicines as next-generation cell and gene therapies for important human diseases. His work also includes developing novel technology platforms to interrogate and correct diseased cell states. He is a recipient of the ACS Synthetic Biology Young Investigator Award, the Biochemical Engineering Journal Young Investigator Award, the NIH New Innovator Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and the Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging Award, among others.
Leon Chen PhD
Founding Partner and CEO, 6 Dimensions Capital
Leon Chen PhD
As a venture capital investor, his past affiliations include Fidelity Growth Partners-Asia (Partner) and BioVeda China (Managing Partner). Representative Investments include CITIC Pharmaceutical (Board Director, Acting CFO), Cathay Industrial Biotechnology (Board Director), Hile Biopharma (Board Director), Hua Medicine (Shanghai) (Board Director), Innovent Biologics Ltd (Chairman), Adagene (Board Director) and MDDF (Board Director).
As a management consultant, his past affiliations include McKinsey & Company (Brussels), Ernst & Young (Palo Alto) and Life Science Strategic Consulting (Managing Partner, San Francisco Bay Area). As a Ph.D. scientist, he worked with Schering Plough (New Jersey), and is a key member of the discovery team of Zytia / Vytorin – a multi-billion drug. Leon was a Post-Doc at MIT and received his Ph.D. (with top honors) from the University of Louvain, Louvain-La-Neuve and his B.S. from Peking University. Leon holds 6 issued US Patents, and is co-author of the 14th and 15th Ernst & Young Biotechnology Annual Report.
Ali Farahanchi PhD
Managing Director, DHVC
Ali Farahanchi PhD
Amy Schulman JD
Partner, Polaris Partners
Amy Schulman JD
She currently serves as executive chair of SQZ Biotech, as well as Lyndra Therapeutics, where she was co-founder and the company’s initial CEO. She also represents Polaris as a director of Kallyope, Volastra, Thirty Madison and ByHeart. Amy joined Polaris in 2014, at which time she assumed the role of CEO of Arsia Therapeutics, a Polaris-backed company later acquired by Eagle Pharmaceuticals. She also manages the Polaris Innovation Fund which was formed in 2017.
Prior to joining Polaris, Schulman was the general counsel of Pfizer, president of Pfizer Nutrition, and was instrumental in its sale to Nestle for $11.85 billion in 2012. Soon after, Schulman became the president of Pfizer Consumer Healthcare.
Schulman has received numerous awards including 2019 PharmaVoice 100, Xconomy’s 2017 Newcomer Award, Scientific American’s 2015 Worldview 100 List, Fierce Biotech’s 2014 Top 15 Women in Biotech, and Fortune Magazine’s 2013 50 Most Powerful Women in Business. She is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School and serves on the Board of Directors of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALNY) and Mount Sinai Hospital. She is also a member of Singapore’s Health and Biomedical Sciences International Advisory Council.
She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wesleyan University with a joint degree in philosophy and english and earned her J.D. from Yale Law School.
Timothy Lu MD PhD
Co-Founder and Co-Chair of Scientific Advisory Board
Timothy Lu MD PhD
Tim is an Associate Professor leading the Synthetic Biology Group in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. Tim graduated with his SB and MEng from MIT, and his MD/PhD from the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program. He is a core member of the MIT Synthetic Biology Center and a co-founder of multiple biotechnology companies innovating new diagnostic and therapeutic technologies for human health, including Sample6, Senti Biosciences, Synlogic, Eligo Biosciences, BiomX, and Engine Biosciences. He currently serves as CEO of Senti Biosciences.
Tim’s research at MIT focuses on engineering platforms for computing and memory in living cells and applying these to create adaptive medicines as next-generation cell and gene therapies for important human diseases. His work also includes developing novel technology platforms to interrogate and correct diseased cell states. He is a recipient of the ACS Synthetic Biology Young Investigator Award, the Biochemical Engineering Journal Young Investigator Award, the NIH New Innovator Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and the Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging Award, among others.
James J Collins PhD
Founding Co-Chair of Scientific Advisory Board
James J Collins PhD
In addition to his role as a faculty member at MIT, Jim is a Core Faculty member of the Wyss Institute at Harvard and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Jim is a member of all three National Academies, and has been a Rhodes Scholar, a Macarthur Fellow, and a recipient of the NIH Pioneer Award. He is a co-founder of Senti, EnBiotix, Synlogic (NASDAQ: SYBX) and Sherlock Biosciences. Dr. Collins’ patented technologies have been licensed by over 25 biotech, pharma, and medical device companies.
