NOTCH THERAPEUTICS - Key Persons
Bernard Lam is Vice President, Finance of Notch Therapeutics. Mr. Lam joined Notch with more than 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Prior to Notch, he served as Interim Senior Director, Finance at Neoleukin Therapeutics following its merger in 2019 with Aquinox Pharmaceuticals. Previously, in his role as Senior Director, Finance at Aquinox, he provided finance leadership in the company's transition to a publicly traded company. Prior to Aquinox, Mr. Lam was Vice President, Finance at Viable Healthworks and held senior finance roles at Allon Therapeutics and QLT, Inc. Mr. Lam is a Chartered Professional Accountant and holds a B.B.A. from Simon Fraser University.
Job Titles:
- Director, People & Culture
- Inc. As the Director of Human Resources
Cari Barthe joined Notch Therapeutics, Inc. as the Director of Human Resources (US) in April 2021. Cari has over 22 years of experience as an HR professional in the Biotech industry delivering results across multiple disciplines. Most notably she spent over 13 years with Seagen supporting the launch of the company's first, second and third products and subsequent rapid expansion. Prior to Seagen, Cari was an HR Consultant for a variety of companies after spending 8 years at ICOS Corporation. Cari is originally from Arizona and moved to Seattle after graduating from the University of Arizona with a B.S. in Marketing and Business Management.
Job Titles:
- Partner
- Partner at EcoR1 Capital
Caroline Stout is a Partner at EcoR1 Capital. Ms. Stout joined EcoR1 in 2014 and has led several of the firm's investments in the biotechnology sector and serves on the board of several biotech therapeutics companies. She has also served as Chief Investment Officer of Panacea Acquisition Corp I and II. Prior to joining EcoR1, Ms. Stout worked as an investment banker at Credit Suisse in New York. Ms. Stout graduated magna cum laude from Georgetown University with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, a Pre-Medical concentration, and Cognitive Science minor.
Chris Bond is Chief Scientific Officer of Notch Therapeutics. Dr. Bond joined Notch with more than 18 years of experience working with biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies including Genentech, OncoMed, Juno Therapeutics, Celgene, and Kite. Dr. Bond has extensive experience in the discovery and development of adoptive cell therapies, monoclonal antibodies, and cellular engineering and genome editing. At Juno and at Kite, he led the discovery and preclinical development programs for CAR T and TCR cell therapies targeting solid and hematological tumors. At Kite, Dr. Bond led the development of allogeneic cell therapy platforms leveraging T cells from both donor-derived sources and induced pluripotent stem cells. As part of his work with Juno and Kite, Dr. Bond led R&D collaborations with genome editing companies including Editas Medicine and Sangamo Therapeutics. Prior to his work in adoptive cell therapy, Dr. Bond led monoclonal and bi-specific antibody discovery and engineering programs targeting cancer stem cell antigens at OncoMed Pharmaceuticals. He is an inventor on numerous patents and has published papers in the fields of protein structure and engineering, immunology, and oncology. Dr. Bond received a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Washington.
Job Titles:
- Corporate Controller
- Director
- Is Director and Corporate Controller
Connie Leong is Director and Corporate Controller of Notch Therapeutics. Mrs. Leong joined Notch with over 15 years of experience in the biopharmaceuticals industry. Prior to Notch, she served as a Finance consultant for various biotech and public companies, Associate Director, Finance at Xenon Pharmaceuticals, and Senior Manager, Risk and Compliance at Aquinox Pharmaceuticals. Connie began her career with Deloitte, providing assurance and advisory services to international clients. She is a board member of Pacifica Treatment Centre, a Vancouver based non-profit organization promoting health and recovery from addictions through treatment, education, and support. As well, she serves as the Treasurer for Rural and Remote Division of Family Practice, an organization with the vision of creating locally developed, innovative, accessible, and sustainable health services for rural communities. Connie is a Chartered Professional Accountant and holds a Bachelor of Commerce degree from the University of British Columbia.
