Board & Team
Science Veterans & Experience in IVS & RNAs
Board of Directors
Veterans of RNA therapeutics & Directed Evolution of oligonucleotides
Bruce Eaton
Chairman
- Acting Chairman of Velocity Sciences
- Executive Vice President, Chief Business Officer & Chief Technology Officer of Editas Medicine
- Lead scientist on the creation of the first RNA aptamer in the clinic
- Created the modified libraries licensed to SomaLogic which are the foundation for their SOMAmer-based proteomics platform
Gerald Joyce
- President and CEO, Salk Institute; Professor - Jack H. Skirball Center for Chemical Biology and Proteomics
- World leader in nucleic acid in-vitro selection and the study of RNA, ribozymes, and the origin of life
- Previous director of the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation
- Member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Medicine
Vic Meyer
- President and Chief Scientific Officer at Chroma Medicine and an Advisor at Atlas Ventures
- Previous CTO at Editas Medicine
- Led a technology-focused target discovery and target validation group at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research
- Vic held various positions at Millennium, Akceli and Corning
Ted Tarasow
- Chief Technology Officer at Inscripta
- Led successful multidisciplinary teams to in drug discovery, lead optimization, and transfer to cGMP production
- Member of the team that created Macugen
- Long history with SELEX and RNA
- Leadership roles at HealthTell, Tethys Biosciences, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, and NeXstar Pharmaceuticals
David Brunel
CEO
- CEO and Board Member of Velocity Sciences
- Co-Founder and previous CEO at Biodesix and SomaLogic
- Board Chair at KromaTid, AmideBio, and Anark Corporation
- Board member at HepQuant
Executive Leadership
Deep experience in RNA Synthesis, Directed Evolution, Assays, and Therapeutics
David Brunel
CEO
- CEO and Board Member of Velocity Sciences
- Co-Founder and previous CEO at Biodesix and SomaLogic
- Board Chair at KromaTid, AmideBio, and Anark Corporation
- Board member at HepQuant
Jill Clark
CFO
- Jill Clark has served as Chief Financial Officer at Velocity Sciences since its inception in 2014
- 20+ years experience as the financial leader of biotech and tech start-ups guiding companies through multiple VC/private rounds and successful exits via M&A & IPO
- Leadership roles at Brandscreen Pte Ltd (Singapore & Sydney), Replidyne Inc., Sitera Inc. and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
- Jill began her career with Pricewaterhouse Coopers
Tony Bartlett
Vice President Strategy & Collaborations
I am a technology explorer and market innovator with a broad and sometimes a deep understanding across various facets of the life-sciences sector. Knowledge, experience and an extensive trusted network of academic, public- and private industry connections have been built over 40 years. My passion is in creating new value by working collaboratively with companies and organisations that seek to leverage new discoveries or technologies, in the process of technical and commercial validation and early market development. I’ve supported disruptive technology providers such as IGEN, Affymetrix, SomaLogic, Olink and many others. Life science-, bio-pharmaceutical research, as well as diagnostic development and public/population health management sectors make up my playground.
Dan Feldheim
VP Research and Bioinformatics
- Former Professor of Chemistry, University of Colorado-Boulder
- Co-inventor on patents for cell- and nuclear- targeting nanoparticles and the use of nanoparticle templates to fabricate spherical nucleic acid capsules
- Awarded fellowships by the David & Lucile Packard, Arnold & Mabel Beckman, and W. M. Keck Foundations
- Co-founded 3 biotech companies
Jim Heil
Director - Research Chemistry
- Jim began his career in the manufacturing of proteins and peptides, for use in therapeutics
- He transitioned to oligonucleotide synthesis, surface chemistry and assay development
- He has developed novel in-vitro selection methods using modified RNA and was instrumental in developing the guide-RNA methods acquired by Editas
- He has worked at Amgen, Chiron, Gilead Sciences, and SomaLogic
Keith Jarvis
VP Process Chemistry
- Keith has led oligonucleotide related process development and production groups at Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals, Sirna Therapeutics, Merck Research Laboratories and miRagen Therapeutics
- Most recently, he was Senior Director of Process Chemistry at Editas Medicine responsible for high throughput small scale guide RNA production, the development of novel chemical modifications to enhance delivery, guide-RNA process development and large scale GMP manufacturing
Allison Weiss
Director Assays & Applications
- Allison has 20+ years of experience building Aptamer-based technology for large-scale proteomics
- She directed development of qPCR, microarray assays, and an NGS-based assay measuring over 5,000 multiplexed analytes
- Created custom NGS pipelines and analysis tools
- Designed workflow-based database applications and infrastructure to support industrial scale reagent discovery and innovation
- Managed high-throughput screening and target-binding assays
- Built collaborative, productive teams and brings proficiency in project execution from concept through feasibility