QB3 Webinar: Anna Molofsky, UCSF. "Neuroimmune Regulation of Brain Development and Plasticity"

Synapse remodeling is essential to brain development, learning, and to maintain healthy brain function. Synapses are impacted in many diseases including autism spectrum disorders (ASD), epilepsy, and schizophrenia. Brain development depends on the dynamic interactions of multiple cell types, including neurons, astrocytes, and microglia, the immune cells of the brain. Our long term goal is to define how the non-neuronal elements of the brain- particularly immune and glial cells - impact brain development and function. We use transcriptomics, mouse genetics, and high resolution imaging to achieve these goals.

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Tuesday, March 26, 2024, 1:00 to 2:00 PM PT

About the Speaker

Dr. Anna Molofsky is a molecular neuroscientist and adult psychiatrist. Her group studies the connections between the immune system and the brain, including during brain development, learning, and in pathologies. The Molofsky lab has identified novel mechanisms through which brain resident immune cells (microglia) regulate the function of synapses, as well as other immune cell types, including lymphocytes that impact brain development, brain function, and behavior. Dr. Molofsky has received several awards including an NIH New Innovator award, a Pew Biomedical Scholar award, and the Friedman Prize from the Brain and Behavior Research Foundation.

QB3 Webinar: Tom Nowakowski, UCSF. "Establishing Tools for Human Neuroscience"

Individual neurodevelopmental, behavioral, or intellectual disorders are rare, but collectively pose a significant socioeconomic burden to industrialized countries. In some cases, these disorders take severe forms that are caused by genetic mutations. While many pathogenic mutations have been identified, their impact on normal brain development is not well understood. Studies of animal models have provided us with a foundational understanding of mammalian neurodevelopment, and emerging technologies now enable us to extend these studies to humans. For example, high-throughput single-cell transcriptomics has begun to systematically define the astonishing diversity of the human cerebral cortex at the molecular level. However, these classifications are divorced from the developmental processes through which specialized cells emerge. They therefore fail to capture the functional interdependencies between differentiated cells that may become vulnerable to genetic or environmental insults.

Our mission is to advance the understanding of human brain development and its relationship to neurodevelopmental, behavioral, and intellectual disorders through basic science research. Our goal is to create tools that allow us to more accurately model human neurological and neuropsychiatric disorders, as well as tools to deliver and de-risk precision interventions.

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Tuesday, February 27, 2024, 1:00 to 2:00 PM PT

About the Speaker

Dr. Nowakowski is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of Neurological Surgery and Anatomy at the University of California, San Francisco. His lab applies new molecular engineering technologies to understand the development and function of diverse cell types in the human brain. Specifically, his goal is to answer unresolved questions about human subplate neurons, which play a critical role in cortical circuit development, and express many genes implicated in neurological and psychiatric disorders. Identifying mechanisms underlying their survival, connectivity and role in local circuit dynamics may offer inroads into gene therapy applications. Dr. Nowakowski received his PhD from the University of Edinburgh, UK and completed his postdoctoral training at UCSF.

QB3 & Bakar Labs Webinar: "Biotech Investing: The Current Market & Near-Term Trends"

We all want to know what's going to happen next in early-stage biotech investing. Who has the best perspective? Jon Norris, Managing Director at HSBC Innovation, is a well-known, widely-cited analyst of life science investment trends. Join us to get an overview of the current biotech investing market from Jon and enjoy a vigorous discussion in a panel format with Karl Handelsman, Founder and Managing Partner of Codon Capital and Ann Lee-Karlon, CEO of Epibiologics, moderated by HSBC’s Ryan Roller.

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Wednesday, February 21, 2024, 12:10 to 1:00 PM PT

About the Speakers

Karl D. Handelsman is Founder and Managing Partner of Codon Capital, and a key contributor and builder in the US biotech innovation ecosystem. Through his network and leadership, he drives Codon Capital to intensely focus on the best biotech targets for investments. The key criteria are the team, the technology, and the investment syndicate. Karl is looking for what he calls “an unfair technology advantage, a team uniquely qualified around that technology opportunity, and multiple routes to success.” Without knowing the technology and the team, he notes, the what if should look “impossible” to the outside world.

Karl’s disciplined approach includes coaching at various incubators and teaching healthcare entrepreneurs, e.g., NSF I-Corps Biotech at the National Institutes of Health, National Cancer Institute, Stanford, UCSF, and Imperial College London. He was a personal sponsor of SynBioBeta 1.0, and consulting advisor for Stanford SPARK, University of California Catalyst program, and the California Life Sciences Institute FAST program. He is a member of Life Science Angels. Karl has developed this process to build a better VC, and to support better entrepreneurship in biotech.

Ann Lee-Karlon, Ph.D., is the Chief Executive Officer, President, and Board member of EpiBiologics. She previously served as Chief Operating Officer of Altos Labs, where she was instrumental in building the foundation for rapid growth to 500 employees across 3 global sites. Prior to Altos, Ann spent over 18 years at Genentech, most recently as Senior Vice President. During her tenure at Genentech, she led portfolio strategy and operations and had project leadership oversight for over 80 drug development teams from research and development through FDA approval and global launch. She led major corporate partnerships and programs, including Ocrevus for multiple sclerosis and Rituxan in immunology. Before Genentech, Ann served in the new ventures group at Lilly. Ann holds a BS in bioengineering from UC Berkeley, MBA from Stanford University, and PhD in bioengineering from UC San Diego, where she was a National Science Foundation Fellow. Ann was the president and board chair of the Genentech Patient Foundation and president and board chair of the Association for Women in Science, based in Washington, D.C. She is a board member of Eko Health and serves on the Dean’s advisory boards for UC Berkeley and UCSD schools of engineering. Ann was elected Fellow of the American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering and is a Fellow of the Aspen Institute.

