BIOS

Angelika Fretzen is the Wyss Institute’s Technology Translation Director and COO, applying product and entrepreneurial business development experience to the Institute’s mission of taking impactful technologies in healthcare and sustainability from the lab into their real world application. She leads a team at the Wyss that is dedicated to building a unique model of innovation, technology development and commercialization, in a community of strong collaborators within an extensive ecosystem of universities, hospitals and external business partners.She earned her Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and gained postdoctoral experience in the laboratory of Professor Gregory Verdine at Harvard University. Following her academic training, Angelika pursued her M.B.A. at Suffolk University, Boston, and subsequently held leadership positions at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, and most recently at Catabasis Pharmaceuticals in Cambridge, MA, where she was Senior Vice President of Product Development. Her industry experience enabled her to gain a deep understanding of the processes involved in developing and de-risking therapeutic products from pre-clinical stages to the clinical market, including the regulatory approval process. For more than 10 years, she also served on the Board of Directors of Bridgewell, a health and human services non-profit organization serving a wide range of constituents in day programs, residential housing and clinical services.Thank you for listening!BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health.Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license) 

Shaan Gandhi is a Director @ Northpond Ventures and leads the firm’s work in biotechnologies. Shaan is a board director at Aro Biotherapeutics; CAMP4 Therapeutics; Candel Therapeutics; DiCE Molecules; StrideBio, Inc.; Triumvira Immunologics, Inc.; and Vigil Neuroscience. Previously, Shaan was a Principal at the Longwood Fund, where he created and invested in life sciences companies, including Pyxis Oncology, a cancer immunotherapy company focused on novel modulators of the tumor microenvironment, which he co-founded and served as President. Prior to Longwood, he was an attending hospitalist at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he also did his residency in internal medicine. He holds an MD from Harvard Medical School; an MBA from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar; a D.Phil. in medical oncology from the University of Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar; and a B.S. with honors in biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University. Shaan is the Secretary/Treasurer of the Suffolk District Medical Society, the professional medical society of Boston, and a Trustee of the Boston Medical Library.Thank you for listening!BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health.Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license) 

Jared Friedman is a Managing Director @ Y Combinator, where he works with YC's bio companies. Y Combinator has funded over 400 healthcare and bio companies across all sectors. YC currently funds more healthcare/bio companies per year than any other investor in the world.Thank you for listening!BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health.Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license) 

Cain McClary is Founder & Managing Partner @ KdT Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on supporting startups re-architecting the world at a molecular level.Cain is a Physician/Scientist and Venture Capitalist, leveraging technical scientific and medical knowledge/experience as well as an extensive network of scientists, clinicians, entrepreneurs, and funders to guide and invest in young companies at the intersection of computation and science. His experiences on both sides of the table offers unique strategic insights and network opportunities to innovators and investors in these verticals. What he likes to call "translational entrepreneurship".Thank you for listening!BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health.Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license) 

Shahram Seyedin-Noor is Founder and General Partner of Civilization Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on supporting cutting edge innovations in health tech and biology.Prior to founding Civilization Ventures, Shahram was a life sciences entrepreneur and angel investor for more than a decade. Shahram was the founding CEO and later Executive Chairman of Rgenix, a biotech company with multiple first-in-class therapeutics for cancer now in Phase 1b clinical trials. Prior to Rgenix, he was founding CFO and VP of Corporate Development at NextBio, a genomics pioneer acquired by Illumina. Shahram sits on the boards of Foresight Diagnostics and Rewrite and has been one of the first checks into frontier tech companies such as Omada Health, CatalogDNA, Evonetix, BilliontoOne, Lemonaid Health, Avantome (acquired by Illumina), Bina (acquired by Roche), Rocket Pharma (IPO), and Counsyl (acquired by Myriad).Shahram began his career in Silicon Valley over twenty years ago at Wilson Sonsini and went on to advise some of the world’s preeminent technology leaders while at Goldman Sachs. He earned his JD from Harvard Law School, where he led 175 editors as Editor-in-Chief of the Harvard International Law Journal, and obtained a BA in Economics from Pomona College. Shahram founded CV in 2017 to support innovations that could – with some luck and perseverance – improve human health, preserve the world’s natural resources, and further our shared civilization. Thank you for listening!BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health.Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license) 

