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Amy has spent roughly 10 years in commercial and product management roles working on tools for genomic analysis ranging from sequencers, analysis software, decision support software, and NGS-based diagnostic assays. Her experience spans product support and management of on-market products to product ideation, product development and launch. She is excited to be going in a new direction by joining Creyon, moving into the pharma industry while professionally focusing on Program/Project management. Amy’s scientific training is in Genetics, including a PhD from the University of Georgia and a joint postdoc at Duke University and UNC Chapel Hill.

Allen has a passion for medicine and being able to assist in the development of drugs to positively impact the lives of those in need. Previously in his career, he was a part of teams specializing in antineoplastics and radiopharmaceuticals. He obtained a Master’s degree at Rush University, where he studied the role of periostin on gene gene expression in bone regeneration.

Du is a computational biologist by training; he is always passionate about exploring the incredible mathematical equations that shape the myth of life behind the scenes. During his PhD career at University of California, San Diego, he studied marine phytoplanktons that can efficiently utilize solar energy without getting “over-burned” from toxic radicals. By combining systems biology models and mult-iomic data analysis, he discovered a secret pathway that funnels the excessive power back to the synthesis of life. Upon graduation he became increasingly interested in studying the rule of life in the most sophisticated entity, human. Du continued his career as postdoc and scientist at J Craig Venter Institute, La Jolla Institute for Immunology and a large genomic company, where he received professional training on human omics, and contributed to projects that are still serving patients everyday. As a new Creyoneer, Du is excited to join this extraordinary team and is looking forward to contributing to a better future.

Jamie is a recent graduate from the University of Minnesota where she received her B.S. in Environmental Science. While in school, she worked at a veterinary office where she developed her inventory and bookkeeping skills. She is looking forward to assisting the Creyon team with their laboratory inventories, the move to the new Carlsbad location, and help wherever assistance is needed.

Maureen is a patient advocacy, public policy, and communications leader focused on structuring biomedical research collaborations with engagement of multiple stakeholders, accelerating biomedical innovation, ensuring ethical conduct of research, and developing outreach materials to varied audiences. Prior to Creyon, she was a strategic advisor with Global Genes, working with the Medical & Scientific Advisory Board on projects focused on science and technology issues related to rare disease research and therapy development, developing content for major patient advocacy meetings, and leading efforts to connect rare disease researchers and patient advocates. Prior to joining Global Genes, she served as a researcher with the Science and Technology Policy Institute on strategic planning projects for translational research, bioinformatics, and clinical trials, and on program evaluation for the National Cancer Institute and the National Institutes of Health. She also has led the development of policies to protect human research subjects and public outreach projects on biomedical research at the University of Kentucky. She earned a Ph.D. in Public Policy from George Washington University, an M.S. in Science and Technology Studies from Virginia Tech, and a B.S. in Biology from University of California, Los Angeles.

Linsley is a molecular biologist and biochemist with experience in nucleic acid chemistry. She obtained her PhD in biomedical sciences from Albert Einstein College of Medicine. The focus of her graduate work was on characterizing and utilizing aptamers as targeting agents for therapeutics via cell surface receptors. Through this work she gained experience and insight into SELEX, bioconjugation strategies, nucleic acid synthesis, and flow cytometry. Linsley did postdoctoral research in the lab of Dr. Bruce Sullenger at Duke University. At Duke she focused on characterizing the anti-inflammatory properties of cationic polymers in influenza and lupus mouse models. As a scientist at Creyon, Linsley is excited to work with a multidisciplinary team to deliver scientifically sound and effective OBMs.

Steven joined Creyon with the goal of understanding how to manipulate complex regulatory pathways with oligonucleotide-based medicines. He has extensive experience finding the mechanisms, structure, and engineering principles behind gene networks regulating growth and homeostasis fascinating. Steven previously worked with Ionis Pharmaceuticals to reshape and expand their next-generation sequencing pipeline. With a foundation in Bioengineering from the University of California San Diego, he pursued his Ph.D. at the California Institute of Technology where he studied how evolution shapes the function of gene regulatory networks in development, covering both the conservation of cis-regulatory elements and inherent robustness of differentiation networks. As a postdoc at University of California, Berkeley, Steven tracked the temperature-dependence of development, discovering the coherent maintenance of disparate developmental processes by a few critical regulators.