Job Titles:
- VP, Corporate & Business Development
Dan has served as VP, Corporate and Business Development at Allogene Therapeutics since shortly after its founding in 2018, leading strategic transactions to support the company's mission to bring the promise of allogeneic CAR T therapy to patients. Prior to Allogene, he filled a similar role as part of a corporate restructuring team at Fluidigm Corporation. The first half of Dan's career was as a healthcare and biotechnology investor, first at SG Cowen & Co, and then serving nearly a decade as an analyst and portfolio manager at Allianz Global Investors (RCM) in San Francisco. He holds a BA from Stanford University and an MSc from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Job Titles:
- Director of Systems
- Director, Systems Biology
Dan Kirouac is the Director of Systems Biology, integrating bioinformatics and dynamical modelling to support research and development programs at Notch. He brings 10+ years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, with scientific positions in large pharma (Genentech), mid-size biotech (Merrimack Pharmaceuticals), andconsultanting (Applied BioMath). His roles have focused on applying computational biology and mathematics to drug development, spanning early discovery through late-stage clinical trials. He has published 25 primary research and opinion pieces and has organized, co-chaired, and spoken at multiple conferences focused on the nascent field of Quantitative Systems Pharmacology (QSP). In 2019, Dr. Kirouac received the Systems Pharmacology Award from the American Society for Clinical Pharmacology (ASCPT) for his research. He has bachelor degrees in both Chemical Engineering and Genetics from the University of Western Ontario. He holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Toronto and completed postdoctoral training at MIT and Harvard Medical School.
Job Titles:
- Chief Executive Officer
- President
David Main is President and Chief Executive Officer of Notch Therapeutics. Previously, as Chairman and CEO of Aquinox Pharmaceuticals, a company he co-founded in 2006, Mr. Main oversaw the advancement of the company's lead product from target validation through Phase 3 clinical trials. He also led the transition of Aquinox from a private company to a NASDAQ-listed public company with approximately $300 million raised in equity capital and then completed the successful merger of Aquinox with Neoleukin Therapeutics. Prior to his leadership of Aquinox, Mr. Main served as President and CEO of INEX Pharmaceuticals and as a Vice President of QLT. He formerly served as the Chair of LifeSciences BC (formerly BC Biotech), BIOTECanada, and Accel-Rx as well as a Director of BIO.org. Mr. Main began his career as a licensed pharmacist at the Royal Columbian Hospital in New Westminster, B.C. He holds a BSc (Pharmacy) and an MBA from the University of British Columbia (UBC).
Job Titles:
- Associate Director of Contracts and Legal Affairs
Elaine Walton is the Associate Director of Contracts and Legal Affairs at Notch Therapeutics and responsible for the management of contractual documents, insurance, and legal obligations of the company. She brings over 15 years of contract management experience in both commercial and government contracting. Prior to joining Notch Therapeutics, she held senior roles at the BC Cancer Agency, Seaspan Shipyards, MDA/Maxar and Simon Fraser University where she oversaw and managed research and commercial contracts, pharmaceutical clinical trials agreements, and procurement contracts with the Canadian and US Governments. Elaine holds a BSc in Biology and an MBA in Technology from Simon Fraser University.
Job Titles:
- Senior Vice President, Technical Operations
Emily Titus is Senior Vice President, Technical Operations at Notch Therapeutics. Previously, she was Vice President, Technology Advancement at CCRM, where she built cell reprogramming, genome engineering, and pluripotent stem cell differentiation programs and led the formation of Notch Therapeutics as part of CCRM's company incubation program. Emily earned a Ph.D. from the Institute of Biomaterials and Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto, where she used a combination of laboratory and bioinformatics approaches to define and interpret gene regulatory networks controlling embryonic stem cell fate decisions.
Job Titles:
- Director, Information Technology
Eric Kardoes has more than 20 years of extensive IT experience in both the private and public sector that complements his engineering degree and MBA in Leadership and Innovation. Eric is passionate about empowering organizations to meet their objectives through the effective use of technology. Key areas of responsibly include Team Leadership, Cloud Operations, CyberSecurity, IT Governance, Solutions Design, Budgeting, Vendor Management, and Project Management.
Job Titles:
- Professor of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology
Hanna Mikkola is a Professor of Molecular, Cell and Developmental Biology at UCLA. She received her M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Helsinki, Finland. She performed her postdoctoral training at Lund University and DFCI. Her Primary research focus is to understand the underlying biology of HSCs to generate them efficiently and effectively in the lab.