David Epstein PhD
Scientific and Business Advisor
David Epstein PhD
He is currently the President and CEO of Black Diamond Therapeutics (NASDAQ: BDTX), a precision oncology medicines company pioneering the development of small molecule, tumor-agnostic therapies. Prior to Black Diamond, David was Vice Dean, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, and Associate Professor in Cancer & Stem Cell Biology, at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, where he founded and built Duke-NUS’s Centre for Technology & Development, which has developed a pipeline of innovation projects. Previously, he was Chief Scientific Officer at OSI Pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical company acquired by Astellas Pharma, and founder of Archemix Corporation, where he led the advancement of multiple product candidates into the clinical in multiple therapeutic areas.
David earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Brandeis University and completed a joint post-doctoral fellowship, leading a collaboration in protein structure, function, and NMR dynamics between the labs of Steven Benkovic (Penn State) and Peter Wright at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. He received a B.Sc. in Chemistry from Lewis & Clark College.
Martin Kampmann PhD
Scientific Advisor
Martin Kampmann PhD
As a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Jonathan Weissman’s group at UCSF, Martin spearheaded the development of a functional genomics platform that makes it possible to robustly identify human genes relevant to a cellular process of interest, and to elucidate cellular pathways and networks using systematic genetic interaction maps. One important application of the screening platform is the identification of genes that control the sensitivity of cells to a given drug. This approach can identify the relevant cellular targets of new compounds, predict drug-resistance mechanisms, and guide the rational development of combination therapies.
Currently, the goal of Martin’s research is to understand how human cells maintain their proteins in a functional and balanced state. The cellular pathways safeguarding proteome function and balance are termed the “proteostasis network.” Martin aims to elucidate how the proteostasis network dynamically adapts to the needs of the cell and how it is challenged and rewired in diseases, especially cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Identification of proteostasis factors that control formation, spread, and clearance of protein aggregates associated with neurodegenerative diseases will shed light on the disease mechanisms and reveal potential therapeutic targets.
Martin has received several highly prestigious awards, including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (2015), the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation’s Allen Distinguished Investigator Award (2015), and the NIH Pathway to Independence Award (2014). The Kampmann lab is affiliated with the Innovative Genomics Initiative and the Paul F. Glenn Center for Aging Research at UC Berkeley and UCSF.
Prashant Mali PhD
Scientific Founder and Advisor
Prashant Mali PhD
Prashant received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, a doctorate in Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University, and a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Genetics at the Harvard Medical School. He has received multiple awards including the Siebel Scholar Award, the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award, the March of Dimes Basil O’Conner Scholar Award, the Kimmel Scholar Award, Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow, and the Young Alumnus Achiever Award from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.
Hu Li PhD
Scientific Founder and Advisor
Hu Li PhD
Hu completed his post-doctoral fellowship in systems biology at the Wyss Institute at Harvard Medical School and received his Ph.D. in computational biology and bioinformatics from the National University of Singapore.
George Trainor PhD
Scientific Advisor (Chemistry)
George Trainor PhD
Dr. Trainor is a partner at BioMotiv which he joined after leaving Bristol Myers Squibb Company as Vice President of Oncology and Early Discovery Chemistry. At BMS George was responsible for all aspects of medicinal chemistry for the oncology area as well as hit-to-leads activities in support of all therapeutic areas. Prior to being merged into Bristol Myers Squibb, Dr. Trainor was Executive Director for Medicinal Chemistry at Dupont/Dupont Merck Pharmaceuticals. His key contribution from that period was the discovery and commercial development of fluorescence-tagged chain terminators for use in automated DNA sequencing. This breakthrough technology was subsequently employed in the sequencing of the human genome, and In 2011, Trainor won the American Chemical Society’s Heroes of Chemistry Award for his work on DNA sequencing. Dr. Trainor did his undergraduate work at Stevens Institute of Technology, received his PhD in Organic Chemistry at Harvard University, and was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University.
Eric Gordon PhD
Scientific Advisor (Chemistry)
Eric Gordon PhD
Eric is an accepted authority on medicinal chemistry, antibiotic/natural product chemistry and creating drugs through enzyme inhibition. He has authored more than 200 scientific manuscripts and U.S. patents, and portions of three books, including editing a comprehensive book on combinatorial chemistry. He is the senior author of two manuscripts, which during 1994-1996 were the most frequently cited chemistry papers in the world. For the 32-year period 1975-2007, these two papers were the number two and three most cited papers to appear in Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.
