Chief Scientific Officer and Founder

Energesis Pharmaceuticals

January 2010 - present

• Therapeutic drugs for Obesity & Diabetes that increase the amount of brown+beige adipocytes (brown fat). A healthy/lean level of brown fat promotes metabolic health (obesity,diabetes,cardiovascular)
• Agents that increase brown fat (increase metabolic rate) synergize with GLP-1s (decrease food intake)
• Awarded ~$10M in US NIH & DoD grants
• NIH SBIR Ph2, In Vivo Proof of Concept and Target Identification Using Small Molecule Stimulators of Brown Adipogenesis (PI)
• NIH SBIR Ph1, Development of Novel Brown Adipocyte Recruiters for the Treatment of Obesity (PI)
• US Department of Defense (DoD) Health Program SBIR Ph2, Pre-Clinical Optimization of Human Brown Adipocyte Cell Therapy (PI)
• NIH SBIR Ph2, Optimization and Pre-Clinical Studies of a Protein Therapeutic for Recruiting Brown Adipocytes (PI)
• NIH SBIR Ph2, Establishing In Vivo Proof of Concept of Brown Adipogenesis Using Approved Drugs (PI)
• US DoD/Army STTR Ph2, Cell Culture Approaches to Generating Brown Adipose Tissue for Autologous Transplantation (PI)
• US DoD/Army STTR Ph1, Cell Culture Approaches to Generating Brown Adipose Tissue for Autologous Transplantation (PI)
• Research collaboration with Novo Nordisk: Characterization of biological activities of proteins secreted by human brown adipocytes
• Research collaboration with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, J&J Innovation: Identification of biological compounds that stimulate the recruitment of new brown adipocytes
• MLSC Milestone Achievement Program, Therapeutic efficacy of novel agents in animal disease model
• NIH SBIR Ph1, Target Identification of Proteins and Peptides Capable of Recruitment of Brown Adipocytes (PI)
• NIH SBIR Ph1, Identifying Novel Targets for Recruitment of Brown Adipocytes (PI)
• US Federal Therapeutic Discovery Project Grant, Discovery of Novel Brown Fat Targeting Drugs for Obesity
• Mentor to MassChallenge startups since 2011
• MassChallenge Global Startup Competition winner 2010
• Boston University Ignition Award winner 2010

Associate Director, Preclinical Research, Pharmacology, Biology

GSK

February 2006 - December 2009

Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, then Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, a GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) company
• Development of therapeutic drugs for diseases of aging, diabetes and mitochondrial diseases
• Development of small molecule SIRT1 activators: in vitro (enzymatic, cellular) and in vivo (mouse) pharmacology, efficacy assessment
• Development of biomarkers for SIRT1 activation in early clinical studies
• Established external collaborations (40+)
• Contributed to successful Series C VC financing, IPO (NASDAQ: SIRT), 2007 & acquisition by GlaxoSmithKline PLC (GSK), $720 million, 2008

Scientific Director

AdipoGenix, Inc.

January 2005 - February 2006

• Developing therapeutics for obesity
• Responsible for in-house molecular and cellular biology activities and assay development
• Led all pharmacology activities, preclinical (analytics, pharmacokinetics, in vitro ADME, in vivo efficacy)
• Participated in Series A VC fundraising

Head of Target Discovery Lab & Project Leader - Obesity, Metabolic & Cardiovascular Diseases

Novartis Pharmaceuticals

April 2001 - December 2004

Co-Founder and Senior Research Investigator, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, Inc. (NIBRI)
• Head of Target Discovery-Validation Lab, Diabetes and Metabolism (DM)
• Bioenergetics-Mitochondria Project Leader, DM - leading 22 FTEs
• Mouse Forward Genetics Project Leader, collab. with GNF-La Jolla
• Project Management Training, George Washington University
• Toxicology in Drug Discovery, American Chemical Society
• Leadership Training: Presentations With Power, WD Communications

University of Geneva

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

University of Geneva

Ph.D., Medical Biochemistry and Exercise Physiology (Faculty of Medicine)

University of Geneva

Specialization in Medical Biology (Faculty of Medicine), Biomedical research

University of Geneva

M.S., Biochemistry (Faculty of Sciences)

Obesity and diabetes. Pharmacology of adipose tissue b-adrenergic receptors (GPCR).

University of Geneva

B.Sc., Biochemistry (Faculty of Sciences)

Harvard Medical School

Post-doctoral Fellowship

Postdoctoral Fellow in Medicine, BIDMC Hospital, Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism