Our Mission

Daniel Reich is senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health / National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NIH/NINDS), where he is chief of the Translational Neuroradiology Section and leads clinical studies focusing mainly on multiple sclerosis (MS). He is also an attending neuroradiologist at the NIH Clinical Center and an adjunct professor of radiology, neurology and biostatistics at Johns Hopkins University.

Daniel’s lab is focused on developing advanced MRI techniques to understand MS and adapting those techniques for clinical trials and patient care by harnessing noninvasive imaging modalities to dissect biological mechanisms of tissue damage. He has authored more than 240 peer-reviewed publications, presented more than 150 invited lectures across the world and has been principal or associate investigator of more than 50 clinical protocols.

Daniel is a founder of the North American Imaging in MS (NAIMS) Cooperative. He currently serves on the board of directors of the Americas Committee for Treatment and Research in MS and the International Advisory Committee on Clinical Trials in Multiple Sclerosis; the board of professors of the Tuscan Ph.D. program in neurosciences at the Universities of Florence, Pisa and Siena; the scientific advisory board of the Canadian Progressive Multiple Sclerosis Cohort; and the editorial board of Multiple Sclerosis Journal. He is also a federal liaison to the International Biomedical Research Alliance.

Daniel is an elected member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the 2015 winner of the American Neurological Association’s Derek Denny-Brown Young Neurological Scholar Award, the 2016 winner of the National MS Society’s Barancik Award for Innovation in MS Research and a 2017 winner of the NIH Graduate Partnership Programs Outstanding Mentor Award.

Daniel holds an M.D. from Cornell and a Ph.D. in neurophysiology from The Rockefeller University, where he studied how nerve cells in the visual system encode what we see. He completed a fellowship in diagnostic neuroradiology and residencies in radiology and neurology at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Diane Mathis is currently Professor of Immunology and holder of the Morton Grove-Rasmussen chair of immunohematology at Harvard Medical School, principal faculty member at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and associate faculty member of the Broad Institute. Her lab focuses on the fields of T cell differentiation, autoimmunity and inflammation. Throughout her career, Diane has trained more than 175 students and postdoctoral fellows.

Previously, Diane was a professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and associate research director and head of the section on immunology and immunogenetics at Joslin Diabetes Center through 2008.

Diane currently serves on the advisory boards of Rockefeller University, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Genentech, Pfizer, Amgen and several research institutes worldwide. She was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2003, the German Academy in 2007 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012. In 2016, Diane received the FASEB Excellence in Science Award.

Diane holds a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester and performed postdoctoral studies at the Laboratoire de Génétique Moléculaire des Eucaryotes in Strasbourg, France and at Stanford University Medical Center. She returned to Strasbourg at the end of 1983, establishing a laboratory at the LGME (later the Institut de Genetique et de Biologie Moleculare et Cellulaire) in conjunction with Dr. Christophe Benoist. The lab moved to the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston in 1999.

Michael Birnbaum is assistant professor in the Department of Biological Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he is also intramural faculty of the Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and associate member of the Ragon Institute.

Michael’s research focuses on understanding and manipulating adaptive immune responses in the context of cancer and infection by using a variety of strategies including protein biochemistry, protein engineering, sequencing and bioinformatics. His lab systematically examines the antigen recognition repertoire of any given T or NK cell receptor and uses this information to engineer new methods to specifically mount potent immune responses against cancer or infectious diseases.

Michael joined MIT and the Koch Institute in 2016. During his tenure at the Koch Institute, he received the AACR-TESARO Career Development Award for Immuno-Oncology Research, a Packard Fellowship in Science and Engineering, a Pew-Stewart Scholarship for Cancer Research, a V Scholar Grant from the Jimmy V Foundation and the Michelson Prize for Human Immunology and Vaccine Research. In October 2020, he received the National Institutes of Health (NIH) New Innovators Award. Michael is also a co-founder and advisor for Viralogic Therapeutics.

Michael holds an A.B. in chemical and physical biology from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in immunology from Stanford University. At Stanford, he worked in Professor K. Christopher Garcia’s laboratory, studying the molecular mechanisms of T cell receptor recognition, cross-reactivity and activation. He then conducted postdoctoral research in Professor Carla Shatz’s laboratory, studying novel roles for immune receptors expressed by neurons in neural development and neurodegenerative disease.

Richard Ransohoff is a neurologist who has dedicated his career equally to patient care and to researching the role of inflammation across the spectrum of neurological disease, in particular multiple sclerosis (MS). He served as interim chief medical officer of Abata Therapeutics until 2023, and is currently a venture partner at Third Rock Ventures, a collaborating scientist in the Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, adjunct professor of pathology, genetics and genome sciences at the Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and adjunct professor of molecular medicine at Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. At Third Rock, Richard is involved in company creation across neurological and immunological indications.

Prior to Third Rock, Richard was vice president of research and early development unit head at Biogen. There, he led a team of 45 scientists and clinicians in finding and prosecuting neuroinflammatory targets for treatment of neurological disease and pain, managing five compounds across the process of entering the clinic, from IND enabling through phase II studies. Before that, Richard was a staff member at Cleveland Clinic for 30 years, where he founded and directed the Neuroinflammation Research Center and served as staff neurologist at the Mellen Center for MS Treatment and Research.

Richard currently serves on advisory boards for the German Center for Research in Neurodegenerative Disease (DZNE), the University of California San Francisco/Gladstone Institute for Neurological Disease and the Keystone Symposia. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and member of the Association of American Physicians.

Richard was named in “Best Doctors” from 1996 to 2014 for his expertise in patient care for MS. He received the John and Samuel Bard Award in Science or Medicine, Bard College (2002), F.E. Bennet American Neurological Association Lectureship (2009), the John J. Dystel Award for MS Research from the National MS Society and American Academy of Neurology (2012) and the Distinguished Alumni Award, CWRU School of Medicine (2018), among other notable awards. He has published more than 425 scientific articles and reviews in PubMed and has trained more than 70 students and postdocs.

Richard holds an M.D. from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

Roland Martin is full professor for neurology and neuroimmunology and heads the Neuroimmunology and Multiple Sclerosis Research Section and multiple sclerosis (MS) outpatient clinic at the University Hospital of Zürich. The main interests of his group are disease mechanisms of MS, cellular immunology, disease mechanisms of JC polyoma virus-mediated progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy (PML) and developing novel treatments for MS and PML besides providing care for MS patients in one of the largest MS centers in Switzerland. He and his group developed more than 10 projects from idea to early clinical proof-of-concept trials. One of these projects, Zinbryta®, was approved for the treatment of MS by EMA, FDA and Swissmedic.

Roland is a member of the Kuratorium of the Jung Foundation for Science in Hamburg, member of the core faculty of the Wyss Center Zürich, co-founder of the Drug Discovery Network Zurich and co-founder of the Therapy Development Accelerator at the University of Zürich.

Prior to University Hospital of Zürich, Roland held full professorships at University of Hamburg as director of the Institute for Neuroimmunology and Clinical MS Research, and at Vall D´Hebron University Hospital in Barcelona as ICREA research professor.

Roland holds an M.D. from University of Würzburg. He pursued postdoctoral fellowships in immunology, virology and neuroimmunology in Würzburg and at the Neuroimmunology Branch (NIB) at the National Institutes of Health, where he worked as tenured senior investigator and section chief of the Cellular Immunology Section, NIB, NINDS and NIH until 2005.

Abbie Celniker has more than 30 years of experience in senior R&D and executive leadership roles. As partner at Third Rock Ventures, she focuses on the formation, development and strategy of portfolio companies. She has a strong commitment to culture, and prioritizes establishing experienced, diverse teams.

Prior to Third Rock, Abbie served as president and CEO of Eleven Biotherapeutics (now Sesen Bio) since 2011. Previously, Abbie was the president and CEO of Taligen Therapeutics from 2008 to 2011, when Taligen Therapeutics was acquired by Alexion Pharmaceuticals; following the acquisition, she served as Alexion’s executive vice president, translational medicine. She has served as the global head of biologics of Novartis AG, senior vice president of R&D strategy and operations of Millennium Pharmaceuticals (now Takeda) and in various roles at Wyeth (now Pfizer) and Genentech, where she started her career.

