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 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. He oversaw many drug discovery and development projects targeting major global aging-related health issues including obesity, diabetes, and heart disease.

John is a Managing Partner at 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, Totus Medicines, Opna Bio, and Parthenon Therapeutics, and is a Board Observer at 1859 Inc., Artisan Bio, Ori Biotech, Kytopen, and Stride Bio. 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 brings over 25 years of expertise in creating and leading diverse technology teams and has mentored some of the best computational scientists in the industry. Most recently, John served as the Chief Technology Officer of Kaleido Bioscience, where he created and led the new technology platform group comprising computational biology, software engineering, compound management, and lab robotics. Prior to Kaleido, he helped reshape the data and computational strategy at Novartis and developed several unique industry-leading computational approaches, which resulted in more than 100 publications across the informatics group.

John received his Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from University College London before embarking on postdoctoral studies in the then-emerging field of computational chemistry at GlaxoSmithKline.

Jason Pontin is a Partner at DCVC, where his belief that emerging technologies and new scientific insights can solve urgent challenges and expand human possibilities inspires his investments in Deep Tech and life sciences companies. Among his operational responsibil­i­ties at DCVC, he helps portfolio companies tell their stories.

He was the first investor in Totus Medicines, where he is a founding board member, and in Menten​.AI. Before joining DCVC, he was a senior partner and senior advisor at Flagship Pioneering in Cambridge, MA, where he worked with the enterprise’s therapeutics and agriculture companies.

Jason was CEO and editor in chief of MIT Technology Review and editor of Red Herring magazine, the bible of the dot​.com boom. At MIT, he founded MIT Solve, the Institute’s open innovation platform, which deploys capital and other resources toward solutions to grand challenges; chaired the MIT Enterprise Forum, the Institute’s global entrepreneur­ial community; and was senior advisor to MIT’s 16^th President, Susan Hockfield.

Neil Dhawan is the Co-founder and CEO 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.