Jonathan Norris is Managing Director at HSBC Innovation. He previously was a managing director for business development in SVB's Healthcare practice where oversaw business development efforts for banking and lending opportunities as well as spearheading strategic relationships with many healthcare venture capital firms. In addition, he speaks at major investor and industry conferences and authors widely cited analyses of healthcare venture capital trends. Norris has more than nineteen years of banking experience working with healthcare companies and venture capital firms. Norris earned a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of California, Riverside and a juris doctorate from Santa Clara University.

Ryan Roller is Managing Director at HSBC Innovation. He previously was a managing director for SVB’s Healthcare practice where he was one of the leaders of the firm’s biopharma, diagnostic and tools corporate banking practice. Ryan has more than 13 years of experience working with founders, management teams and investors in the healthcare ecosystem. Roller earned a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Gonzaga University.

QB3/Bakar Labs Webinar: Joe Betts-Lacroix. "How Retro Biosciences Will Add 10 Years to Healthy Human Lifespan"

Join us for a fireside chat between Joe Betts-LaCroix, CEO of Retro Biosciences, and Regis Kelly, former QB3 executive director and currently Bakar Labs director of public outreach.

When & Where

Zoom Webinar
Thursday, February 8, 2024, 12:10 to 1:00 PM (Berkeley time starts 10 minutes after the hour)

About the Speaker

Joe Betts-LaCroix is CEO of Retro Biosciences, a company developing therapies for aging-related diseases.

He is a scientist and entrepreneur celebrated for his contributions to biophysics and technology. Raised in Oregon, Joe began his unconventional journey with a "D average" in school, followed by six years immersed in a shared house with artists and musicians. Transitioning to Harvard, he excelled with "straight A's" in environmental geoscience.

With academic stints at MIT and Caltech, Joe made groundbreaking advancements in ocean research and biophysics, publishing a seminal Science paper on electron-transfer rates in proteins. Co-founding OQO in 2000, he played a key role in creating the world's smallest Windows PC. Joe's Silicon Valley endeavors included mentoring startups and advocating for self-experimentation in the Quantified Self movement.

In 2010, he led automation efforts at Halcyon Molecular, supported by Elon Musk and Peter Thiel. Recognizing the need to prioritize age-related diseases, Joe founded the Health Extension Foundation in 2012. Co-founding Vium in 2013 and later Retro Biosciences in 2020, he focuses on developing therapies for aging-related diseases, backed by $180 million in funding from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman. As Retro's CEO, Joe pioneers innovations in autophagy, blood plasma rejuvenation, and partial cell reprogramming, contributing significantly to the quest for extending healthy human lifespans.

QB3 Webinar: Gabriel Victora, Rockefeller University. "Cell–Cell Interactions and the Mechanics of Germinal Center Selection"

Victora studies the basic biology of how antibodies are generated in response to infection and immunization. This includes the evolutionary process of affinity maturation in germinal centers, which is essential to improve antibodies’ powerful targeting capabilities, and the dynamics with which the diversity of antibody responses are pruned and focused on subsequent exposures.

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Tuesday, January 16, 2024, Noon to 1:00 PM PT

Gabriel Victora is Laurie and Peter Grauer Assistant Professor at Rockefeller University.

QB3 Webinar: Kristina Kitko, Kathy Ku, Ashley Zehnder, Pooja Majmudar. "Carving Out a Unique Career in Biotech"

Join us on December 7th for a panel featuring Katharine Ku, Kristina Kitko, and Ashley Zehnder. We'll hear about about their diverse career paths in biotech, which include startups, law, and VC investing. Each one has traced a unique path, building skills, facing challenges, and learning lessons. A great venue for current or aspiring leaders to get advice and insights in an interactive session.

Moderated by Pooja Majmudar of Silicon Valley Bank.

Where & When

Zoom Webinar, livestream from Bakar Labs
Thursday, December 7, 2023, 12:10 to 1:00 PM PT

About the Speakers

Kristina Kitko, PhD is currently Associate Director of Venture Science at Eli Lilly. She is based in San Francisco, CA, as part of the broader West Coast group within Global Corporate Business Development, primarily targeting early-stage research across Lilly’s 5 core therapeutic areas. Her role supports Lilly’s multiple external venture investments in both funds and companies globally (>$2B), as well as due diligence and search and evaluation initiatives. She works on deals across multiple modalities and therapeutic areas for Lilly.

Kristina comes from an operational background within biotech. Prior to Lilly, she worked in Corporate Strategy at Crinetics Pharmaceuticals, and in venture creation at Flagship Pioneering and as an independent consultant. Kristina completed her PhD in Interdisciplinary Materials Science from Vanderbilt University as an NSF IGERT fellow, and her postdoctoral training in Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT.

Katharine (Kathy) Ku is the chief licensing advisor in the Palo Alto office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. She is also a member of the technology transactions and the patents and innovations practice groups.

Kathy is an internationally recognized leader in the field of technology transfer. She served as the Executive Director of Stanford University's Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) for 27 years. During that period, OTL licensed hundreds of new technologies, bringing in $1.8 billion, most of which went back to support research and education at Stanford.

Kathy also spearheaded the development and implementation of nine principles related to university technology licensing. The principles are set forth in document entitled "In the Public Interest: Nine Points to Consider in Licensing University Technology." More than 120 institutions have adopted the principles since they were published in 2007.

Ashley Zehnder is a co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fauna Bio. Ashley has been recognized for her work by the SF Business Times Women Who Lead in Life Sciences, an Emerging Woman Founder in Bio by the Wave Summit, as well as representing Fauna Bio for the Fortune AI Minute. She has spoken at numerous events promoting the use of AI and novel genomics in drug discovery and mentors early stage founders through her work with On Deck Longevity Biotech and Nucleate Bio. She is a boarded avian veterinarian and her prior research focused on translational science, earning a PhD in Cancer Biology from Stanford. Her research works span >20 peer-reviewed publications, including Cell, Nature and Nature Medicine.

As Director of early-stage Startup Banking at Silicon Valley Bank, Pooja Majmudar leverages her knowledge experience, and connections, to propel early-stage companies both in securing funding when needed or in creating opportunities with potential partners, ultimately to help startups unlock their next chapter of value. To that effect, Pooja works closely with early stage (pre-Series A) founders, channel partners including early-stage investors, accelerators/incubators, professional service providers, universities, and industry groups, to provide specialized solutions for clients across all life sciences and healthcare sectors.

Prior to SVB, Pooja worked side-by-side with researchers, clinician scientists and founders at three R1 research institutions in the northeast, as a technology transfer and business development professional, to influence high-impact industry collaborations for advancement of early-stage inventions and promote technology entrepreneurship. Pooja holds a PhD in Molecular and Cellular Biology from Ohio University, and her doctoral thesis was part of the foundational technology out-licensed to Phosplatin Therapeutics (now Promontory Therapeutics), a private, clinical-stage drug development company focusing on oncology therapeutics.

[Canceled] QB3 Webinar: Nevan Krogan, UCSF. "Using System Approaches to Understand the Mechanism of Disease"

There is a wide gap between the generation of large-scale biological data sets and more-detailed, structural and mechanistic studies. However, recent work that explicitly combines data from systems and structural biological approaches is having a profound effect on our ability to predict how mutations and small molecules affect atomic-level mechanisms, disrupt systems-level networks and ultimately lead to changes in organismal fitness. Our group aims to create a stronger bridge between these areas primarily using three types of data: genetic interactions, protein-protein interactions and post-translational modifications. Protein structural information helps to prioritize and functionally understand these large-scale datasets; conversely global, unbiasedly collected datasets helps inform the more mechanistic studies. Our efforts in this respect have been focused on three disease areas: cancer, infectious diseases and neuropsychiatric disorders. Our work has found remarkable similarities between these and other disease areas which are leading to novel therapeutic strategies.

Where & When

This talk has been canceled at the speaker’s request (Covid concerns) and will be rescheduled.

About the Speaker

Dr. Nevan Krogan received an undergraduate degree in chemistry and an MSc in biology from the University of Regina, and a Ph.D. in medical genetics from the University of Toronto. He came to UC San Francisco as a Sandler Fellow in 2006 and started as a faculty member the following year. In 2011, he became an investigator at the Gladstone Institute of Data Science and Biotechnology, and in 2016 he was appointed director of QBI, which is part of the UCSF School of Pharmacy. He has joint UCSF appointments in the School of Medicine’s Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology and the School of Pharmacy’s Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences. In 2022, Dr. Krogan was awarded the highest honor in France, the Legion of Honor, which was bestowed for his leadership in forming international research collaboration across academic and industry organizations around the world and for their significant scientific contributions utilizing a novel methodology of identifying the viral modifications of human proteins that fueled SARS-CoV-2 pathology to identify potential treatments against COVID-19.

QB3 Webinar: Jake Glanville, Centivax

“Towards Universal Immunity: How a Revolution in Computational Immunology Bioengineering Is Advancing Universal Vaccines, Universal Antivenom, and Resistance-Proof Antibacterials”

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Wednesday, November 8, 2023, 1:00 to 2:00 PM PT

About the Speaker

Jacob Glanville is a serial entrepreneur, and computational immuno-engineer. He is the Founder and CEO of Centivax, and was previously the Co-Founder and CEO of Distributed Bio, acquired for $104M in 2020 by Charles River Laboratories.

He has developed multiple seminal methods in the fields of high-throughput antibody repertoire sequencing (PNAS 2009), repertoire decoding algorithms (Nature 2017), single-cell TCR receptor & phenotype sequencing (Nature Biotech, 2014), deconstructing genetic variation in the adaptive immune system (Nature Communications 2015, Nature Reports 2016, PNAS 2011, TI 2017), and computationally guided antibody library engineering (JMB 2011, JMB 2013, COSB 2015). He is the inventor of Centivax Universal Vaccine IP, the Centivax bnAb IP portfolio, the CRL SuperHuman discovery library technology, the CRL Tumbler technology, the Twist TAO technology, the Twist GPCR libraries, the Isogenica VHH technology, and the AbCheck AbAccel technology He has been awarded a Gates Foundation Grand Challenge “Ending the Pandemic Threat,” a National Institute of Health Principle Investigator for an NIH SBIR, a recipient of the 2021 Medical Technology Enterprise Consortium “Prototype of the Year Award” for “Technology Development with Outstanding Progress and High Military Need,” Stanford University Scientific Advisory Committee member for the Sean Parker Center for Allergy and Asthma Research, a Scientific Advisory Board member for the University of San Francisco's Biotechnology program, an affiliate professor of University of San Carlos, a repeat Gates Foundation/Stanford University Computational and Systems Immunology Grant Recipient while a PhD Candidate with Mark Davis at Stanford, a Recipient of Pfizer Achievement award 2010 while Principal Scientist at Pfizer, and has been a course-founding instructor and guest lecturer for multiple graduate-level applied computational and systems immunology courses at Stanford and UCSF.

QB3 Webinar: Jeanne Paz, Gladstone/UCSF. "The Role of Complement in Neural Circuit Plasticity After Brain Injury"

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is a leading cause of disability in children and adults. TBI affects 69 million people worldwide yearly and can lead to cognitive dysfunction, difficulty with sensory processing, sleep disruption, and epilepsy. Most of these adverse outcomes manifest months or years after TBI and are caused by indirect secondary injuries that develop as consequences of the initial impact. Because the primary injury is essentially irreversible, understanding where, when, and how secondary injuries develop is crucial for preventing or treating disability after TBI.