In 1997 he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He received his Ph.D. and M.S. in medicinal chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in Madison and conducted postdoctoral work at Yale University. Eric is also a practicing artist who had his first exhibit in 2016. He is a lifelong Yankee fan, but is old enough to have attended Woodstock, the Beatles concert at Shea Stadium in 1965 and the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.
Andrei Konradi PhD
Scientific Advisor (Chemistry)
Andrei Konradi PhD
Darin Baur JD
Corporate Advisor
Darin Baur JD
Darin obtained a B.A. in Economics and Management, summa cum laude, from Albion College, in Albion, Michigan, U.S.A., and a Juris Doctorate, cum laude, from the Harvard University Law School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
- Management
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Jeffrey Lu
Co-Founder & CEO
View BioJeffrey Lu
Jeff is passionate about building companies using technology and science for impact. He has fifteen years of business, executive management, and entrepreneurial experience, creating sustainable businesses, shareholder value and liquidity events.
In addition to Engine, Jeff has played founding and leadership roles in several biotechnology and technology companies. This includes Enleofen Bio (developing therapeutics targeting IL-11 for fibrosis; preclinical pipeline acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim for >$1 billion), PairX Bio (venture-backed cancer immunotherapy company), and AAE (travel technology company built to >$100 million revenue and profitability within three years of inception; acquired by Expedia Inc in transactions valuing AAE at ~$300 million), among others.
Jeff began his career as a management consultant at Bain & Company. Subsequently he joined AirAsia as Head of Strategy and Group Head of Commercial Strategy, leading teams covering strategy, commercial strategy, data analytics, and digital marketing. He played a principal role in establishing several new joint ventures and businesses for the group.Jeff has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He received his BA summa cum laude from University of Pennsylvania.
CloseStephen Harrison PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
View BioStephen Harrison PhD
Steve joined Engine in May 2018 with over twenty years’ tenure in biotechnology and pharmaceutical discovery and development in the San Francisco Bay Area. A biochemist and molecular biologist, he is highly published and has extensive experience leading product-driven research organizations at all stages, from target identification to early clinical development.Prior to joining Engine, Stephen was Senior Vice President and CSO at Relypsa (acquired by Galencia for $1.53 billion) where he developed a pipeline of gut-restricted polymer therapeutics targeting systemic diseases. Before that he was Vice President, Research Biology at Nektar Therapeutics (NASDAQ: NKTR), a leader in polymer conjugate therapeutics, where for four years he managed global oncology and pain research efforts. Prior to Nektar, he was Senior Vice President, Research at KAI Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Amgen for $315 million), a company focused on peptide modulators of protein interactions. While at KAI, Stephen generated one development candidate per year and led discovery efforts, including the company’s lead compound for the treatment of secondary hyperparathyroidism, which served as the basis for the company’s eventual acquisition by Amgen. Earlier in his career, Stephen held senior research positions at Chiron Corporation and Thios Pharmaceuticals.
He holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology, a M.A. and B.A. in Biochemistry, all from University of Cambridge, England.
CloseYaron Turpaz PhD
Chief Information Officer
View BioYaron Turpaz PhD
Yaron joined Engine in 2018 and is a proven research and development informatics, data science and technology leader in the biotech and pharma space with hands-on experience using cloud-based high-throughput computational, machine learning, AI and genomics platforms for drug discovery and development applications in precision medicine.
Previously, he held senior R&D informatics roles at Human Longevity Inc (Chief Information Officer), AstraZeneca (VP R&D IT), Eli Lilly (Director), and Affymetrix in California, Boston, and Singapore. He has led global teams of up to 300 headcount and has worked across many therapeutic areas including oncology, neuroscience, infectious diseases, diabetes, and cardiovascular. He also has a role at Global Gene Corp as Chief Data and Technology Officer.Yaron has a BS in Biology from Tel Aviv University, a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Illinois and an MBA from the University of Chicago, Booth School of Business. He also held an adjunct assistant professor at the Centre for Quantitative Medicine of Duke-National University of Singapore, Graduate Medical School.