Job Titles:
- Associate
- Associate at Baker Brothers Investments
Heather Lee, MD, PhD, is an Associate at Baker Brothers Investments. Prior to joining Baker Brothers in 2020, Dr. Lee completed an M.D. and Ph.D. in Cellular, Molecular, and Biomedical Studies from Columbia University. Prior to Columbia, she earned a B.A. in Biology from the University of Virginia.
Job Titles:
- President and Scientific Director / Gairdner Foundation
- President and Scientific Director of Gairdner Foundation
Janet Rossant is President and Scientific Director of Gairdner Foundation. A world-renowned expert in developmental biology who is widely known for her studies of the genes that control embryonic development in the mouse, Dr. Rossant pioneered techniques for following cell fate and altering genes in embryos, work that continues to resonate in medical genetic research. Her current research focuses on stem cell development and cell differentiation in the developing embryo, important areas for the study of birth defects as well as regenerative medicine. Dr. Rossant trained at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, United Kingdom and has been in Canada since 1977, first at Brock University and then at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute within Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, from 1985 to 2005. She served as Chief of Research at SickKids from 2005 to 2015 and retains a research lab there. Dr. Rossant has been recognized for her contributions to science with many awards, including the Ross G. Harrison Medal (lifetime achievement award) from the International Society of Developmental Biologists, the Killam Prize for Health Sciences, the March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology, the Conklin Medal from the Society for Developmental Biology, the 10th ISTT Prize from the International Society for Transgenic Technologies, and the 2018 L'Oréal For Women in Science Award. She is a Fellow of the Royal Societies of both London and Canada and an International member of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.
Job Titles:
- Co - Chairman
- Chairman and Professor, Dept. of Immunology, U. of Toronto Senior Scientist, Sunnybrook Research Inst
- Co - Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board
Juan Carlos Zúñiga-Pflücker is Co-Chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board and a Scientific Co-Founder of Notch Therapeutics. He is Chair and Professor of the Department of Immunology at the University of Toronto, a Senior Scientist at Sunnybrook Research Institute, and Canada Research Chair in Developmental Immunology. Dr. Zúñiga-Pflücker recently discovered how to grow T cells-the building blocks of our immune systems-in a laboratory using embryonic stem cells. The stromal cell-free culture system developed by Ashton Trotman-Grant, Mahmood Mohtashami, and Dr. Zúñiga-Pflücker makes it possible to generate T cells in vitro from any source of stem cells. The system is creating many new research opportunities for immunologists, bringing them one step closer to creating designer T cells in vitro for cancer treatments and using in vitro T cells for the treatment of autoimmune disease.
Job Titles:
- Chief Financial Officer
- Executive Vice President, Finance
Kamran Alam is Executive Vice President, Finance and Chief Financial Officer of Notch Therapeutics. Prior to joining Notch, he served as Interim Chief Financial Officer of Neoleukin Therapeutics, Inc. following Neoleukin's merger in 2019 with Aquinox Pharmaceuticals, Inc.. Previously, in his role as Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Finance at Aquinox, Mr. Alam provided finance leadership for the company's IPO on the NASDAQ stock exchange in 2014. Prior to his tenure with Aquinox, Mr. Alam held senior roles in business development for a number of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies. Mr. Alam is a Chartered Professional Accountant. He holds a B.Sc. in Cell Biology and Genetics from the University of British Columbia and an M.B.A. in International Business and Strategy from the University of Victoria.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor in the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering
- Associate Professor, Biomedical Engineering / University of Wisconsin - Madison
Kris Saha, is an Associate Professor in the Dept. of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering at the University of California in Berkeley. Primary research focus is human pluripotent stem cells, disease modeling, synthetic biology, and genome editing.
Job Titles:
- Director, People & Culture ( CAN )
Following supporting Notch Therapeutics' HR functions in a consultant capacity from September 2019, Kristi Steed joined Notch as an employee in March 2021. Kristi earned a BCom in HR from UBC and holds accredited Certified HR Leader (CHRL) designation through the HR Professionals Association. Kristi's HR background includes public and private sector experience, including providing HR consultant support to Notch founding institutions CCRM and Toronto Innovation Acceleration Partners, prior to joining Notch full time.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director of Project Management
- Director, Project Management
Kyle Walters is Associate Director of Project Management at Notch Therapeutics, with responsibility for leading project and product candidate development teams. Mr. Walters has more than 12 years of drug development experience with biotechnology and immuno-oncology companies in leadership roles spanning project management, alliance management, clinical operations, and regulatory affairs. Before joining Notch, he held the role of Senior Program and Alliance Manager at Turnstone Biologics, where he led large and complex collaborations and program teams developing immuno-oncology therapies. Prior to that, Mr. Walters held leadership positions at Paraxel and Apobiologix overseeing development of oncology candidates. Mr. Walters holds a H.BSc in Biomedical Toxicology from the University of Guelph and a Post-Graduate Certificate in Regulatory Affairs from Humber College.