Our research program aims to address these gaps. The talk will focus on our ongoing work that suggests that after an injury to the cerebral cortex, a wave of inflammation slowly travels to a deep brain region called the thalamus, where it causes secondary damage to a subset of vulnerable thalamic neurons. This damage is responsible for long-term sequelae of brain trauma such as sleep disruption and epilepsy, and appears to be mediated primarily by the immune protein C1q. Notably, our ongoing preliminary studies suggest the female thalamus is relatively resilient to secondary injury. Might differences between female and male mouse brains hold the answers?

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Thursday, October 19, 2023, 1:00 to 2:00 PM PT

Register Now

About the Speaker

Jeanne Paz is an associate investigator at Gladstone Institutes. She is also an associate professor of neurology in the Kavli Institute for Fundamental Neuroscience at UC San Francisco.

Before joining Gladstone, Paz completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University, where she identified seizure control points in the brain. Paz earned her undergraduate and graduate degrees from Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris. As a graduate student, she studied the role of basal ganglia in regulating absence epilepsy and received an award for the best neuroscience PhD thesis in France.

QB3 Webinar: Vicki Seyfert-Margolis, RespondHealth. "How to Do Your Own Clinical Trials and Capture Real World Evidence"

Clinical trials are enormously expensive. Most companies work with CROs and start from scratch each time in defining endpoints and finding patient populations -- and still see dismal retention numbers. But now there’s a different way: the RespondHealth digital platform, which employs AI to enable research centers and companies, even startups, to design their own trials. Respond enables users to manage the complete patient journey and capture patient-reported outcomes, addressing real patient populations. The platform was developed by Vicki Seyfert-Margolis after she served as Senior Advisor for Science Innovation and Policy to the Commissioner of the FDA. Vicki herself has designed and conducted more than 25 Phase II trials, including a recent trial for metabolic disease and diabetes in the Rio Grande Valley, which had over 90% patient retention. Join us to learn how you could use Respond to design a custom, efficient clinical trial.

Vicki will be interviewed by George Rehm, director of Artera.AI and lead mentor in the QB3 early-stage mentoring program.

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Wednesday, October 11, 2023, 12:10 to 1:00 PM PT

Register Now

About the SpeakerS

Vicki Seyfert-Margolis, Ph.D. founded RespondHealth (originally My Own Med) in January 2013, based on over two years of work on a database, web and mobile application platform technology for family-based co-management of health. Previously, Dr. Seyfert-Margolis was the Senior Advisor for Science Innovation and Policy in the Office of the Commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration. While at the FDA, she oversaw the development and execution of an agency wide strategic plan for regulatory science.

Prior to the FDA, she served as Chief Scientific Officer at the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN), a non-profit consortium of researchers seeking new treatments for diseases of the immune system. At ITN, Dr. Seyfert-Margolis oversaw the development of over 20 leading edge assay development and centralized laboratory facilities, bringing them to GLP and CLIA compliance. She designed and implemented biomarker discovery studies for over 25 Phase II clinical trials across a broad array of immunologically mediated diseases including autoimmune disorders, allergy, and solid organ transplantation.

Prior to this, she served as Director of the Office of Innovative Scientific Research Technologies at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at NIH, where she worked to integrate emerging technologies into existing immunology and infectious disease programs.

Dr. Seyfert-Margolis completed her PhD in immunology at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine, and her post-doctoral fellowship work at Harvard University and the National Cancer Institute.

George Rehm is Director of Artera. AI and lead mentor in the QB3 Early-Stage Mentoring Program.

Previously, George Rehm worked as a Director at Butterfly Networks Inc. Hyperfine Research, PFS Genomics (Exact Sciences), Adamas Pharma (Supernus), crescendo Biosciences (Myriad Genetics), Decipher (Veracyte). In addition, he developed healthcare investment capability on behalf of one of Europe’s largest family offices, with stakes in venture, private equity, long-short hedge funds, and public stocks. After living and working in Europe for more than 25 years, George is now putting his experience to work supporting young firms being incubated from the UC/UCSF ecosystem from his home base in Berkeley.

Wilson Sonsini Panel: "VC Financings for Early-Stage Life Science Companies"

Please join us for a discussion of the basic terms you will encounter in a typical VC financing and a Q&A session with four VCs from the Bay Area life sciences community. What are the best ways to approach fundraising with VCs? What should founders/CEOs avoid when pitching to VCs? What do VCs look for in a life science startup company? What sort of business case/pitch is compelling, from the perspective of a VC? What do all of these investment terms mean? A brief presentation, followed by a Q&A session, moderated by Wilson Sonsini’s James Huie and Matt Kovac.

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Tuesday, October 3, 2023, 12:10 to 1:00 PM PT

About the Speakers

Zach Collins, PhD is a Principal in Mission BioCapital. He focuses on investments in early-stage biopharmaceutical companies and launching company operations in collaboration with entrepreneurs through interim executive roles. He is a board member at Jupiter Bioventures and is a board observer at Nuvig Therapeutics and Telo Therapeutics. At MBC Biolabs, Zach supports startups in their San Francisco incubator labs as an Entrepreneur Success Partner. His training is in molecular biology & genetics where he applied genome editing, single-cell sequencing, and live-imaging tools to the study of stem-cell differentiation in the vertebrate embryo. While at Harvard Medical School, Zach co-authored work that was recognized by Science as 2018’s Breakthrough of the Year. Zach holds a Ph.D. in Biological and Biomedical Sciences from Harvard University and a B.S. in Biology from George Washington University.

---

Kanad Das joined Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund in 2018 and is located in the San Francisco Bay Area. He serves as Board Member of Oncomyx in Phoenix, Actym Therapeutics in Berkeley and Libra Therapeutics in San Diego.