CloseHareesh Nair
Chief Operating Officer
View BioHareesh Nair
Hareesh joined Engine in July 2021. Prior to that, he was the Managing Director at Fosun Healthcare Holdings, one of China’s largest privately owned investment and operating multinationals. Before Fosun, he was a Director and founding team member at Quadria Capital, a $1B healthcare private equity group in Asia, where he served as an executive board member at SOHO Global Health, a leading Indonesian pharma group, prior to its IPO.Hareesh started his career in various healthcare operating roles in the United States, including research and development at Becton Dickinson (BD), financial planning and analysis at Gilead, and corporate development and market development leadership at Medtronic. He earned his MBA from UPenn’s Wharton School as a H.O. West Fellow, and BS in Chemical Engineering from MIT.
CloseTaylor Brew PhD
Executive Director, Research Biology
View BioTaylor Brew PhD
Taylor joined Engine in 2018 and has nearly fifteen years of experience in preclinical drug discovery and development, in the therapeutic areas of oncology, pain, inflammation and GI/liver therapeutics. She is an accomplished project leader of multiple drug discovery teams and has led strategic evaluations of pipeline programs. She brings many years of leadership in the development of biological assays.Prior to joining Engine, Taylor was Director of Research Biology at Relypsa where she led the cross-functional team that prioritized the research pipeline for Relypsa’s gut-restricted polymer platform. She was the lead of the project team that developed multiple candidate ammonia binding polymers directed towards the treatment of Hepatic Encephalopathy. As the functional leader of the research biology group, she was also responsible for in vitro and in vivo biology support for Relypsa’s programs in research and development. Previously, Taylor was a Senior Scientist in Research Biology at Nektar Therapeutics, where she led several discovery stage projects including a discovery oncology program that identified multiple novel applications for polymer modified oncology drugs.
She earned her B.S. in Chemistry (cum laude) at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Ph.D. in Biochemistry, Molecular and Cellular Biology from Cornell University, and she performed her postdoctoral studies at the University of California at Berkeley.
CloseToni Kline PhD
Senior Director, Chemistry
View BioToni Kline PhD
Toni has been working with Engine since 2020 in drug discovery and chemistry. She has over 30 years of experience in drug discovery across academia, biotech, and big pharma. She has created and led successful teams toward discovery of preclinical and clinical candidates in several therapeutic areas, predominantly antibacterial and oncology. Toni remains active in advising the translational medicine community at Stanford and University of California San Francisco.Prior to Engine, Toni formed the Chemistry team at Sutro Biopharma, where their novel payload-linker became the “DC” component of the antibody drug conjugate (ADC) STRO-002, which is currently in Phase I studies for ovarian cancer. While at Sutro, Toni submitted, and encouraged her team to submit, a number of invention disclosures describing new approaches to oncology, immune-oncology, and protein bioconjugation to enrich the IP portfolio of the company. Before joining Sutro, Toni created a small chemistry team at the University of Washington, primarily focused on novel antibiotics, virulence, and the bacterial-host ecology. Before her University of Washington appointment, she was Principal Scientist at Seattle Genetics during the seminal years of ADC discovery, and before that, she was Senior Scientist at PathoGenesis (later Chiron) where she led a chemistry team in the discovery of the first LpxC inhibitor active against the Gram-negative pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Her other previous discovery chemistry contributions were at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Biogen, and Mount Sinai School of Medicine.
Toni received her PhD from the University of Alabama in Birmingham, followed by postdoctoral training at Oregon State University and SUNY Stony Brook. She is the author of 43 peer-reviewed publications and an inventor on 13 patents.
CloseMichael Winther PhD
Senior Director, Target Discovery
View BioMichael Winther PhD
Michael joined Engine in 2019 with over thirty years of experience in research and drug discovery. Previously he was Associate Director at the Genome Institute of Singapore (GIS) after moving to Singapore in 2014 to take on the challenge of managing Singapore’s national pharmacogenomics programme SAPhIRE. He was also responsible for business development and management of intellectual property at GIS.Prior to moving to Singapore he had a long career working in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry in Canada and the UK, as Senior Director of Drug Discovery at Xenon Pharmaceuticals in Vancouver and as President of QuantaNova Canada in Nova Scotia. His work resulted in several novel drug targets leading to compounds tested in clinical studies.
Michael graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, obtained a PhD from the University of Stirling, Scotland and conducted postdoctoral training at the University of Essex. His work has spanned diverse areas including vaccine, biological products, lipids, anti-sense oligonucleotides and small molecule drug discovery.