Jonathan has spent over a decade modeling, developing automated pipelines for, and automating analyses for laboratory data. Well experienced with high throughput screening, automated liquid handling systems, and data-driven applications and data architecture, he uniquely spans the gap between the laboratory and software and data systems for the laboratory. After graduating with a degree in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University, Jonathan began his career at a biotech startup focused on intensified laboratory automation and was responsible for developing both the laboratory experiment protocols, and data systems and pipelines that underpin that startup to this day. He continued working as a software engineer and chemical engineer at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, developing automated high throughput screening techniques, data storage systems, and statistical analysis pipelines for process development. After a short stint as a cloud data infrastructure software engineer, Jonathan joined Creyon Bio in March 2022 to maximize his talents and support the oligonucleotide-based medicine development efforts through software, data infrastructure, and automation.

Jesse is a mathematician and data engineer who is passionate about using data to improve lives. Since leaving University of Southern California, where he studied how best to adapt machine learning techniques for knot theoretic data sets, he has focused on developing architectures that enable processing poorly structured data at scale. At a previous health tech startup, he built pipelines to support COVID testing, contact tracing and vaccination work among populations experiencing homelessness. As Data Architect for a geospatial machine learning startup, his work spanned from low level algorithmic improvements to scale to larger and more populace countries to high level systems design to implement a proper MLOps system for data generation and tracking that integrated with their software development cycle. Joining Creyon, he looks forward to using this range of skills to improve experimentation tracking, learning and integration.

Matthew is a nucleic acid chemist, biochemist, molecular biologist, and biotechnologist with more than 20 years of experience with leadership roles in academia as a Principal Investigator and head of laboratory work and industry in his roles as Vice President, Chief Scientific Officer, and co-founder. He is an expert in engineering nucleic acids, proteins, and other functional oligonucleotides, particularly in developing aptamers for targeting cell surface receptors. Before joining Creyon, Matthew served as the Head of Discovery at Vitrisa Therapeutics. Prior to that, he held a position as Associate Professor of Biochemistry at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, where he ran a successful research program for 10 years focused on developing new technologies and approaches using nucleic acid aptamers as well as engineered proteins for both diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. He has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and has 9 issued patents. He received his B.S. in Biochemistry and his M.S. in Chemistry at the University of California San Diego, and went on to obtain his Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin. Matthew also currently serves as Scientific Advisor to Drive Therapeutics, a company he co-founded, and Oak Bay Bio, two aptamer companies focused on developing ocular therapeutics.

Chungwen has more than 15 years of experience as a computational scientist in the field of biomolecular modeling/simulation. He has strong expertise in a wide range of molecular modeling and simulation techniques, including ab-initio/classical molecular dynamics simulations, quantum chemistry/electronic structure calculations, computational spectroscopy, small molecule design, and protein-ligand docking and screening. Before joining Creyon, he received his Ph.D. from the University of Groningen, the Netherlands. He spent a few years in academia for his postdoctoral research, at the University of Basel, EPFL Switzerland and the University of California, San Diego. He recently served as director of the Computational and Modeling Core Facility in the Institute for Applied Life Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where he provided expert consulting and modeling and simulation services to both academic and industrial partners and collaborators.

Tim is a molecular biologist with experience in RNA biology and answering fundamental biological questions using next generation sequencing approaches. After his undergraduate training at UC San Diego, Tim worked at UCSD Health Center where he investigated the molecular etiology of bladder diseases. Afterwards, Tim worked at BioLegend where he developed methods for expression of recombinant proteins and automated chromatographic purifications. Realizing that he wanted a more active role in directing research questions, Tim decided to pursue further training. He earned his Ph.D. from UC San Diego by leveraging novel library preparation and analysis methods to investigate how cells identify and degrade damaged or improperly made transcripts. At Creyon, Tim is excited to collaborate with a highly multidisciplinary team to create and streamline high throughput next generation sequencing assays to understand how oligonucleotide-based medicines modulate the transcriptome.

