Before joining Totus, Simon served as Chief Investment Officer at Metagenomi (NASDAQ: MGX), where he successfully led private capital raises and the IPO process, contributing to over $1 billion in equity raised throughout his career with over 15 years of experience in the biotech sector. Prior to Metagenomi, Simon held the same role at Cellectis (NASDAQ: CLLS), where he directed the US IPO and capital markets strategy, as well as the spin-off and IPO of Calyxt (NASDAQ: CLXT) now Cibus (NASDAQ: CBUS). His background includes key positions at Trout Group and Trout Capital, specializing in investor relations for the life sciences industry. Simon holds a Master of Science in Public Health from the London School of Economics and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the University of Westminster, London, UK.

Zelanna, was most recently Chief Medical Officer at Replicate Bioscience and has 20 years’ experience in oncology drug development across a broad platform of solid tumor and hematologic indications and drug types. Before joining Replicate, she was Chief Medical Officer at Alpine Immune Sciences and, before Alpine, she was Senior Vice President of Clinical Development at Iovance Biotherapeu­tics, where she led development programs in non-small-cell lung cancers, head and neck cancers, and combination strategies. Prior to Iovance, she spent nearly nine years at Pfizer, where she held positions of increasing responsibil­ity in global clinical development and worked on three successful global registrational studies as well as additional work across numerous other successful oncology programs. 

Prior to joining industry, Zelanna was an associate professor at the University of California, Davis. She earned her M.D. from the University of Toronto, where she completed her residency in radiation oncology at Princess Margaret Hospital. She also has a Master’s degree in Healthcare Organization Leadership from UCSD. She is an inventor on multiple patents.

Tom Knudsen is the Chief Business Officer at Totus Medicines, responsible for licensing and partnerships. Prior to joining Totus Medicines, Dr. Knudsen served as Senior Vice President of Corporate Strategy and Business Development at Catalyst Biosciences and before that he held leadership positions in big pharma at Novo Nordisk, strategy consulting at Deloitte and co-founded a software company. Beyond deal making, Dr. Knudsen has experience across the biotech/​pharma value chain from early drug discovery through to phase 3 clinical development.

Nassim Usman is the Chief Executive Officer & President of Totus Medicines.

Before joining Totus Medicines, Dr. Usman served as President, CEO and Board member at Catalyst Biosciences (NASDAQ:CBIO, now Gyre Therapeutics, NASDAQ:GYRE). Dr. Usman has an extensive background in C‑Suite management (CSO, COO, CEO and Principal Financial Officer), Board membership on and venture capital investing (Morgenthaler Ventures) in several private and public companies including Sirna Therapeutics (acquired by Merck) and Principia Biopharma (acquired by Sanofi). Dr. Usman currently serves on the Board of GYRE and the advisory boards of two private biotechnol­ogy companies. During his career, he has advanced several drugs into clinical development, executed multiple licensing deals, and raised capital through private and public financings. Dr. Usman received his B.Sc. and Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from McGill University and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at MIT.

Kiersten is a scientist-investor focused on developing deep-tech platforms in ther­a­peu­tics, agriculture and food, and industrial biotech­nology. She works with entre­pre­neurs to help them launch their businesses at their foundation and/​or to support them through successive stages.

Prior to co-founding DCVC Bio, Kiersten was an investor for a major life science firm, was a scientist, and has co-founded a series of life science companies over her career. Kiersten serves on several company boards and as a director on not-for-profit boards such as the Danforth Center for Plant Sciences and the Keystone Symposia SAB. She holds a PhD in molecular biology and genetics and an MBA from the University of Alberta.

Dr. Tabernero is the chairman of the Cancer Core Europe Board of Directors and served as President of ESMO (European Society for Medical Oncology) from 2018 – 2019 and its Executive Board, for many years. He is also a member of the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO), and has been appointed as member of several Educational and Scientific Committees of ESMO, ASCO, AACR, AACR/NCI/EORTC, ASCO Gastrointesti­nal, and ESMO-GI/WCGIC meetings. 

As the Head of the Medical Oncology Department at the Vall d’Hebron Barcelona Hospital Campus and Director of the Vall d’Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO), Dr. Tabernero has been Principal Investigator of several Phase I pharmacody­namic studies and translational projects with tumor-directed targeted therapies and immune therapies.

Dr. Shokat is a Professor in the Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology department and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator with the University of California, San Francisco. He was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences (2010), the National Academy of Medicine (2011), and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2011). He commercial­ized discoveries from his laboratory through co-founding several biotechnol­ogy companies, including Araxes Pharma, eFFECTOR Therapeutics, Erasca, Intellikine, Kumquat Biosciences, Kura Oncology, Mitokinin, Revolution Medicines, and Wellspring Biosciences. He leads the Shokat lab at UCSF, which uses chemical genetics to study and target signaling proteins, with the aim of finding new ways to treat human diseases. 