Kanad joined Boehringer Ingelheim from Merck (MSD) where he was Director, Business Development and Licensing in their West Coast Innovation Hub. He evaluated assets in Immuno-Oncology, Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases and Ophthalmology in the preclinical space up to human proof of concept. Kanad started his career at Genentech as a post-doctoral fellow. He then worked as a medicinal chemist at KAI Pharmaceuticals, where he was an inventor of Parsabiv, approved in 2017 for the treatment of Secondary Hyperparathyroidism. After KAI, Kanad worked at Stanford University’s SPARK program, an academic accelerator designed to take basic science discoveries and bring them to fundable assets. He received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and a B.Sc. in Chemistry from UC Berkeley.

---

James Huie is a corporate and securities partner in Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati's San Francisco office, where he has one of the most active practices in the country representing venture-backed companies. He advises life sciences and technology companies on general corporate matters, mergers and acquisitions, initial public offerings, strategic partnerships, and private equity and debt financings. He also has extensive experience in representing venture capital firms and other investors in private equity and debt financings.

James also serves on the investment committee for the firm's affiliated fund, the WS Investment Company.

---

Neena Kadaba, an entrepreneur in residence at ATP, is a science-driven investor with 15 years of experience building novel collaborations and partnerships to drive innovation. Most recently, Neena was a Director at Quark Venture, where she served on the board of Eyevensys, IOME BIO, Calcimedica, and EyeYon on behalf of the Global Health Sciences Fund and led diligence for a number of additional investments. Previously, she was the Director of Strategic Partnerships at QB3, an institute at the University of California, where she created new programs to accelerate startups and worked with QB3's venture fund, Mission Bay Capital. Prior to QB3, Neena was a Kauffman Fellow while she was an Associate in Venture Investment at Itochu Technology, Inc, the California office of Itochu, the Japanese trading company, and she began her career in venture at California Technology Ventures.

Neena received her PhD in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where she solved the structure of a novel membrane protein using x-ray crystallography and protein structure modeling. She received her undergraduate and masters’ degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in chemistry and bioengineering, respectively.

---

Matt Kovac is an associate in the San Francisco office of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, where he practices corporate and securities law. Prior to attending law school, Matt worked in the legal departments of several Bay Area tech companies.

---

Adriana Tajonar is a Vice President of Life Sciences Investing within Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Previously, Adriana was Head of External Innovation at insitro, a company utilizing machine learning and high-throughput biology for drug discovery. Before that, Adriana was a Principal at The Column Group (TCG), a life sciences venture capital firm. In her role, she focused on ideation, formation, and launch of several companies in the TCG portfolio, and served as board director or observer of several companies. Prior to that, Adriana was Entrepreneurship Program Manager at QB3 (California Institute for Quantitative Biosciences) where she managed the Startup in a Box Program. In this role, she evaluated and guided over 200 teams of scientists from top institutions in California towards starting companies in the life sciences.

Adriana obtained her PhD in the laboratory of Prof. Douglas Melton at Harvard University and earned a BS in Biology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Wilson Sonsini Panel on IP Strategy: "How Does a Company Manage Its Intellectual Property Estate?: Perspectives From In-House Counsels"

Even in the earliest stages, generating and securing intellectual property is a critical component of a company’s business plan. Many early-stage companies rely on outside counsel to do the heavy lifting, but what should be done (or not done) internally with respect to IP? What can a company do to help maximize its relationship with outside counsel, while keeping a realistic budget? How can a company best manage its research and develop teams to capture IP? When is it time to start building an internal IP team? What can be done internally to help prepare for a financing? Where can things go wrong? Here's your chance to learn from the best: Join our August 28 panel with Randy Wu of 10x Genomics, Yina Dong of Veracyte, Rachel Herder of Mammoth Biosciences and Aric Ledford of Freenome, moderated by Ali Alemozafar and Adam Cole of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati.

Livestream from Bakar Labs.

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Monday, August 28, 2023, 12:10 to 1:00 PM PT

Register Now

About the Speakers

Yina Dong is Deputy General Counsel at Veracyte, where she manages global contracting and IP strategy. Yina started her legal career at Latham & Watkins’ life sciences technology transactions group, handling licensing and partnering transactions and advising on IP matters in M&A, IPOs, follow-on offerings, and private financings. After joining IQVIA, Yina went to the dark side and became an M&A attorney, leading over 25 M&A, JV and other strategic transactions. Upon closing several acquisitions at Veracyte, Yina is now a recovering M&A attorney and is happy to be back to her roots as an IP transactions attorney. Yina has a Bachelor of Science in Bioengineering from UCSD and received her JD from Stanford Law School.

Rachel Herder is the Vice President of Intellectual Property and Associate General Counsel at Mammoth Biosciences. Co-founded by Nobel Laureate Jennifer Doudna, Mammoth Biosciences is a pre-clinical, next generation CRISPR company harnessing the diversity of nature for therapeutics, diagnostics, agriculture and beyond. Prior to joining Mammoth Biosciences, Rachel was Director of the Intellectual Property Clinic at Penn State Law and an associate patent attorney at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Rachel earned her J.D. and Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular, Developmental Biology, and Genetics from the University of Minnesota where she studied neuropeptide regulation of steroid hormone biosynthesis in Drosophila melanogaster.

Aric Ledford is a biotech-focused attorney having supported a diverse set of clients in the development and execution of IP protection strategies. His practice includes portfolio development, conducting freedom to operate and patentability analyses, analyzing competitive landscapes, and performing due diligence related to financing or IP monetization. He also has wide-ranging experience in supporting biotech companies in technology in and out-licensing, product development and marketing activities, mergers and acquisitions, strategic partnerships; and regulatory support. He’s a graduate of SCU School of Law and resides in the Bay Area.