Sankha is an Organic Chemist/Chemical Biologist with interdisciplinary expertise in Synthetic Nucleic Acid and Small-molecule Chemistry, Medicinal Chemistry, Molecular Biology, and Developmental Biology. Prior to joining Creyon, he served as a Principal Investigator of Oligonucleotides Process Development at Syngene, Bangalore. He received his Ph.D. in Bioorganic Chemistry from the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata, developing cell-penetrating morpholino antisense oligonucleotides, and identifying small-molecule inhibitors for Hedgehog Signaling Pathway. He subsequently moved to the University of Colorado Boulder for his postdoctoral studies and developed a new type of oligonucleotide class named as Click Nucleic Acids (CNAs). His second postdoctoral training at Stanford University School of Medicine was focused on inventing new optochemical (caged bicyclic morpholino oligonucleotides, and caged RNA) and optogenetic (LOV domain-based systems) technologies to study zebrafish mesoderm development. Sankha’s research interests leverage the power of synthetic chemistry to invent new molecules for treating a broad range of previously ‘undruggable’ diseases.

David is a quantum physicist and computational scientist currently on leave from his position as Assistant Professor of Physics at the University of Pittsburgh. He has extensive research experience in the areas of quantum matter and chemistry, dynamics of quantum systems, quantum computation and fluid dynamics. After earning his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, David worked as a postdoc at Harvard University and was the Lee A. DuBridge Postdoctoral Fellow at the California Institute of Technology. He is also one of the founding principal investigators of the Quantum Biology program at the University of Pittsburgh.

Meenakshi joined Creyon as a scientist to help design effective therapeutics based on oligonucleotides as a part of a multi-disciplinary team. She obtained her masters in cell biology and PhD in translational biomedicine from ETH Zurich. During her PhD, she investigated novel genetic regulators of healthy aging and the downstream mechanisms underlying longevity through adaptive stress response. Subsequently, she did her postdoctoral research at Stanford University pursuing her interest in understanding age-related and epigenetic changes to muscle and its stem cell niche. She focused on the eicosanoid prostaglandin E2 (PGE2) in rejuvenating muscle function and helped identify translational therapies that improve muscle strength in the aged.

At Creyon, Rafael works toward understanding how oligonucleotide-based medicines affect neural function. He obtained his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Texas at Austin where his work was focused on understanding neuroadaptations in synaptic transmission and plasticity that occur with chronic alcohol exposure. Rafael went on to pursue a post-doctorate program at the University of California, San Diego where he could apply his expertise in neurophysiology and receive training in mouse behavior and in vivo calcium imaging. His work as a postdoc uncovered input- and cell-type specific alterations in synaptic transmission that contribute to maladaptive alcohol induced behaviors.

Amanda has an immense passion for biology through the lens of helping people. Previously in her career, she performed experiments and led a team of scientists for a contract research company specializing in pharmacokinetic assays. She obtained a Master’s degree from the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, where she focused on characterizing amino acid and ion transport in euryhaline animal models.

Samrat has joined Creyon Bio as a Senior Neuroscientist. He has spent over a decade in Biocon Bristol Myer Squibbs Research Centre, India working on ion channels as targets in heart failure and treatment-resistant depression. He is well experienced in patch clamp electrophysiology, cardiotoxicity, and differentiating neurons as well as cardiomyocytes from stem cells. He also developed a new in vitro methodology to study PNS and CNS cross-talk. Samrat obtained a Ph.D. in membrane biology from National Centre for Biological Sciences, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Bangalore. His thesis work was based on understanding the mechano-transduction pathway of hERG channels under laminar shear stress. In his last assignment, he worked on cancer where his main focus was to study cell-cell interaction using microfluidics, cellular stiffness using atomic force microscopy, and biomarker discovery using flow cytometry.

George is an organic medicinal chemist with expertise in nucleic acid and nucleoside analogues chemistry. In 2013, he obtained a pharmacy degree from Cairo University in Egypt. His passion for drug discovery led him to pursue medicinal chemistry research. In his Ph.D. at the University of California San Diego and San Diego State University, he focused on the design and synthesis of nucleoside analogues targeting a specific bacterial enzyme. He also developed one of the brightest fluorescent nucleoside analogues to be used as tools to study the structures and functions of nucleic acids. In January 2022, George joined Creyon Bio to develop novel therapeutic oligonucleotides against difficult-to-drug biomolecular targets.

JP is a Medicinal Chemist by training and an experienced scientific leader in pharmaceutical discovery and development with business acumen and more than 17 years of project leadership. JP has extensive experience in design and execution of drug discovery projects from hit to the clinical candidate stage with management of resources in CRO set-up. Before joining to Creyon, JP served as research director in Syngene International Ltd (a Biocon company) in Bangalore where he was leading discovery chemistry teams (>250 chemists) working for big and medium pharma and small and virtual biotech collaborations in different domains. At Syngene, he was also involved in setting up and managing the larger collaborations for big pharma by establishing infrastructure, budget, recruiting top talents, other business, and scientific operations. JP has authored more than 30 peer-reviewed publications and has 10 patents.  He received his Ph.D. from Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur and subsequently received his postdoctoral training at Arizona Cancer Center, Tucson in identifying structures and designing drugs for multi-stranded oligonucleotides (G-quadruplexes and i-motifs).  At Creyon, JP will be heading all the scientific and other operations in India.

