HAYA THERAPEUTICS - Key Persons
Dr. Masri's specializes in caring for patients with conditions that result in abnormally thickened hearts, such as hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, amyloidosis and Fabry's disease. Dr. Masri trained in Internal Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, where he developed his passion for improving the lives of patients with heart disease. Subsequently, he moved to the University of Pittsburgh, where he completed training in cardiovascular diseases. Dr. Masri is also an expert in cardiac imaging. He spent two years at the University of Pittsburgh supported by a grant from the National Institute of Health, diagnosing and following up patients with thickened hearts.
From diagnostic approaches to therapeutics, Dr. Masri led numerous research projects that resulted in publications in leading academic journals.
Job Titles:
- Scientist
- Dir. Strategic Scientific Communication
Ana Silva is a scientist with 9 years' experience working in the cardiovascular field. She has a diversified body of work from science (decellularized tissues to organoid models) to visual arts (scientific illustrations). Ana holds a PhD degree from University of Porto in the dissection of how post-natal changes in the ECM are determinant for the heart's transition from a regenerative (fetal) to a reparative (adult) phenotype. As post-doctoral fellow at the Gladstone Institutes, she worked in the development of a co-emerging tissues within human iPSC-derived organoids.
Since 2021, Ana have been dedicated to science communication from scientific and editorial illustrations, infographics, and other visual communication materials. At HAYA Therapeutics, Ana is responsible for providing strategic direction, insights and leadership for the scientific communication strategy and oversees the execution of all scientific communication deliverables.
Job Titles:
- Clinical Advisor
- Management
Job Titles:
- Chairman
- Founder and CEO of Gene Editing Company Metagenomi
Dr. Thomas is Founder and CEO of gene editing company Metagenomi. Prior to founding Metagenomi, he spent more than 20 years at the University of California, Berkeley, advancing the science of metagenomics to understand novel biochemistry.
Job Titles:
- Cardiologist
- Clinical Advisor
Dr. Miller is a cardiologist and cardiovascular researcher in the UK. He leads a heart failure with preserved ejection fraction clinical service and is the director of a cardiovascular magnetic resonance research center. Dr Miller conducts experimental medicine trials evaluating the efficacy and mechanism of new and repurposed therapies designed to target key cardiovascular disease processes. He develops quantitative imaging biomarkers of cardiovascular injury and adaptation and applies these biomarkers to deeply phenotype cardiovascular health and disease.
Job Titles:
- Scientific Advisor
- Member of the Graduate Field of Genetics
- Professor
Cedric Feschotte is a Professor in the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics at Cornell University. Dr. Feschotte have 20 years of experience studying mobile genetic elements. His laboratory uses an integrative approach combining functional and computational genomics, biochemistry, and genetics in different model systems to investigate how mobile element sequences have fueled the evolution and physiology of their host species - including disease states.
Dr. Feschotte is a member of the Graduate Field of Genetics, Genomics and Development and a member of the Graduate Field of Biochemistry, Molecular and Cell Biology.
Daniel is a biotechnology scientist with 10 years' experience working in the field of pharmaceutical biotech including various translational aspects of drug development and production. As a post-doctoral fellow at the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV) Daniel worked on methods for therapeutic gene delivery and modulation using different modalities including antisense oligonucleotides.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Medicine
- Clinical Advisor
Dr. Schelbert is Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiology at the University of Pittsburgh and Director of Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance. He has focused on measuring myocardial fibrosis for two decades ever since commencing training in cardiology. He has pioneered the deployment of routine, noninvasive myocardial fibrosis measurements in humans and its strong association with incident patient outcomes. Dr. Schelbert's work builds upon several investigations from other pioneers and demonstrates that myocardial fibrosis represents a distinct domain of vulnerability for patients, separate from conventional measures.
Dr. Rinn obtained his PhD in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University. His thesis research in Michael Snyder's lab was one of the first to discover thousands of lncRNAs encoded in the human genome. Dr. Rinn continued to work on lncRNA regulation as a Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow with Howard Chang at Stanford. He started his independent research program at Harvard University in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology and the Broad Institute. After receiving tenure, Dr. Rinn moved his research program to focus more on RNA biochemistry at the University of Colorado Boulder BioFrontier's Institute. Collectively, the Rinn lab's research has been recognized by several national and international awards, including NIH Directors Innovator Award and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Faculty scholars program.