Close - Board Of Directors
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Jeffrey Lu
Co-Founder & CEO
View BioJeffrey Lu
Jeff is passionate about building companies using technology and science for impact. He has fifteen years of business, executive management, and entrepreneurial experience, creating sustainable businesses, shareholder value and liquidity events.
In addition to Engine, Jeff has played founding and leadership roles in several biotechnology and technology companies. This includes Enleofen Bio (developing therapeutics targeting IL-11 for fibrosis; preclinical pipeline acquired by Boehringer Ingelheim for >$1 billion), PairX Bio (venture-backed cancer immunotherapy company), and AAE (travel technology company built to >$100 million revenue and profitability within three years of inception; acquired by Expedia Inc in transactions valuing AAE at ~$300 million), among others.
Jeff began his career as a management consultant at Bain & Company. Subsequently he joined AirAsia as Head of Strategy and Group Head of Commercial Strategy, leading teams covering strategy, commercial strategy, data analytics, and digital marketing. He played a principal role in establishing several new joint ventures and businesses for the group.Jeff has been named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. He received his BA summa cum laude from University of Pennsylvania.
CloseTimothy Lu MD PhD
Co-Founder and Co-Chair of Scientific Advisory Board
View BioTimothy Lu MD PhD
Tim developed key elements of Engine Bio’s technology platforms and has deep expertise in synthetic and systems biology, genetic interactions mapping, and computer science/engineering.Tim is an Associate Professor leading the Synthetic Biology Group in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. Tim graduated with his SB and MEng from MIT, and his MD/PhD from the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program. He is a core member of the MIT Synthetic Biology Center and a co-founder of multiple biotechnology companies innovating new diagnostic and therapeutic technologies for human health, including Sample6, Senti Biosciences, Synlogic, Eligo Biosciences, BiomX, and Engine Biosciences. He currently serves as CEO of Senti Biosciences.
Tim’s research at MIT focuses on engineering platforms for computing and memory in living cells and applying these to create adaptive medicines as next-generation cell and gene therapies for important human diseases. His work also includes developing novel technology platforms to interrogate and correct diseased cell states. He is a recipient of the ACS Synthetic Biology Young Investigator Award, the Biochemical Engineering Journal Young Investigator Award, the NIH New Innovator Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and the Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging Award, among others.
CloseLeon Chen PhD
Founding Partner and CEO, 6 Dimensions Capital
View BioLeon Chen PhD
Leon is Founding Partner and CEO of 6 Dimensions Capital, a leading biotech venture capital firm with over $1.5 billion in AUM. Leon has over 20 years of experience in the life sciences industry in China and the U.S. as a venture capitalist, senior management executive, entrepreneur, and scientific inventor. He is a member of the Expert Review Panel for the Chinese Central Government HR’s 1000 Talent Project, and an adviser to BioBAY of Suzhou Industry Park.As a venture capital investor, his past affiliations include Fidelity Growth Partners-Asia (Partner) and BioVeda China (Managing Partner). Representative Investments include CITIC Pharmaceutical (Board Director, Acting CFO), Cathay Industrial Biotechnology (Board Director), Hile Biopharma (Board Director), Hua Medicine (Shanghai) (Board Director), Innovent Biologics Ltd (Chairman), Adagene (Board Director) and MDDF (Board Director).
As a management consultant, his past affiliations include McKinsey & Company (Brussels), Ernst & Young (Palo Alto) and Life Science Strategic Consulting (Managing Partner, San Francisco Bay Area). As a Ph.D. scientist, he worked with Schering Plough (New Jersey), and is a key member of the discovery team of Zytia / Vytorin – a multi-billion drug. Leon was a Post-Doc at MIT and received his Ph.D. (with top honors) from the University of Louvain, Louvain-La-Neuve and his B.S. from Peking University. Leon holds 6 issued US Patents, and is co-author of the 14th and 15th Ernst & Young Biotechnology Annual Report.
CloseAli Farahanchi PhD
Managing Director, DHVC
View BioAli Farahanchi PhD
Ali is Managing Director at DHVC, an early-stage tech and life science fund in Palo Alto. With more than $650M assets under management and 100+ companies in its portfolio, DHVC invests in variety of areas in healthcare including therapeutics, diagnostics and tools, and digital health, with strong emphasis on novel mechanisms and data-driven platforms. Previously Ali worked in research and in consulting roles in semiconductor and healthcare industries. He obtained graduate degrees in engineering and management from MIT and University of Chicago.CloseAmy Schulman JD
Partner, Polaris Partners
View BioAmy Schulman JD
Amy is a managing partner of Polaris Partners in the New York office and focuses on investments in healthcare companies.She currently serves as executive chair of SQZ Biotech, as well as Lyndra Therapeutics, where she was co-founder and the company’s initial CEO. She also represents Polaris as a director of Kallyope, Volastra, Thirty Madison and ByHeart. Amy joined Polaris in 2014, at which time she assumed the role of CEO of Arsia Therapeutics, a Polaris-backed company later acquired by Eagle Pharmaceuticals. She also manages the Polaris Innovation Fund which was formed in 2017.
Prior to joining Polaris, Schulman was the general counsel of Pfizer, president of Pfizer Nutrition, and was instrumental in its sale to Nestle for $11.85 billion in 2012. Soon after, Schulman became the president of Pfizer Consumer Healthcare.Schulman has received numerous awards including 2019 PharmaVoice 100, Xconomy’s 2017 Newcomer Award, Scientific American’s 2015 Worldview 100 List, Fierce Biotech’s 2014 Top 15 Women in Biotech, and Fortune Magazine’s 2013 50 Most Powerful Women in Business. She is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School and serves on the Board of Directors of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ALNY) and Mount Sinai Hospital. She is also a member of Singapore’s Health and Biomedical Sciences International Advisory Council.
She is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wesleyan University with a joint degree in philosophy and english and earned her J.D. from Yale Law School.
Close - Scientific Founders and Advisors
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Timothy Lu MD PhD
Co-Founder and Co-Chair of Scientific Advisory Board
View BioTimothy Lu MD PhD
Tim developed key elements of Engine Bio’s technology platforms and has deep expertise in synthetic and systems biology, genetic interactions mapping, and computer science/engineering.Tim is an Associate Professor leading the Synthetic Biology Group in the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the Department of Biological Engineering at MIT. Tim graduated with his SB and MEng from MIT, and his MD/PhD from the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology program. He is a core member of the MIT Synthetic Biology Center and a co-founder of multiple biotechnology companies innovating new diagnostic and therapeutic technologies for human health, including Sample6, Senti Biosciences, Synlogic, Eligo Biosciences, BiomX, and Engine Biosciences. He currently serves as CEO of Senti Biosciences.
Tim’s research at MIT focuses on engineering platforms for computing and memory in living cells and applying these to create adaptive medicines as next-generation cell and gene therapies for important human diseases. His work also includes developing novel technology platforms to interrogate and correct diseased cell states. He is a recipient of the ACS Synthetic Biology Young Investigator Award, the Biochemical Engineering Journal Young Investigator Award, the NIH New Innovator Award, the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, and the Ellison Medical Foundation New Scholar in Aging Award, among others.
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Founding Co-Chair of Scientific Advisory Board
View BioJames J Collins PhD
Jim is the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science as well as Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT. Jim is widely heralded as one of the founders of the field of synthetic biology, which applies engineering principles to the biological sciences in order to program novel gene circuits that can better control cellular behavior. Using this approach, Jim has pioneered innovative ways to detect and treat infections, and to study antibiotic action, bacterial defense mechanisms, and the emergence of resistance.In addition to his role as a faculty member at MIT, Jim is a Core Faculty member of the Wyss Institute at Harvard and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Jim is a member of all three National Academies, and has been a Rhodes Scholar, a Macarthur Fellow, and a recipient of the NIH Pioneer Award. He is a co-founder of Senti, EnBiotix, Synlogic (NASDAQ: SYBX) and Sherlock Biosciences. Dr. Collins’ patented technologies have been licensed by over 25 biotech, pharma, and medical device companies.
CloseDavid Epstein PhD
Scientific and Business Advisor
View BioDavid Epstein PhD
David is a biopharmaceutical leader and executive who has successfully led large and small R&D teams in academic, start-up, mid-size, and global large-pharmaceutical settings. His teams have progressed multiple novel agents through development in oncology, cardiovascular disease, and retinal degeneration.He is currently the President and CEO of Black Diamond Therapeutics (NASDAQ: BDTX), a precision oncology medicines company pioneering the development of small molecule, tumor-agnostic therapies. Prior to Black Diamond, David was Vice Dean, Innovation & Entrepreneurship, and Associate Professor in Cancer & Stem Cell Biology, at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, where he founded and built Duke-NUS’s Centre for Technology & Development, which has developed a pipeline of innovation projects. Previously, he was Chief Scientific Officer at OSI Pharmaceuticals, a pharmaceutical company acquired by Astellas Pharma, and founder of Archemix Corporation, where he led the advancement of multiple product candidates into the clinical in multiple therapeutic areas.