Randy Wu is the Vice President of Intellectual Property and Litigation at 10x Genomics, where he has been in-house counsel since 2016. In his role, he is responsible for all aspects of patent procurement and enforcement, including prosecution, litigation, and licensing matters relating to a variety of cutting edge and interdisciplinary genomic technologies. Prior to his legal career, Randy was a scientist - he obtained a Ph.D. in bioinformatics from USCF relating to chromatin structure and gene regulation.

QB3 & Bakar Labs Webinar: Krishna Yeshwant, Google Ventures

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Tuesday, July 11, 2023, Noon to 1:00 PM PT

About the Speaker

Although he’s the son of two Chicago physicians, GV General Partner Krishna Yeshwant’s first love was computers. He majored in computer science at Stanford and, early in his career, helped start two successful tech companies: an electronic data interchange company acquired by Hewlett-Packard and a network security company acquired by Symantec.

Krishna’s path into medicine began in 2002 when he teamed with a group of surgeons at Mass General and Brigham and Women’s Hospitals (BWH) in Boston and wrote software to use imaging systems to guide surgical procedures. Observing the operating room and research infrastructure, he says he saw firsthand how much the healthcare system needed to change. “I saw how few resources are available and how many amazing people have committed their lives to find the way forward,” he remembers. “That experience was transformative because I learned how much we can accomplish if we bring the tech and medical worlds together.”

Krishna graduated from Harvard’s MD/MBA program and went on to serve as an attending in internal medicine at BWH. He joined Google in 2008, where he was part of a team that helped in the early days of GV’s founding and led the fund’s early commitment to investing in life sciences. “It’s exciting to see the impact of exposing technologists to the challenges and realities of patient care,” he says. “The key quality is empathy, which is critical to understanding the complexities of the healthcare world.”

Krishna helps steward the GV investing team and co-leads GV’s life sciences group. As an investor, he is interested in the entire healthcare spectrum, including care delivery, health IT, devices, diagnostics, payor/provider, and therapeutics. Krishna led GV’s early investments in Flatiron Health, Foundation Medicine, Relay Therapeutics, Beam Therapeutics, insitro, One Medical, and Aledade. He also established GV’s incubation program, which helped start companies like ROME Therapeutics and Verve Therapeutics.

Krishna is particularly excited by new research that exposes biology more clearly. “We’re in an era where we can see a path to not just treating, but curing more diseases,” he says. “It’s going to be transformative, but there is so much more to do.” He is also working on new approaches to making clinical trials more efficient and ways to bring modern software approaches to healthcare delivery.

QB3 Webinar: Isha Jain, UCSF/Gladstone. "Turning the Oxygen and Vitamin Dials"

Oxygen is both vital and toxic for life. A mismatch of oxygen supply and demand underlies countless clinical conditions ranging from inborn errors of metabolism (e.g. mitochondrial disease) to the leading causes of death (e.g. stroke, heart attacks and respiratory disease). We strive to unlock the mysteries of how the human body senses and responds to variations in oxygen levels. Using systems-level approaches, we plan to identify metabolic conditions which benefit from turning the “oxygen dial” to low or high oxygen. This will lay the groundwork to understanding the role of oxygen in aging and age-associated conditions. By viewing metabolism through the lens of oxygen, we hope to understand disease pathologies and pave the path for new therapies.

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Thursday, June 22, 2023, 1:00 to 2:00 PM PT

Register Now

About the Speaker

Isha received her undergraduate degree in Chemical and Physical Biology from Harvard University. There, she worked in the lab of Erin O’Shea on bacterial chromosome segregation. Subsequently, she joined the Harvard-MIT Program in Health Sciences and Technology. During her PhD, she worked in the labs of Vamsi Mootha and Warren Zapol, where she discovered that hypoxia could serve as a therapy for mitochondrial disorders. This work led to a Phase 1 clinical trial. Isha began as a UCSF Sandler Faculty Fellow and then became an Assistant Professor at the Gladstone Institutes and UCSF in 2021. She has received the NIH Early Independence Grant, Searle Scholar Award, Klingenstein-Simons Award, Mallinckrodt Award, and AFAR Junior Faculty Grant.

QB3 & Bakar Labs Webinar: "The Inside Track on Licensing University IP"

Founders who spin startups out of university labs frequently find themselves negotiating licenses for intellectual property they developed. Sometimes making a deal can be difficult, and it's not always the financial terms that are the sticking point. What is the person on the other side of the table thinking? What can you do to ensure you end up with a good deal in which everyone benefits? Here's your chance to learn from the best: Join our June 15 panel with Liz Alcamo of Versant Ventures, Karin Immergluck of Stanford OTL, and Corey Goodman of venBio, moderated by Shane Albright of Goodwin Law.

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Thursday, June 15, 2023, Noon to 1:00 PM

Register Now

About the Speakers

Moderator: Shane Albright

Shane Albright is a partner in Goodwin Law’s Life Sciences group. Mr. Albright represents life science and technology companies in a wide range of corporate, financial and commercial matters, with a particular emphasis on complex transactions involving intellectual property. He has extensive experience counseling clients on corporate partnering issues, strategic alliances, technology licenses and key commercial contracts, such as manufacturing and distribution agreements.

Mr. Albright regularly provides advice on licensing and commercial contract issues in connection with mergers and acquisitions, IPOs and other public financings. He also represents emerging growth companies and their investors in venture financings, other funding transactions and general corporate matters. Mr. Albright’s clients include companies in the biopharmaceutical, medical device, diagnostics, hardware, software, medical instrumentation, digital health, vaccine and research reagent spaces, as well as entities that fund or conduct medical research.

Prior to joining Goodwin in 2018, Mr. Albright was a partner at DLA Piper.

Liz Alcamo

Liz is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Versant and Chief Operating Officer at the firm's portfolio company, Seawolf Therapeutics.