Job Titles:
- Director of Manufacturing
- Senior Director, Manufacturing Sciences
Liz Csaszar is the Director of Manufacturing at Notch Therapeutics and is responsible for cell based process development and GMP cell bank manufacturing activities. Her experience is in the area of preclinical and early clinical process development, optimization, and scale-up/-out of cell and gene therapies, technology transfer, and CMC support. Prior to Notch, Liz worked as a process development manager at CCRM, where she oversaw CCRM's immunotherapy platform and managed process development teams executing client-based development projects and internal process and product development, in partnership with Cytiva. Liz has a Ph.D. in Chemical and Biomedical Engineering from the University of Toronto and holds a Professional Engineers Ontario (P.Eng.) designation.
Job Titles:
- Associate Director of Preclinical Translational Sciences
Muluken Belew is the Associate Director of Preclinical Translational Sciences at Notch Therapeutics. He leads cross-functional internal and external collaborative Preclinical Pharmacology research and development efforts of iPSC-derived engineered immune cell products using disease-relevant mouse models. Prior to joining Notch, Muluken was Principal Scientist at Novartis where he gained extensive experiences in target identification, validations, and preclinical safety evaluations for cell and gene as well as small molecule therapeutic modalities in benign hematology indications. At Novartis, he led discovery efforts using HSCs enabling go/no-go milestone decisions for partnered AAV-based in vivo gene editing strategies. Muluken earned his Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Biomedical Science at McMaster University where he employed xenograft and syngeneic mouse models to characterize transcriptional and post-transcriptional regulatory networks mediating HSC expansion and multi-lineage differentiation.
Job Titles:
- Co - Founder
- Senior Science and Technology Advisor, Scientific Advisory Board Co - Chairman
Peter Zandstra is Senior Science and Technology Advisor, Scientific Advisory Board co-chairman, and a co-founder of Notch Therapeutics. He is the Founding Director of the University of British Columbia's (UBC) School of Biomedical Engineering, where he serves as Director and Professor as well as Director of UBC's Michael Smith Laboratories. Dr. Zandstra's research focuses on understanding how functional tissue forms from stem cells and how this information can be applied to design novel therapeutic technologies based on living cells. In addition to Notch Therapeutics, Dr. Zandstra co-founded ExCellThera and the Center for Commercialization of Regenerative Medicine (CCRM), and has developed and led a number of academic consortia including the University of Toronto's Medicine by Design, a Canada First Research Excellence Fund Program. He is an elected member of the Royal Society of Canada (Engineering), the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences, the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Dr. Zandstra is the Canada Research Chair in Stem Cell Bioengineering (Tier 1) and is a recipient of a number of awards and fellowships, including the Premiers Research Excellence Award (2002), the E.W.R. Steacie Memorial Fellowship (2006), the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2007), and the Till and McCulloch Award (2013). He holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology from the University of British Columbia and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Bioengineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Job Titles:
- Principal Investigator / Hannover Medical School
- Principal Investigator at Hannover Medical School
Robert Zweigerdt is a Principal Investigator at Hannover Medical School. He completed his Ph.D. in Developmental Biology from the Technical University of Braunschweig. Following his PhD, he moved to Cardion AG and was instrumental in developing a novel process for the large-scale production of pure, ESC-derived cardiomyocytes.