Megan’s recurring goal for her career would be to improve the life of one sick child, and hopefully, by extension, many more. She focuses on using in vitro and cell culture methods to investigate potential treatments for children. As a scientist at Creyon, she is confident that the unique and accomplished multi-disciplinary team can work together to attain the vision of creating effective treatments through innovative science. Working with a pediatric surgeon at the University of Bristol, she started pursuing this line of research with a Ph.D. focused on creating tissue engineered constructs for babies born with heart defects. This work led to more technical post-doctorate work, using differentiation of pluripotent cells and bioprinting to create three-dimensional models of early cardiac development. Her knowledge of cells led to continuing her research at a non-profit where she studied potential methods of extending the health and viability of donated tissue. This expanded her expertise by introducing her to the FDA approval process and to physician and patient-oriented services.

Reetu joined Creyon Bio to understand and further work toward developing oligonucleotide-based medicines to treat rare diseases. She obtained a Master in Biotechnology from Punjab University, Chandigarh and her PhD from Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh, India. During her PhD she studied the impact of epigenetics on the differential expression of the Cripto1 in Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma. Later she joined Cedars Sinai Medical Centre, Los Angeles, USA as a Post-Doctoral Scientist where her research focus was to explore the role of ubiquitin dependent mitophagy (PINK-PARKIN pathway) in alcoholic pancreatitis working to improve the outcomes of the pancreatitis by using a mitophagy-inducing drug and also to further understand the impact epigenetics on alteration of mitochondrial dynamics in alcoholic pancreatitis.

Ruben has over 20 years of experience analyzing genomic data and has worked as both a software engineer and a bioinformatics scientist for several biotechnology start-ups. He recently led the development of oligo design tools at Ionis Pharmaceuticals, designing antisense oligonucleotides (ASOs) for hundreds of gene targets. He is passionate about designing OBMs that modulate gene activity with precise control. Caught between the computer science and biology departments at Carnegie Mellon University, an internship at the Human Genome Sequencing Center set his path to walk the line between those fields. His Ph.D. work at University of California San Diego was focused on integrating many different genomic data sources to understand the tree of life. His post-doctoral training at the J. Craig Venter Institute focused on using next-generation sequencing to analyze microbial ecosystems.

Matt is an accomplished biochemist and cell and molecular biologist with extensive experience in the role of RNA dysregulation and signal transduction in oncogenesis, vascular biology and metabolic disease. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge, England, wherein his graduate studies focused on how nutritional disturbances during pregnancy can differentially regulate gene expression at the post-transcriptional level within insulin-responsive tissues and predispose adults to earlier onset metabolic disease. Having developed a passion for researching the function of non-coding RNAs in normal cellular function and disease pathogenesis, and successfully leading multiple drug discovery programs and target validation studies to treat metastatic cancer and vascular disease, Matt is excited to now leverage his experience to help develop safe, precise and effective oligonucleotide-based medicines for patients with unmet need.

Serge Messerlian is an Operating Partner at DCVC Bio. He brings significant experience in the life science industry across a range of roles and therapeutic areas, including hematology, oncology, immunology, and rare diseases.

Before joining DCVC Bio, Serge was CEO of Teon Therapeutics, an immuno-oncology biotech. Prior to that, as President of Janssen Oncology, a division of the Janssen Pharmaceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, he set the strategic direction for the organization, its key brands, and pipeline programs across hematology and solid tumors, as well as platforms including cell therapies and bi-specifics. He also held executive leadership roles at Johnson & Johnson’s Actelion, Baxalta, and Baxter International.

Serge holds a bachelor’s degree in physiology and biotechnology and a master’s degree in human genetics, both from McGill University, and an MBA from the University of Toronto.