Prior to becoming an EIR, Liz was SVP of Corporate Development at Versant’s Inception Therapeutics discovery engine, where she drove new company sourcing and played an integral role in operationalizing two Series A companies. Previously, Liz held various leadership roles driving corporate, science and IP strategy and business development at several emerging gene therapy companies including Avalanche Biotechnologies (now Adverum), 4D Molecular Therapeutics and CODA Biotherapeutics.

Liz has a B.S. from Williams College and completed a Ph.D. in immunology at MIT and postdoctoral research in neurobiology at Stanford University. She is also a registered patent agent and brings over 14 years of experience serving as an IP strategy advisor to biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies, six of those while practicing patent law as a member of the boutique life sciences firm Bozicevic, Field and Francis LLP.

Corey Goodman

Corey Goodman is a scientist, educator, and entrepreneur. He spent 25 years as Professor of Biology at Stanford University and Evan Rauch Chair of Neurobiology at U.C. Berkeley (Dept. of Molecular and Cell Biology), where he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, Head of the Neurobiology Division, and co-founder and Director of the Wills Neuroscience Institute. He is currently Adjunct Professor of Neuroscience in the Wills Neuroscience Institute at U.C. Berkeley. Dr. Goodman is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and American Philosophical Society, and recipient of many honors including the Alan T. Waterman Award, Canada Gairdner Biomedical Award, March-of-Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology, Reeve-Irvine Research Medal, and Dawson Prize in Genetics from Trinity College Dublin. Dr. Goodman co-founded seven biotechnology companies (the first being Exelixis), and led one of them (Renovis) as President and CEO from a private to public company until its acquisition. He was recruited to be President and founder of Pfizer’s Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center and a member of Pfizer’s executive leadership team.

Today, Dr. Goodman is a Managing Partner of venBio Partners LLC. He is Chair of the Board of ALX Oncology, Tollnine, and Second Genome. He is a member of the Board of Checkmate and NFlection. He chaired Labrys Biologics until its acquisition by Teva. Amongst his many public policy roles, Dr. Goodman is a member of the University of California Innovation Council, a member of the board of the Pacific Institute, and former Chair of both the California Council on Science and Technology (advising the California governor and state legislature) and the National Research Council’s (NAS) Board on Life Sciences (advising the federal government).

Karin Immergluck

Karin Immergluck is the Associate Vice Provost leading the Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) at Stanford University. The OTL comprises an internationally renowned team of professionals responsible for managing all aspects of Stanford’s intellectual property portfolio, including IP protection, marketing and business development, industry research contracting, strategic alliance management, and licensing to new Stanford startups as well as established companies. The OTL has also launched its new High Impact Technology (HIT) Program to fund and mentor translational and proof of concept projects.

Prior to joining Stanford five years ago, Karin spent 17 years working in technology transfer within the University of California system, ultimately leading the UCSF Office of Technology Management as Executive Director. Karin is also an active participant in TenU, a trans-Atlantic tech transfer consortium, and serves as a non-executive Board member of Edinburgh Innovations. She also serves as a Board member of the non-profit Academic Venture Exchange, which facilitates matchmaking between entrepreneurial university inventors and seasoned entrepreneurs who have experience leading nascent startups. Karin received both her PhD in Developmental Molecular Genetics, under the combined tutelage of Dr. J. Michael Bishop (UCSF) and Dr. Ernst Hafen (now at ETH Zurich), and her MSc in Biochemistry from the University of Zurich in Switzerland.

QB3 Webinar: Jay Keasling, UC Berkeley/LBNL

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Wednesday, May 24, 2023, Noon to 1:00 PM PST

About the Speaker

Jay D. Keasling is a professor of chemical engineering and bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He is also associate laboratory director for biosciences at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and chief executive officer of the Joint BioEnergy Institute. He is considered one of the foremost authorities in synthetic biology, especially in the field of metabolic engineering.

A pioneer in the field of synthetic biology, Keasling’s research focuses on engineering microorganisms to produce useful chemicals. During the early 2000s, Keasling led a UC Berkeley research team that engineered yeast to synthetically produce artemisinin, the powerful anti-malarial drug. Researchers in his group are now using the same technology to produce biofuels and bioproducts from lignocellulosic biomass.

Keasling was elected a member of the National Academy of Engineering in 2010 for developing synthetic biology tools to engineer the antimalarial drug artemisinin.

QB3 Webinar: Daphne Koller, insitro. "Machine Learning for Identifying Translatable Biomarkers and Targets"

Modern medicine has given us effective tools to treat some of the most significant and burdensome diseases. At the same time, it is becoming consistently more challenging and more expensive to develop new therapeutics. A key factor in this trend is that we simply don't understand the underlying biology of disease, and which interventions might meaningfully modulate clinical outcomes and in which patients. To achieve this goal, we are bringing together large amounts of high content data, taken both from humans and from human-derived cellular systems generated in our own lab. Those are then used to learn a meaningful representation of biological states via cutting edge machine learning methods, which enable us to make predictions about novel targets, coherent patient segments, and the clinical effect of molecules. Our ultimate goal is to develop a new approach to drug development that uses high-quality data and ML models to design novel, safe, and effective therapies that help more people, faster, and at a lower cost.

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Wednesday, April 19, 2023, 1:00 to 2:00 PM PT

About the Speaker

Daphne Koller is CEO and Founder of insitro, a machine learning-driven drug discovery and development company. Daphne is also co-founder of Engageli, was the Rajeev Motwani Professor of Computer Science at Stanford University, where she served on the faculty for 18 years, the co-CEO and President of Coursera, and the Chief Computing Officer of Calico Labs. She is the author of over 300 refereed publications with an h-index of 146. Daphne was recognized as one of TIME Magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2012. She received the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship in 2004, the ACM Prize in Computing in 2008, the ACM AAAI Allen Newell Award in 2019, and the AnitaB.org Technical Leadership Abie Award Winner in 2022. She was inducted into the National Academy of Engineering in 2011 and elected a fellow of the American Association for Artificial Intelligence in 2004, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2014, and the International Society of Computational Biology in 2017.