Dr. Rinn was recently considered one of the top 1% influential scientists of the decade by the Web of Science in Genetics and Molecular biology.
Job Titles:
- Computer Scientist
- Dir. Computational Biology & Data Science
Marco Mina is a computer scientist and computational biologist with 10+ years' experience in Data Science, Bioinformatics and Computational Biology. After receiving his doctoral degree in Information Engineering from the University of Padova (Italy), Marco held a postdoctoral position in Cancer Genomics at the University of Lausanne, focusing on functional dependencies between cancer mutations and their therapeutic actionability. He later transitioned to industrial research at SOPHiA Genetics, leading a team focusing on variant annotation and pathogenicity prediction for the interpretation of patient molecular data. At HAYA Therapeutics, Marco is leading the Data Science and Computational Biology unit. His team focuses on multiple R&D aspects of the target discovery (HAYAtlas and DiscoverHAYA) and candidate nomination (ChemHAYA) platforms.
During his career, Marco published more than 20 articles (10+ as first co-author) in world-leading, peer-reviewed journals including Cell, Cancer Cell and Nature Genetics. His works have been cited more than 5'000 times.
Job Titles:
- Director
- Partner at Apollo Health Ventures
Marianne is a Partner at Apollo Health Ventures. She has more than 10 years of experience in the life science industry spanning venture investing, strategy consulting and research. Prior joining Apollo Health Ventures team, she led investments into a number of life sciences companies across different stages of development, as a Principal with Wellington Partners and as an Investment Manager at HTGF. Earlier in her career Marianne worked as a management consultant and supported pharmaceutical and medical technology companies relative to strategy, portfolio and business unit development.
Benjamin Kreitman broadly supports the Broadview investment team in its day-to-day operations, including identification and screening of new opportunities, due diligence, negotiation of deal structure, and portfolio company involvement.
Prior to joining Broadview, Benjamin was a Consultant at Monitor Deloitte, the strategy management consulting arm of Deloitte Consulting, LLP. At Monitor Deloitte, Benjamin worked alongside senior executives on a variety of engagements including commercial strategy development for biotechnology startups as well as global pharmaceutical and medical device manufacturers, and corporate development and investment due diligence across a number of industries.
Samir Ounzain is a molecular biologist with over 15 years of experience exploring the dark matter of the genome and its roles in development and disease.
Prior to founding HAYA Therapeutics, Samir was a Project Leader and Research Fellow at the Lausanne University Hospital (CHUV), where his research efforts directly led to the discovery of hundreds of novel heart-enriched lncRNAs, most notably the lncRNAs CARMEN, Meteor and Wisper.
Job Titles:
- Scientist
- Dir. Biology & Functional Genomics
- Director of Biology
Rudi Micheletti is a scientist with 10+ years' experience in cardiovascular epigenome and transcriptome. Rudi holds a doctoral degree from the University of Lausanne (Switzerland) that lead to the discovery of Wisper long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), an activated cardiac fibroblast-specific lncRNA and target of HAYA lead program HTX001. During this period, he contributed to several projects uncovering the functional relevance of other cardiac-associated lncRNAs. Later, Rudi moved to UC San Diego as postdoctoral researcher where he deepened his knowledge of the mechanisms underlying gene transcriptional regulation in cardiac diseases and aging by developing multi-omics state-of-the-art technologies.
At HAYA Therapeutics, Rudi is the Director of Biology and Functional Genomics Unit based in JLABS, San Diego. He and his team contribute to several aspects of HAYA R&D pipeline from target discovery to deep characterization of their molecular function.
His scientific contributions led to several publications accruing more than 900 citations in world-leading, peer-reviewed journals including Nature, Science Translational Medicine and European Heart Journal.
Job Titles:
- CEO
- Clinical Advisor
- Co - Founder
Job Titles:
- Antisense Leader
- Founder and President of ARNAY Sciences LLC
Dr. Agrawal is founder and President of ARNAY Sciences LLC. He also serves as a member of the business advisory board of Harvard Medical School's Initiative for RNA Medicine and serves on the SAB of several biotechnology companies. He is a co-founder of Idera Pharmaceuticals and has held various leadership roles within the company, including Chairman, CEO, and President of Research until 2017. Over the last three decades, his research has been focused on the discovery and development of antisense and RNA-based therapeutics.