Dr. Rugo is a medical oncologist specializing in breast cancer research and treatment. She is a professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology and Oncology at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, where she is also the director of Breast Oncology and Clinical Trials Education.

Dr. Rugo is a principal investigator of multiple clinical trials focusing on novel targeted therapeutics to improve the treatment of breast cancer, publishing widely in this area. Her research interests include immunother­apy and combinations of targeted agents to treat breast cancer, as well as management of toxicity. She is co-chair of the Safety Committee for the multicenter adaptively randomized phase II I‑SPY2 trial, co-chair of the Triple Negative Working Group of the Translational Breast Cancer Research Consortium (TBCRC), and a member of the Alliance breast committee.

Mia Wang is the Associate Vice President, Finance & Corporate Controller at Totus Medicines. Mia has over 15 years of experience in the biotech industry across private and public biotech companies. Mia previously served as the Senior Director of Finance and Accounting at Quince Therapeutics (QNCX) and led their IPO efforts. Before Mia’s career in industry, she spent over 7 years at EY where she worked with public and pre-IPO life science and biotech clients. Mia holds a Graduate Diploma in Public Accountancy and a Bachelor of Commerce in Accounting from McGill University.

Dr. Maraganore brings over three decades of experience and most recently served as the founding CEO and director of Alnylam Pharmaceuti­cals. He also currently serves as Chair Emeritus of the Biotechnol­ogy Innovation Organization (BIO).

At Alnylam, Maraganore led the company’s pioneering efforts to advance RNA interference therapeutics, bringing five approved products to market and building $25 billion in market capitaliza­tion. He has also held positions at Biogen, where he invented bivalirudin–a direct-acting thrombin inhibitor–and at Millennium Pharmaceuti­cals, in several senior leadership roles.

The founder and CEO of DG Medicines, Dr. Hale has advanced several programs across cardiovascu­lar, oncology, immunology, and neurodegen­er­a­tion in his 20+ years in drug discovery. He is co-inventor of a transforma­tive DNA-encoded library (DEL) and screening technology that has since become ubiquitous in the industry as the gold standard for encoded-small-molecule discovery. 

Previously, he was the senior vice president, global head of R&D for Cambridge-based Dewpoint Therapeutics. Before that, Dr. Hale was CSO of Ensemble Therapeutics, where he built a drug discovery platform supporting six major collaborations that raised over $80 million in non-dilutive capital. He was also responsible for initiating and advancing internal and partnered programs that leveraged DNA-encoded macrocyclic compound collections and a massively parallel screening process. Before joining Ensemble, Dr. Hale was at Praecis Pharmaceuti­cals, where he helped advance oncology programs, including Plenaxis™, which was approved for prostate cancer prior to an acquisition by GSK.

Mr. Crossan is the founder of Dayhoff Labs, an Operating Partner at DCVC, and a scientific advisory board member at Danaher. He is an advisor to a number of startups, including Synteny and quantum software company Riverlane. Previously, he was Vice President of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning at GSK focused on early discovery. 

Prior to this, he helped build DeepMind’s applied team focused on bringing DeepMind’s technology into Google and was a founding member of the AlphaFold team. Before DeepMind, Steve spent several years at Google working on Google Maps, Gmail, and Google Search.

Dr. Cantley’s work has helped define the field of signal transduction, and he notably discovered the PI3K pathway and its role in cancer. He previously co-founded Agios Pharmaceuti­cals, Petra Pharma, and Volastra Therapeutics. 

Dr. Cantley has been the recipient of multiple awards. For the discovery of PI3K, he received the inaugural $3M Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, an honor that ​“recognizes excellence in research aimed at curing intractable diseases and human life.” He is a Professor in the Department of Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Cancer Cell Biology program.

Dr. Bowden is the Chief Medical Officer at Remix Therapeutics, a private biotechnol­ogy company, developing small molecule therapies designed to reprogram RNA processing and treat disease. From 2014–2021 he was the Chief Medical Officer at Agios Pharmaceuti­cals where he led clinical development activities that resulted in the approvals for IDH inhibitors in multiple indications including acute myeloid leukemia, cholangiocar­ci­noma and pivotal development of Pyruvate Kinase Activators. 

Previously, Dr. Bowden was vice president product development oncology, franchise lead (Signaling Group) at Genentech. During his eight years there, Dr. Bowden was responsible for the successful development of a number of novel targeted oncology medicines, including Zelboraf™ for patients with BRAF V600E positive melanoma, and Tarceva™ for patients with EGFR activating mutation positive, non-small cell lung cancer. 