Job Titles:
- Director of Process Development
Shri Joshi is the Director of Process Development at Notch Therapeutics and is responsible for QbD-based cell therapy process development. His professional journey as a scientist, operations leader, and business partner includes more than 13 years of working with biotech, pharma, and CMOs. His experience is in the area of Bioprocess Tech Transfer, CMC support, Cell Culture Process, and Assay
Job Titles:
- Associate Director of Cancer Biology and Translational Sciences
Siddarth Chandrasekaran is the Associate Director of Cancer Biology and Translational Sciences at Notch Therapeutics leading early discovery and development work for characterizing iPSC derived T-cells. The Cancer Biology team at Notch is focused on addressing the challenges posed by immunosuppressive tumor microenvironment and allogeneic clearance by host immune cells. Previously, he worked at Alpine Immune Sciences in the Immunology Department, where he was responsible for discovering therapeutics using Alpine's protein engineering platform for providing target-dependent co-stimulation for T-cells and myeloid cells in the tumor microenvironment. Prior to Alpine, he led a discovery team focused on identifying antibodies that can reprogram immunosuppressive myeloid cells at OncoResponse in Seattle. His team at OncoResponse was responsible for mining B-cell responses from exceptional responders to checkpoint blockade treatment by driving an important collaboration with MD Anderson Cancer Research Center. He holds a PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Cornell University, Ithaca, and is trained in NK cell engineering with nanoparticles for enhancing their anti-tumor function.
Job Titles:
- Senior Director of Analytical Development
Siemon Ng is the Senior Director of Analytical Development at Notch Therapeutics. He is responsible for the development and implementation of analytical testing at Notch Therapeutics to ensure product safety and quality. Siemon joined Notch with more than 10 years of experience in analytical development. Prior to joining Notch, Siemon led the successful GMP implementation of next-generation sequencing (NGS) as a testing platform and the adoption of other novel molecular techniques at Sanofi Pasteur. He is involved in global consortiums (such as the PDA's Advanced Virus Detection Technology Interest Group) to advance the use of NGS and published papers across multiple collaborative studies. Siemon earned his Ph.D. in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry at Simon Fraser University.
Job Titles:
- Managing Director
- Partner at Baker Brothers Investments
Stephen R. Biggar is a Partner at Baker Brothers Investments. Prior to joining Baker Brothers in 2000, Dr. Biggar received an MD and a PhD in Immunology from Stanford University. Dr. Biggar also attended the University of Rochester, where he achieved a BS degree in Genetics.
Job Titles:
- Senior Director, Engineering
Steven Woodside is Senior Director, Engineering at Notch Therapeutics and is responsible for research and development of platform technologies including the Engineered Thymic Niche. Steven worked previously at STEMCELL Technologies, where he gained extensive experience in product development and commercialization and led multiple groups within R&D, including Cell Separation, Particle Chemistry, Recombinant Molecules, Bioengineering, and Instrumentation. Steven is named on eight diverse inventions covered by more than 25 granted patents. He holds a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of British Columbia.
Job Titles:
- Director, Business Operations
Timothy Key joined Notch Therapeutics as Director, Business Operations after working on the company concept as part of his role at MaRS Innovation (now Toronto Innovation Acceleration Partners). Tim holds a Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from Dalhousie University, and he trained in drug discovery and development of small molecules and biologics at the Center for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) in Vancouver.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of the Board
- Chief Executive Officer
Ulrik Nielsen is Chairman of the Board of Notch Therapeutics and Chief Executive Officer of Tidal Therapeutics, which was acquired by Sanofi in 2021. He is a co-founder and was President and CEO of Torque Therapeutics (now Repertoire Immune Medicines) from 2015 until 2018. Prior to Torque, Dr. Nielsen co-founded and served as Chief Scientific Officer of Merrimack Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: MACK) until 2015. Dr. Nielsen trained at University of California, San Francisco and MIT and holds a PhD in Molecular Biology from the University of Copenhagen.
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, & Molecular Genetics
Yvonne Chen is an Associate Professor of Microbiology, Immunology, and Molecular Genetics at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is also a faculty member, by courtesy, in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and a member researcher of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. The Chen Laboratory applies synthetic biology and biomolecular engineering techniques to the development of novel mammalian-cell systems for clinical use. The Chen lab's work on engineering next-generation T-cell therapies for cancer has been recognized by the NIH Director's Early Independence Award, the NSF CAREER Award, the Hellman Fellowship, the ACGT Young Investigator Award in Cell and Gene Therapy for Cancer, the Mark Foundation Emerging Leader Award, and the Cancer Research Institute Lloyd J. Old STAR Award. Prior to joining UCLA in 2013, Dr. Chen was a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows. She received postdoctoral training at the Seattle Children's Research Institute and in the Department of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Chen received a BS in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University and a PhD in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology.