Heather Youngs
Heather Youngs is Program Officer for Scientific Research at Open Philanthropy, where she co-manages a portfolio of grants and investments with the aim of “doing as much good as possible” in underfunded areas. She is also a founding director at Redleaf Biologics and a partner in Ninole Cacao.
Prior to joining Open Philanthropy, Heather was director of the Bakar Fellows Program for faculty entrepreneurs at UC Berkeley, a senior strategic advisor at the Energy Biosciences Institute at UC Berkeley and an assistant professor at Michigan Technological University.
She received a B.S. in biology from Michigan Technological University, a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Oregon Health and Science University, and was an NIH post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University.
Paul Meister
Paul Meister is a partner at Novalis LifeSciences and co-founder of Liberty Lane Partners, a private investment company. He serves as Chairman of Arbor Biotechnologies and Amneal Pharmaceuticals, and is on the board of Ori Biotech, Mercy BioAnalytics and several other early-stage life science and diagnostic companies.
Paul previously served as Chairman of Thermo Fisher Scientific and Vice Chairman of Fisher Scientific International. He also served as Chairman and CEO of inVentiv Health (now Syneos Heath.)
Paul earned a MBA from Northwestern University and a B.A. from the University of Michigan, and serves on the board of Michigan’s Life Sciences Institute.
Bryan Dechairo
Dr. Bryan Dechairo is the chief executive officer of Sherlock Biosciences and also serves on the company’s Board of Directors. Bryan joins Sherlock with more than 20 years of experience developing and commercializing revenue generating clinical innovations that improve patient lives.
Prior to Sherlock, Bryan served as executive vice president of clinical development at Myriad Genetics, where he oversaw the development portfolio, delivering business-critical evidentiary data for value-based reimbursement and market acceptance of commercial and novel diagnostic products across six business units globally. Before joining Myriad, he was chief medical officer, chief scientific officer and senior vice president of research and development at Assurex Health, which was acquired by Myriad in 2016. During his extensive career, Bryan held roles of increasing responsibility at Medco, Pfizer, Oxagen, Sequana and Roche, where he established a proven track record of funding and scaling business from venture backed start-ups to profitable fortune 50 public companies.
Bryan has authored more than 50 academic and research-based publications, and earned a Ph.D. in Common Complex Human Genetics from the Institute of Child Health at University College London and a B.A. in Integrative Biology from the University of California, Berkeley.
David R. Walt
David R. Walt, Ph.D., is an internationally recognized expert in nanoscience and diagnostics. He is the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard Medical School, a core faculty member of the Wyss Institute at Harvard University, a professor of pathology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. Previously, Dr. Walt was University Professor at Tufts University, where he was a faculty member in the chemistry department. Dr. Walt is the scientific founder of Illumina Inc., where he served on the board for 18 years, and Quanterix Corporation. He co-founded several other life sciences startups, including Ultivue, Inc., and Arbor Biotechnologies. His laboratory was the first to introduce the idea of digital protein detection by developing a high throughput technology for performing single molecule analysis.
Dr. Walt has published more than 350 peer-reviewed papers and has over 100 U.S. patents. He has received numerous national and international awards and honors for his fundamental and applied work in the field of optical microwell arrays and single molecules. In addition to fundamental work on single molecules, Dr. Walt’s lab focuses on solving important clinical problems in areas that lack available biomarkers due to the inadequate sensitivity of existing assay technologies.
Dr. Walt is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine, and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the National Academy of Inventors. He received a B.S. in chemistry from the University of Michigan and a Ph.D. in chemical biology from SUNY at Stony Brook. Dr. Walt completed his postdoctoral studies at MIT.
Jim Collins
Jim Collins, Ph.D., is the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering & Science and professor of Biological Engineering at MIT, as well as a member of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences & Technology faculty. He is also a core founding faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
Dr. Collins is one of the founders of the field of synthetic biology, and his research group is currently focused on using synthetic biology to create next-generation diagnostics and therapeutics. Dr. Collins’s patented technologies have been licensed by over 25 biotech, pharmaceutical, and medical device companies, and he has helped launch a number of companies, including Synlogic and Senti Biosciences.
He has received numerous awards and honors, including a Rhodes Scholarship, a MacArthur “Genius” Award, an NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Award, as well as several teaching awards. Dr. Collins is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Medicine as well as the American Academy of Arts & Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors, and the World Academy of Sciences.
Dr. Collins received a B.A. from the College of the Holy Cross in 1987 and a Ph.D. in 1990 from the University of Oxford.
Michael P. Rubin
Michael P. Rubin, M.D., Ph.D. is the founder and CEO of Northpond Ventures, a formative stage venture capital fund dedicated to science and technology. Dr. Rubin’s active directorships include Mitra Biotech, DiCE Molecules, Inflammatix, Teckro, Candel, and SpeedDx. Dr. Rubin was previously co-founder and managing partner of Sands Capital Ventures, a global cross industry venture capital business, and affiliate of Sands Capital Management. Under Dr. Rubin’s leadership, SCV invested in dozens of leading startups, resulting in numerous successful businesses and exists, including but not limited to Complete Genomics (IPO), Dova (IPO), Quad Technologies (sale to Biotechne), Firefly Bioworks (sale to Abcam), and Agilis (Sale to PTC Therapeutics).
Dr. Rubin became a board-certified physician and surgeon, and completed his fellowship training at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Rubin has led multiple IRB-approved research groups, published numerous papers in refereed journals, written chapters in leading texts, conducted clinical trials on leading commercial molecules, received NIH funding for novel research, attained industry sponsored funding for original biotherapeutic investigations, presented studies at large international forums, and conducted basic science research in molecular genetics at Harvard’s Ocular Genetics Institute. Dr. Rubin also holds an MBA from The University of Massachusetts Amherst, is a CFA charterholder, earned his medical doctorate at The University of Chicago, and holds a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from The UCLA Samueli School of Engineering, where he was the student graduation speaker.