Ron Weiss is one of the pioneers of synthetic biology. He has been engaged in synthetic biology research since 1996 when he was a graduate student at MIT and where he helped set up a wet-lab in the Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Department. After completion of his PhD, Weiss joined the faculty at Princeton University, and recently returned to MIT to take on a tenured faculty position in the Department of Biological Engineering and the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Ron founded and serves as the Director of the MIT Synthetic Biology Center.W/ Special Guest Host: Jake BecraftJake Becraft is a synthetic biologist and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of Strand Therapeutics, and serves on its Board of Directors. Together with colleagues at MIT’s renowned Synthetic Biology Center, he led the development of the world’s first synthetic biology programming language for mRNA. Jake has been featured in Fierce Biotech, Bloomberg, the Boston Business Journal, and BioCentury, among others, for his vision and mission at Strand of applying this unique platform for real world disease applications. He has also been the recipient of prestigious national and international awards for his scientific and entrepreneurial achievements, including the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Award, the Andrew Viterbi Fellowship of MIT, Amgen Fellowship, and the Bristol-Myers Squibb 2018 Golden Ticket for recognition of Strand as an innovative startup. Beyond his work at Strand, Jake’s broader interests span synthetic biology, biologically engineered organism-machine interfaces, and the intersection of tech and biotech methodologies. He is an advocate among the life science entrepreneurial ecosystem for supporting young founders in biotech entrepreneurship. Currently, he serves on the advisory board of Starlight Ventures, an early stage venture firm, and also serves on the Executive Board of Public Health United, a non-profit focused on helping scientists better communicate their research for maximum impact. He is also a Termeer Fellow. Previously, he served as a Science and Technology advisor to legislators in the Massachusetts State Legislature. Jake received his Ph.D. in Biological Engineering and Synthetic Biology from MIT and his B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, graduating Magna cum Laude with distinction. He is an author or inventor on numerous high profile publications, patents and white papers, including in top tier journals such as Nature Chemical Biology and PNAS.Thank you for listening!BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health.Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license) 

George Church leads Synthetic Biology at the Wyss Institute, where he oversees the directed evolution of molecules, polymers, and whole genomes to create new tools with applications in regenerative medicine and bio-production of chemicals. Among his recent work at the Wyss is development of a technology for synthesizing whole genes, and engineering whole genomes, far faster, more accurate, and less costly than current methods. George is widely recognized for his innovative contributions to genomic science and his many pioneering contributions to chemistry and biomedicine. In 1984, he developed the first direct genomic sequencing method, which resulted in the first genome sequence (the human pathogen, H. pylori). He helped initiate the Human Genome Project in 1984 and the Personal Genome Project in 2005. George invented the broadly applied concepts of molecular multiplexing and tags, homologous recombination methods, and array DNA synthesizers. His many innovations have been the basis for a number of companies including Editas (Gene therapy); Gen9bio (Synthetic DNA); and Veritas Genetics (full human genome sequencing). George is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School and Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is Director of the U.S. Department of Energy Technology Center and Director of the National Institutes of Health Center of Excellence in Genomic Science. He has received numerous awards including the 2011 Bower Award and Prize for Achievement in Science from the Franklin Institute and election to the National Academy of Sciences and Engineering.w/ Special Guest Host: Alexander TitusAlexander Titus is a genomic data scientist and technologist with a background spanning industry, government, and academia. He is the founder and CEO of Bioeconomy.XYZ, a biotechnology publication about great tech and the people making it happen. He's also a strategic business executive at Google Cloud, and previously he was the head of biotechnology at the Department of Defense. Thank you for listening!BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health.Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license) 