Swagatam is a theoretical physicist by training with a decade of experience and leadership in quantitative thinking in biology. He has extensive research experience, both in academia and industry, applying/advancing computational methods in biological datasets. After earning his doctorate degree in Condensed Matter Theory at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, he did a post-doctoral fellowship within the physics department at University of California, Santa Barbara on glassy and disordered media. He then moved to Rutgers University, where he worked at the crossroads of theory and experiments on epigenetic gene silencing and higher-order chromatin organization. He joined Cold Spring Harbor Lab and worked as a Computational Scientist in the field of Autism Genomics, computational neuroanatomy, and RNAi. After a brief stint in investigating the role of non-coding variants in large-scale human genomics at Human Longevity Inc., he joined the functional genomics team at Ionis Pharmaceuticals where he optimized and helped create some of the high-throughput assays used to understand both antisense oligonucleotide (ASO) pharmacology and disease models. Swagatam was instrumental in demonstrating the value of using quantitative methods to unravel ASO sequence-function relationships that helped explain oligonucleotide chemistry experimental observations. His work also led to dramatic improvements in lead-identification screening efficiencies.

Shaq joins the Lux team with a passion for technology and a desire to invest in people. Helping turn their vision for a better world into reality. Specifically, he is excited by “building block” ideas where the value and markets unlocked downstream are greater than that of a single product. Some examples of these building blocks include: biotech, drug discovery platforms, molecular & computational tools, synbio, data infrastructure, and developer tools.

Shaq’s career journey in some ways mirrors the ethos of Lux, investing at the intersection of technology and the natural sciences. Shaq started his professional career in the aerospace and defense sector spending time at NASA and Northrop Grumman. Following, Shaq got exposure to the emerging life sciences sector at Illumina, seeing firsthand the impact DNA sequencing has had on ending human suffering. Most recently, Shaq worked at Parthenon (SSG) in San Francisco, where he advised premier private equity and growth equity firms on enterprise technology and healthcare investments.

Growing up on the Space Coast, Shaq earned a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida. He is passionate about pursuing his lifelong goal of living up to his name and finally dunking a basketball. He loves partnering with his companies, and helping them think strategically on how to stay ten steps ahead of the competition. Competitive from a young age, Shaq is obsessed with being a team player and helping whatever team he’s on to win, whether that is his peers at Lux or the entrepreneurs he works for.

Denis has over 40 years of leadership experience in the pharmaceutical industry, developing and/or commercializing more than 60 products during his career. He currently holds many leadership roles for various public and private biotechnology, specialty pharmaceutical, and diagnostic companies. He serves as Independent Director for Corporate Boards and also as Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the Georgetown University Medical Center. Previously, he was a Managing Partner for Pheonix IP Ventures, LLC. and President of North American Operations at Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories. Earlier in his career, he was Senior Vice President of many departments for GlaxoSmithKline. Denis was also Chief Executive Officer, President and Director for Neose Technologies (NASDAQ: NTEC). He received his M.D. from Georgetown University School of Medicine, his J.D. from Harvard Law School, and his B.A. in Biology from Columbia University in New York City.

David is an Assistant Professor of Translational Medicine and Human Genetics at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, Founding Director of the Center for Cytokine Storm Treatment and Laboratory, and Associate Director of Patient Impact at the Penn Orphan Disease Center. He is Co-Founder and President of the Castleman Disease Collaborative Network (CDCN), a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating research and treatment for Castleman disease and developing innovative processes to support and advance biomedical research to cure many more diseases. He described his journey to a precision treatment for his disease in his 2019 national bestselling memoir Chasing My Cure: A Doctor’s Race to Turn Hope Into Action. As a leading expert on cytokine storms and drug repurposing, David launched the CORONA Project in March 2020 to apply the models for drug repurposing and accelerating research for rare disease to finding new treatments for COVID-19. He is Co-director of the advisory committee for the CURE Drug Repurposing Collaboratory, which is a FDA/NIH/C-Path public-private partnership, and a Board Member of the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA.

Kiersten is a Managing Partner at DCVC Bio, where she focuses on investing in life science companies that have a deep-tech advantage, principally in therapeutics, agriculture, and synthetic biology. She holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology & Genetics and an MBA in Finance. At DCVC Bio, Kiersten works with entrepreneurs to help them launch their businesses at the foundational stage as well as leading first institutional rounds of funding. She has been involved at the formation or early investment stage of companies like Abcellera (Nasdaq: ABCL), Blue River Technology (acquired by John Deere), Umoja, Mycoworks, Novome and Plexium. She also serves as a director for several non-profit sports & scientific organizations.