David earned a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Brandeis University and completed a joint post-doctoral fellowship, leading a collaboration in protein structure, function, and NMR dynamics between the labs of Steven Benkovic (Penn State) and Peter Wright at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California. He received a B.Sc. in Chemistry from Lewis & Clark College.
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Scientific Advisor
View BioMartin Kampmann PhD
Martin is a member of Engine Biosciences’s Scientific Advisory Board, with deep experience in functional genomics technology development and applications in cancer and neurodegenerative disease. He is an Associate Professor in the UCSF Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases at UCSF. He received his BA and MA in Natural Sciences (Biochemistry) from Cambridge University and his PhD from the Rockefeller University, where he used biophysical approaches to characterize the architecture and dynamics of the nuclear pore complex with Dr. Günter Blobel.As a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. Jonathan Weissman’s group at UCSF, Martin spearheaded the development of a functional genomics platform that makes it possible to robustly identify human genes relevant to a cellular process of interest, and to elucidate cellular pathways and networks using systematic genetic interaction maps. One important application of the screening platform is the identification of genes that control the sensitivity of cells to a given drug. This approach can identify the relevant cellular targets of new compounds, predict drug-resistance mechanisms, and guide the rational development of combination therapies.
Currently, the goal of Martin’s research is to understand how human cells maintain their proteins in a functional and balanced state. The cellular pathways safeguarding proteome function and balance are termed the “proteostasis network.” Martin aims to elucidate how the proteostasis network dynamically adapts to the needs of the cell and how it is challenged and rewired in diseases, especially cancer and neurodegenerative diseases. Identification of proteostasis factors that control formation, spread, and clearance of protein aggregates associated with neurodegenerative diseases will shed light on the disease mechanisms and reveal potential therapeutic targets.
Martin has received several highly prestigious awards, including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award (2015), the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation’s Allen Distinguished Investigator Award (2015), and the NIH Pathway to Independence Award (2014). The Kampmann lab is affiliated with the Innovative Genomics Initiative and the Paul F. Glenn Center for Aging Research at UC Berkeley and UCSF.
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Scientific Founder and Advisor
View BioPrashant Mali PhD
Prashant is an Associate Professor in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California San Diego. His research is in the fields of synthetic biology and regenerative medicine, with a long-term focus on developing tools for enabling gene and cell based human therapeutics. In this regard, he has helped pioneer the development of CRISPR-Cas9, a powerful genome editing tool derived from microbial systems, with wide applications in both basic biology and human therapeutics. More recently, he is focused on the development of RNA and protein targeting tools derived from endogenous human systems.Prashant received his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, a doctorate in Biomedical Engineering at the Johns Hopkins University, and a postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Genetics at the Harvard Medical School. He has received multiple awards including the Siebel Scholar Award, the Burroughs Wellcome Career Award, the March of Dimes Basil O’Conner Scholar Award, the Kimmel Scholar Award, Kavli Frontiers of Science Fellow, and the Young Alumnus Achiever Award from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay.
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Scientific Founder and Advisor
View BioHu Li PhD
Hu is an Associate Professor at the Mayo Clinic. His group is focused on systems pharmacology and individualized systems medicine. Li’s team is active in developing novel network tools and harnessing machine learning methods to study context-dependent activities of regulatory networks at genome-wide scale. The major theme in the research team is to develop novel computational methods that can detect meaningful biological information embedded in the sea of Big Data and uncover novel regulatory mechanisms that explain the properties of biological phenotypes to benefit individualized disease diagnosis, drug discovery, and precision medicine. The developed computational platforms can greatly illuminate the understanding of disease mechanisms underlying drugs’ modes of action, addressing key challenges in Big Data-oriented biomedical complex systems and will ultimately lead to precision medicine for each patient suffering from a devastating disease.