Bob Langer is one of 12 Institute Professors at MIT; being an Institute Professor is the highest honor that can be awarded to a faculty member.  Dr. Langer has written more than 1,500 articles.  He also has over 1,400 issued and pending patents worldwide.  Dr. Langer’s patents have been licensed or sublicensed to over 400  pharmaceutical, chemical, biotechnology and medical device companies.  He is the most cited engineer in history (h-index 289 with over 345,000 citations according to Google Scholar).&Michael Langer is Senior Manager and Head of Search, Evaluation & In-licensing for all new technology and products at Pear Therapeutics. Michael also runs point on platform deals, as well as competitive intelligence at Pear. In addition, he works closely with the Pear fundraising team to build and maintain relationships with prospective investors primarily with sovereign wealth funds and family offices. Michael reports directly to Pear's Founder, CEO and President Dr. Corey McCann.Michael is an investor, advisor and mentor to startups. Michael is the founding partner at Old Silver VC which is a family-associated investment firm that invests in startups in Healthcare (Biotech and DigitalHealth) and Deep Tech with a focus on materials. Michael is an active philanthropist. He co-founded the Young Coder's Society which teaches children how to code using Raspberry Pi's. He is a World Economic Forum Global Shaper and a Young Leader at the Milken Institute. He serves on The Leadership Board at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, The Discoverers Committee at the Museum of Science and is the Senior Advisor of Special Projects at the Galenus Foundation.Thank you for listening!BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health.Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license) 

Zavain Dar invests at the intersection and union of cutting-edge biotech and software. He has led Lux’s investments in Primer, a machine intelligence startup; Clarifai, which democratizes cutting edge deep neural networks; Auransa, which is developing novel medicines based on computational insight applied to genomic data; Recursion which uses automation and deep learning to develop drugs for rare diseases; Tempo Automation, which applies software and automation to electronics manufacturing; Rigetti Computing, which is fabricating some of the fastest quantum chips in the world; Braid, which is bringing AI to medical diagnostics; Visor, which aims to simplify tax preparation; Computable Labs, which is building a decentralized data marketplace; Cryptonumerics, a data control company acquired by Snowflake Computing; The Stacks Foundation, which is making Bitcoin programmable; Runway, which is putting machine learning tools into the hands of creators; LabGenius, a protein drug discovery company; Anagenex, a drug discovery company leveraging DNA encoded libraries; Hugging Face, an open-source company democratizing Natural Language Processing; Dyno Therapeutics, an AI-powered gene therapy company; and Thrive Earlier Detection, an early cancer detection company that Exact Sciences agreed to acquire for $2.15 billion in 2020.Thank you for listening!BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health.Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license) 

Arvind Gupta is a Partner @ Mayfield Fund where he co-leads the Engineering Biology practice. He was the first investor in several breakout biology companies including Geltor, Prellis, Synthex, and Memphis Meats. Prior to joining Mayfield, Arvind was a founder of Indie Bio, the world’s leading biotech accelerator. At IndieBio, he was fundamental to the growth of the accelerator, building a $3.2B portfolio and investing in over 136 companies over five years. He is particularly passionate about conscious capitalism and continues to serve as a Venture Advisor at IndieBio. Topics:Career journey from design to biotech investingPersonal mission statementsSynthetic biology guiding the biotech revolution Conscious capital and engineering biologyWhat to expect for the future of “tech bio”How VC will evolve with new capital structures in biotech Advice for life sciences foundersThank you for listening!BIOS (@BIOS_Community) unites a community of Life Science innovators dedicated to driving patient impact. Alix Ventures (@AlixVentures) is a San Francisco based venture capital firm supporting early stage Life Science startups engineering biology to create radical advances in human health.Music: Danger Storm by Kevin MacLeod (link & license)