QB3 & Bakar Labs Webinar: Joe DeRisi, UCSF & CZ Biohub. "Antibody Profiling for Investigation of Autoimmune and Infectious Disease"

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Tuesday, April 4, 2023, 12:00 to 1:00 PM PT

Register Now

About the Speaker

Dr. Joseph DeRisi is the President of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF. He employs an interdisciplinary approach combining genomics, bioinformatics, biochemistry, and bioengineering to study parasitic and viral infectious diseases in a wide range of organisms, for the purpose of discovering and studying novel or unrecognized biothreats. Early work in his lab contributed to the identification of the SARS coronavirus in 2003. In a parallel effort, Dr. DeRisi studies P. falciparum, the causative agent of the most deadly form of human malaria, in order to develop faster, better therapeutic options. Dr. DeRisi was one of the early pioneers of DNA microarray technology and whole genome expression profiling and is nationally recognized for his efforts to make this technology accessible and freely available.

He received a B.A. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (1992) from the University of California, Santa Cruz, and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry (1999) from Stanford University prior to joining the UCSF faculty as a Sandler Fellow in 1999. Dr. DeRisi was a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator from 2006- 2016, which he left to take on the role of Co-President of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, a non-profit medical research organization affiliated with UCSF, UC Berkeley, and Stanford University. Dr. DeRisi is a member of the National Academy of Science, the National Academy of Medicine, and the National Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. DeRisi is continuing to pursue efforts toward data-driven diagnostics for infectious disease, and recently, autoimmune disorders as well.

More recently, through his role as Co-President of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, he has redirected his efforts to providing large-scale, rapid turnaround clinical COVID19 testing through a UCSF/Biohub collaboration called the “CLIAHUB.” As of November, the CLIAHUB has returned over 155,000 clinical results to Californians, in addition to thousands of full length SARS-CoV-2 genomes for genomic epidemiological studies, including studies of underserved and vulnerable populations. Starting in 2022, he has accepted the position as sole President of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub.

QB3 Webinar: Lucas de Breed, American Cancer Society BrightEdge Fund. "Trends in Oncology Investing"

Oncology remains a major sector for early-stage investment, on the basis of increasingly deeper insight into disease complexity as well as growing disparities in outcomes. The American Cancer Society's BrightEdge Fund brings a patient-centric lens to breakthrough innovation, ensuring that new solutions match their deep understanding of patient unmet need. (BrightEdge is the sponsor of our current Golden Ticket to Bakar Labs.)

For BrightEdge the top areas of interest are:

• Novel therapies for cancer types that have been disproportionally underserved (pediatric, pancreatic, brain, etc.).

• Approaches that improve response to existing therapies.

• Technologies that support prevention and early detection or that can help reduce patient burden.

But given their double bottom line (patient-level impact and financial return), several factors are important, including strong proof of concept data, clear directionality for clinical development, and at least line of sight on reimbursement. Lucas de Breed is Director of Investments at BrightEdge. Join us on March 20 to learn what his investing priorities are and why.

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Monday, March 20, 2023, 4:00 to 5:00 PM PT

About the Speaker

Lucas de Breed is Director, Investments at BrightEdge — the ACS’s mission-driven venture capital fund.

Dr. de Breed has over 15 years of experience in Oncology, as a scientist, strategy consultant, VC and entrepreneur.

Previously, as a Manager at Deallus, a global strategy consulting firm for large biopharma clients, he led the Oncology business unit and founded the firm’s East Coast office. As an Investment Director at INKEF Capital, a leading European VC firm, Lucas led the allocation of $120 million in US and European therapeutics start-ups, served on the respective Boards, and realized a number of exits. At INKEF, he was instrumental in setting the investment strategy, building out the investment team and in expanding assets under management to $600 million. He is also the Founder of August Care, developing outcomes-based financial solutions for high-cost precision medicine.

Dr. de Breed holds a PhD in Molecular Oncology from University College London and an MBA from Stanford University. He has also co-authored several scientific papers. He is a Director at Quantum Leap Healthcare, a 501c(3)charitable organization integrating high-impact clinical research with patient care to improve and save lives; a member of the Scientific Advisory Board or Promontory Therapeutics, a clinical stage oncology company; and a member of the Advisory Board of FIRST, an early stage investment fund for cardiovascular and regenerative medicine.

QB3 Webinar: Manfred Lee, Mirvie. "Technology-Market Fit in Life Science"

Manfred Lee is a mentor in our early-stage support program for life science entrepreneurs. He will discuss a framework for finding and refining product-market fit for novel life science technologies that draws from his experiences in the genomics (Ion Torrent), medical imaging (Butterfly), and molecular diagnostics (Mirvie) industries.

Where & When

Zoom Webinar
Thursday, March 9, 2023, 4:00 to 5:00 PM PT

About the Speaker

Manfred is an accomplished producteer with a 15-year history of successfully developing and launching innovative life science research, molecular diagnostic, and medical device technologies and matching those innovations with large, underserved markets. Following his graduate studies at UC Berkeley in Infectious Diseases and Immunology, Manfred served as a management consultant for 6 years at L.E.K. Consulting where he advised clients in the areas of genomics, proteomics, and molecular diagnostics. After consulting, Manfred held several product management roles at Ion Torrent/ThermoFisher (next generation DNA sequencing), Butterfly (point of care ultrasound), Cirina (early cancer detection), and Mirvie (pregnancy health). Manfred is currently COO of Mirvie where he is responsible for product management, program management, clinical operations, and business development.