Abbie is a member of the scientific advisory board for Adimab and is a current board member and the former chair of MassBio. She is also a member of the board of directors of Cedilla Therapeutics, Goldfinch Bio, Rheos Medicines, PanOptica and Flare Therapeutics.

Abbie holds a B.A. in biology from the University of California, San Diego and a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Arizona.

David Kaufman joined Third Rock Ventures as a venture partner in 2020 and was promoted to partner in 2022. He was previously chief medical officer and head of translational development at the Bill and Melinda Gates Medical Research Institute (MRI). He helped establish the Gates MRI as a “nonprofit biotech,” developing novel drugs and vaccines for tuberculosis, malaria, enteric diseases, neonatal health, and other global health challenges. Previously, he led translational oncology at Merck Research Laboratories, where he oversaw immuno-oncology translational medicine, novel biomarker development, and global translational research partnering. He joined Merck through the Merck Drug Development and Leadership Program, where he worked across vaccines, infectious diseases, and clinical oncology. Prior to joining Merck, he was a physician in the Division of Infectious Diseases and the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and an Instructor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is a director of Hookipa Pharma and a director ex officio of the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer.

Lorence Kim is co-founder and managing partner at Ascenta Capital.

Previously, Lorence was a venture partner at Third Rock Ventures and the first chief financial officer of Moderna from 2014-2020, where he was responsible for raising $4.4 billion of capital for the company and deploying resources to discover and advance a pipeline of 24 development candidates across infectious disease, oncology, rare disease and autoimmune disease. Moderna raised, as of his departure, the three largest private financing rounds, the largest IPO and the largest follow-on offering in biotech history. Lorence joined Moderna after a 14-year investment banking career at Goldman Sachs as a managing director and co-head of the U.S. biotechnology investment banking effort. There, his responsibilities included corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions for the biotechnology industry, with several billion in equity and equity-linked financings, and more than $55 billion in M&A transactions. Lorence serves on the boards of directors of Flare Therapeutics, Cowen, Revolution Medicines and AmerisourceBergen. He is also on the board of governors of the American Red Cross. Previously, Lorence was a member of the board of directors of Seres Therapeutics.

Lorence holds an MBA in healthcare management as a Palmer Scholar from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Medicine.

For more than three decades, Mitch Finer has focused on drug development utilizing the novel platforms of cell and gene therapy, cancer immunotherapy and regenerative medicine, and he has held several senior leadership roles in companies developing these therapies.

As executive partner of MPM Capital, Mitch has been instrumental in founding, building and leading a number of MPM portfolio companies. He currently serves as the president of R&D at ElevateBio, a cell and gene therapy technology company, as well as president of BaseCamp, ElevateBio’s centralized R&D and manufacturing company. He is also the founder and former CEO and current executive chairman of Oncorus, founder and former CEO of CODA Biotherapeutics, and currently serves on several MPM portfolio company boards, including CODA, ElevateBio and Oncorus.

Prior to joining MPM, Mitch served as chief scientific officer of bluebird bio. Before that, he was CEO of Intracel Corporation and Genteric, vice president research for Cell Genesys and the Gencell division of Aventis Pharma (now Sanofi) and senior vice president of development at Novacell (now Viacyte). He also successfully co-founded a retinal disease gene therapy company, Avalanche Biotechnologies (now Adverum Biotechnologies).

Mitch has been named inventor on 15 issued U.S. patents in the field of engineered proteins, cells and viruses in the fields of gene therapy of orphan disease, regenerative medicine and immune oncology.

