Academic & Industry Advisors


Carl Novina, MD, PhD

Principal Investigator, Cancer Immunology & Virology, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Associate Professor, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute & Harvard Medical School

Associate Member, Broad Institute of Harvard/MIT

Founder, SanaRx BioTherapeutics

Founder, Dynamic Cell Tx

Fred Mermelstein, PhD

Entrepreneur in Residence, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute

Founder and Partner of Ascentia Asset Management, Inc.

Founder and Former CEO/President of Javelin Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Chairman, Courage Tx

Robert Distel, PhD

Special Advisor for Technology Development at Dana-Farber

Former Director of Dana-Farber Translational Research Laboratory

Pushkal Garg, MD

Chief Medical Officer, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals

Kelly Girskis, PhD

Vice President, Research at Tekla Capital Management

Yije Ma, PhD

Sr. Director, Head of Business Development, Strategic Partnerships, CANbridge Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Steven Neier, PhD

Principal, Binney Street Capital

Co-Founder, NextRNA Therapeutics

Co-Founder, SAB Member, SanaRx Biotherapeutics

Student Leadership


Luke Murphy

PhD Candidate, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Harvard University

Bingchen Li

Research Fellow, Cancer Genetics, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School

Shuhan Huang

PhD Candidate, Neuroscience, Harvard University

Ilzat Ali

PhD Candidate, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Harvard University

Past Student Leadership


Benedetto DiCiaccio

Director (2022-2023)

PhD Candidate, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Harvard University

Lani Pilobello, PhD

Director (2021-2022)

Scientist II, Biotech Newco

Jeff Haswell, PhD

Director (2018-2019)

Principal Scientist, Arbor Biotechnologies

Kurt Kongthong

Associate Director (2022-2023)

PhD Candidate, Immunology, Harvard University

Madalyn Won, PhD

Director (2019-2021)

Associate at McKinsey & Company

Kelly Girskis, PhD

Director (2016-2018)

Vice President, Research at Tekla Capital Management

Michael Mazzola

Associate Director (2022-2023)

PhD Candidate, Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Harvard University

Erin Sharoni

Associate Director (2019-2021)

Master of Bioethics candidate, Harvard Medical School; Chief Product Officer, FOXO

Alex Simon, PhD

Founder (2014-2016)

Founder and Managing Director at Century Press, BD at RetinaLogik

Alan Fowler, PhD

Associate Director (2022-2024)

Research Fellow, Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School