From 2003 to 2006, Dr. Bowden was the executive director for EMEA (Europe, Middle East, and Africa) regions for Bristol Myers Squibb. Prior to his industry experience, Dr. Bowden was on the oncology faculty at the University of Virginia Health Sciences Center, where he participated in numerous industry and cooperative group trials. He serves on the board of directors at Akamis Bio and is on the Clinical Advisory Board of C4 Therapeutics. Dr. Bowden is board certified in internal medicine and medical oncology.

Neil Dhawan is the CSO and Co-founder of Totus Medicines, where he focuses on combining small molecule design, structural biology, genetics, biochemistry, and cell biology to design new classes of drugs to target untreatable diseases.

Prior to founding Totus Medicines, Neil co-founded Dual Therapeutics, a venture-backed biotechnol­ogy company developing the first phosphatase agonists for cancer patients. Neil co-invented and helped develop the lead drug program, small molecule agonists of PP2A, which led to a collaboration deal with Bristol Myers Squibb valued at up to $225 million.

Chhokar brings nearly 20 years of human resources experience to Totus, where she is responsible for leading the company’s people and culture strategy as Chief People Officer. Prior to Totus, Chhokar served as the vice president and head of human resources at Nurix Therapeutics, and director of human resources at InterMune, another highly successful biotechnol­ogy organization.

Tom Hughes has more than 30 years of industry experience in the discovery, development, and commercial­iza­tion of pharmaceuti­cal products. Tom has served since 2018 as President and CEO of Navitor Pharmaceuti­cals, a privately-held biopharmaceu­ti­cal company.

Prior to joining Navitor, Tom served as President and Chief Scientific Officer, and earlier as CEO of Zafgen, Inc. Prior to Zafgen, Tom held several positions at Novartis, including Global Head of the Cardiovascu­lar and Metabolic Diseases Therapeutic Area at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. In these roles, he oversaw many drug discovery and development projects targeting major global aging-related health issues including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

John Hamer is a Managing Partner at and a co-founder of DCVC Bio. Prior to joining DCVC, John was a VP at Monsanto and Managing Director of Monsanto Growth Ventures (MGV). Before joining MGV, John was a Managing Director at Burrill & Company. Prior to his career in venture capital, John was an entrepreneur, initially at Paradigm Genetics, where he joined as a visiting scientist before becoming Chief Science Officer and eventually President and CEO following the company’s IPO. After Paradigm, John founded and served as CEO of Arête Therapeutics, which earned backing from leading life science venture firms.

John started his career in academia, rising to the rank of Full Professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Purdue University, where he was a David and Lucille Packard Fellow and an NSF Presidential Faculty Fellow. John received a B.Sc. and an M.Sc. from the University of Windsor and a Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of California, Davis.

Most recently, Dr. Gottlieb served as the 23^rd Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administra­tion (FDA) from 2017 to 2019. Prior to serving as Commissioner, Dr. Gottlieb held several roles in the public and private sectors including serving as Managing Director, T.R. Winston & Company from 2013 to 2017. Dr. Gottlieb was previously the FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Medical and Scientific Affairs from 2005 to 2007, as well as the senior advisor to the FDA Commissioner from 2003 to 2004. Dr. Gottlieb is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and is a Contributor to the financial news network, CNBC. He also serves on the boards for Pfizer, Illumina, Aetion, and Tempus.

Steve Liapis is a Principal at Northpond Ventures where he focuses on biotechnol­ogy platforms and therapeutics and leads Northpond’s newco incubation efforts with the Wyss Institute at Harvard and the School of Engineering at MIT. Steve is Board Director at Kyverna Therapeutics (KYTX), Garuda Therapeutics, Incendia Therapeutics, Opna Bio, Totus Medicines, Aro Biotherapeu­tics, Weaver Biosciences. Previously, Steve was Director of Portfolio Decision Resources at Sanofi, where he led global strategy and resource prioritiza­tion for Sanofi Oncology. Prior to Sanofi, Steve was Head of Strategy at Arbor Biotechnolo­gies and served in leadership positions at L.E.K. Consulting where he focused on R&D and commercial strategy for immuno-oncology as well as advanced therapeutic modalities including gene therapy, gene editing, and cell therapy. Steve holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology from Harvard University where he trained in the laboratory of Dr. John Rinn, focusing on the discovery and molecular characteri­za­tion of novel long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs), as well as identifying the role of lncRNAs in disease pathogenesis. He also holds a Master’s Degree in genetics and plant biology from Yale University and an undergradu­ate degree in environmen­tal science from Stockton College.

John Davies was most recently Chief Data Officer at Totus Medicines and brings over 30 years of pharmaceuti­cal and biotech experience. He received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from University College London and, after his postdoctoral studies in computational chemistry, joined Novartis where he supported drug discovery projects across many disease areas. He later established a career in leading global data science teams and developing enterprise-wide, cutting-edge computational initiatives for Novartis. Prior to Totus, John was the CTO of Kaleido Bioscience, where he oversaw technical operations for Discovery.