Mitch holds a Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from Harvard University. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Nagesh is an advisor to biotechnology companies with a particular interest in start-up and early-stage ventures focused on the discovery and development of novel therapeutics. He was mostly recently the founding employee of Scholar Rock, Inc., a biotech for which he served as CEO from 2012-2020.  He currently serves on the Boards of Casma Therapeutics, Exo Therapeutics, and Kojin Therapeutics. Previous experiences include being the founding employee and VP of Corporate Development at Avila Therapeutics, Inc. (acquired by Celgene in 2012), and a founding employee of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals where he rose to VP, Scientific & Strategic Development.

In addition, Nagesh is President of the Board of Global Arts Live, the premier presenter of international music and contemporary dance in greater Boston; co-founder and Board member of the Movement Arts Creation Studio; and he serves on the Boards of the Massachusetts Rivers Alliance and the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

Nagesh completed post-doctoral training at E.K. Shriver Center for Mental Retardation (an affiliate of Massachusetts General Hospital) and Harvard Medical School after receiving his Ph.D. in Neurobiology from the California Institute of Technology.  Nagesh received his B.A. in Biology and Chemistry from the University of Colorado, and his M.B.A. from the F.W. Olin Graduate School of Management at Babson College.

Samantha Singer is an accomplished biotechnology leader and brings to Abata more than two decades of expertise in company creation, corporate development and operations.

Previously, she was an entrepreneur-in-residence at Third Rock Ventures, where she focused on company creation across the firm’s portfolio, including interim chief operating officer roles for Thrive Earlier Detection and Celsius Therapeutics. Prior to joining Third Rock, Samantha was the chief operating officer of the Broad Institute, where she oversaw the institute’s finance, business development, alliance management, facilities, information technology, human resources and legal teams. Previously, she served as vice president for corporate strategy and chief of staff for the CEO at Biogen. At Biogen, she also held leadership roles in organization effectiveness and global supply chain. Before Biogen, Samantha was a strategy consultant at the Boston Consulting Group and as an independent consultant focused on biotech companies and biomedical academic centers.

Samantha is a member of the board of directors of the 5:01 Special Acquisition Corp and the Institute for Protein Innovation. She previously served on the board of Rodin Therapeutics (acquired by Alkermes).

Samantha holds an M.S. in molecular biology from The Rockefeller University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Shelley Chu has two decades of venture investing and operating experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Her passion is working closely with entrepreneurs to navigate scientific, clinical, regulatory, business development and commercial hurdles to bring innovative new medicines to market that address significant unmet medical needs. To date, her investments across all stages, from seed to growth, have led to seven New Drug Approvals by the FDA, nine drug candidates in ongoing clinical development, and 16 exits through mergers and acquisitions, IPOs or partnerships. During her time at Gilead, where Shelley led R&D strategy across all therapeutic areas and business development in immuno-oncology and HBV, three NDAs were approved and launched.

Since joining Lightspeed, Shelley has led the firm’s new biotech investments in multiple seed, series A and crossover companies. In addition to Abata, she is a current or former member of the board of directors at Enlaza Therapeutics, Scorpion Therapeutics, Tizona Therapeutics (acquired by Gilead), Trishula Therapeutics, SFJ Pharmaceuticals, Phathom, Q32 Bio, IFM (acquired by BMS), IFM Tre (acquired by Novartis), IFM Due, IFM Quattro and Venatorx. Other previous investments Shelley worked closely with include Stromedix (acquired by Biogen), Rempex (acquired by The Medicines Company), Tobira (acquired by Allergan), Anaptys, Marcadia (acquired by Roche), Calixa (acquired by Cubist) and Cerexa (acquired by Forest). Shelley also serves on the scientific advisory board for BioCentury.

Shelley holds an M.D. and a Ph.D. in biochemistry and biophysics from the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF) and a B.A. in molecular biology from Princeton University, where she serves as a co-chair for Princeton ASC.

Valerie Odegard, Ph.D., is a successful biotechnology executive with more than 15 years of experience in the development of immunotherapies to treat autoimmune/inflammatory disease, cancer and infectious disease.  Valerie is currently the President and Chief Scientific Officer of Silverback Therapeutics ($SBTX), a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing tissue-targeted therapeutics.  Previously, she was Vice President of R&D at Juno Therapeutics, where she was responsible for the development of novel cellular immunotherapies prior to Juno’s acquisition by Celgene.  Valerie held leadership positions at Novo Nordisk and Trubion Pharmaceuticals, where she oversaw the development of therapeutics for oncology and inflammatory conditions.  She received her Ph.D. in Immunobiology from Yale University.