Hu completed his post-doctoral fellowship in systems biology at the Wyss Institute at Harvard Medical School and received his Ph.D. in computational biology and bioinformatics from the National University of Singapore.CloseGeorge Trainor PhD
Scientific Advisor (Chemistry)
View BioGeorge Trainor PhD
Dr. Trainor brings 30 years of experience in the Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical Industries. He has expertise in overall drug discovery strategy and execution, medicinal chemistry, and the application of transformative technologies. Leading teams of over 100 scientists, he has advanced over 35 drug candidates into clinical development in a diverse spectrum of therapeutic areas including antivirals, cancer, neuroscience, and inflammation. His team provided key discovery support that enabled the successful launch of SustivaTM for HIV disease.Dr. Trainor is a partner at BioMotiv which he joined after leaving Bristol Myers Squibb Company as Vice President of Oncology and Early Discovery Chemistry. At BMS George was responsible for all aspects of medicinal chemistry for the oncology area as well as hit-to-leads activities in support of all therapeutic areas. Prior to being merged into Bristol Myers Squibb, Dr. Trainor was Executive Director for Medicinal Chemistry at Dupont/Dupont Merck Pharmaceuticals. His key contribution from that period was the discovery and commercial development of fluorescence-tagged chain terminators for use in automated DNA sequencing. This breakthrough technology was subsequently employed in the sequencing of the human genome, and In 2011, Trainor won the American Chemical Society’s Heroes of Chemistry Award for his work on DNA sequencing. Dr. Trainor did his undergraduate work at Stevens Institute of Technology, received his PhD in Organic Chemistry at Harvard University, and was an NIH Postdoctoral Fellow at Columbia University.
CloseEric Gordon PhD
Scientific Advisor (Chemistry)
View BioEric Gordon PhD
Eric is a well-known medicinal chemist, senior drug discovery executive, biotech entrepreneur, venture capital investor, science-stage biotech consultant and consulting Stanford professor. He now has 40 years of overall experience in the biotech/pharmaceutical industries, which includes 10 in biotech startups and 11 in venture investing. He has had close involvement in the discovery/development of five approved drugs (plus three in Phase 3 development) and has participated in the founding/co-founding of five companies, two of which were sold to big pharma.Eric is an accepted authority on medicinal chemistry, antibiotic/natural product chemistry and creating drugs through enzyme inhibition. He has authored more than 200 scientific manuscripts and U.S. patents, and portions of three books, including editing a comprehensive book on combinatorial chemistry. He is the senior author of two manuscripts, which during 1994-1996 were the most frequently cited chemistry papers in the world. For the 32-year period 1975-2007, these two papers were the number two and three most cited papers to appear in Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.
In 1997 he was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). He received his Ph.D. and M.S. in medicinal chemistry from the University of Wisconsin in Madison and conducted postdoctoral work at Yale University. Eric is also a practicing artist who had his first exhibit in 2016. He is a lifelong Yankee fan, but is old enough to have attended Woodstock, the Beatles concert at Shea Stadium in 1965 and the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.
CloseAndrei Konradi PhD
Scientific Advisor (Chemistry)
View BioAndrei Konradi PhD
Dr. Konradi is the principal of Konradi Molecular and head of chemistry at Vivace Therapeutics. He was senior director of medicinal chemistry at Elan Pharmaceuticals. During his career, Dr. Konradi has conceived of new compound classes that have led to six drug candidates tested in humans, including four integrin inhibitors for autoimmune diseases and two protease inhibitors for Alzheimer’s. He has authored 38 peer-reviewed journal articles and is an inventor on 61 U.S. patents. Dr. Konradi completed a B.S. in chemistry at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a doctorate in organic chemistry at Berkeley; he then served as postdoctoral fellow in bioorganic chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute.CloseDarin Baur JD
Corporate Advisor
View BioDarin Baur JD
Darin has two decades of experience in corporate finance and transactions in U.S.A. and Asia. He started his career as a corporate attorney at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Chicago. Following that, he became an investment banker with Salomon Smith Barney / Citigroup, both in Chicago and in Hong Kong. Darin also worked as a senior investment banker (Managing Director) at HSBC and Canaccord Genuity in Hong Kong. Darin has advised on many capital raising transactions, both public and private, in his career, as well as cross-border and U.S. domestic mergers and acquisitions. This includes listing companies on a number of international exchanges.Darin obtained a B.A. in Economics and Management, summa cum laude, from Albion College, in Albion, Michigan, U.S.A., and a Juris Doctorate, cum laude, from the Harvard University Law School, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
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