Charles L. Cooney is the Robert T. Haslam (1911) Professor of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Emeritus in the Department of Chemical Engineering at MIT and founding Faculty Director, Emeritus of the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation. His academic career has focused on biotech and pharma process design, operations, economics and control. He has been involved as founder, advisor or board member of over 25 companies and currently sits on the Boards of Directors of Boyd Technologies, Codiak Bioscience, Hovione, Innovent Biologics (1801.HK), Elektrofi, GreenLight Bioscience, Iterative Scopes, LayerBio, and Levitronix Technologies. He was a member of the FDA Pharmaceutical Sciences Advisory Committee 2003-2006 and chair from 2005-2006. Prof. Cooney’s research and teaching interests span a range of topics in biochemical engineering, pharmaceutical manufacturing and technological innovation. In addition, he is Trustee Emeritus of Boston Ballet, Advisor Emeritus of the Boston Symphony Orchestra and Chairman of the Leventhal Map and Education Center.

Diane Mathis is currently Professor of Immunology and holder of the Morton Grove-Rasmussen chair of immunohematology at Harvard Medical School, principal faculty member at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute and associate faculty member of the Broad Institute. Her lab focuses on the fields of T cell differentiation, autoimmunity and inflammation. Throughout her career, Diane has trained more than 175 students and postdoctoral fellows.

Previously, Diane was a professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and associate research director and head of the section on immunology and immunogenetics at Joslin Diabetes Center through 2008.

Diane currently serves on the advisory boards of Rockefeller University, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Genentech, Pfizer, Amgen and several research institutes worldwide. She was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2003, the German Academy in 2007 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2012. In 2016, Diane received the FASEB Excellence in Science Award.

Diane holds a Ph.D. from the University of Rochester and performed postdoctoral studies at the Laboratoire de Génétique Moléculaire des Eucaryotes in Strasbourg, France and at Stanford University Medical Center. She returned to Strasbourg at the end of 1983, establishing a laboratory at the LGME (later the Institut de Genetique et de Biologie Moleculare et Cellulaire) in conjunction with Dr. Christophe Benoist. The lab moved to the Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston in 1999.

Dr. Nepom is Director of the Immune Tolerance Network (ITN), sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, and Founder and former Director of the Benaroya Research Institute, a leading translational immunology center in Seattle WA, USA.  His primary research interests focus on characterization of the human CD4 T cell response in autoimmunity, with an emphasis on type 1 diabetes (T1D), as well as the translation of immunological intervention strategies into innovative clinical trials.  His laboratory is credited with several advances in human autoimmunity, including initial descriptions of HLA class II disease associations, structure, and function, and the development of human class II tetramers for direct T cell detection and analysis. Dr. Nepom also serves as an advisor for many academic and nonprofit organizations involved in biomedical research and is past president of FOCIS, the Federation of Clinical Immunology Societies.  He is also an affiliate professor of immunology at the University of Washington, has published over 350 scientific papers and received recognition through several awards, including the University of Washington School of Medicine Distinguished Alumni Award and the David Rumbough Award for Scientific Excellence from the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.

Dr. John Maraganore served as the founding CEO and a Director of Alnylam from 2002 to 2021, where he built and led the company from early platform research on RNA interference through global approval and commercialization of the first four RNAi therapeutic medicines, ONPATTRO®, GIVLAARI®, OXLUMO®, and Leqvio®. At Alnylam, he also led the company’s value creation strategy, building $25B in market capitalization and forming over 20 major pharmaceutical alliances. He continues to serve on the Alnylam Scientific Advisory Board. Prior to Alnylam, he served as an officer and a member of the management team for Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he was responsible for the company’s product franchises in oncology, and cardiovascular, inflammatory and metabolic diseases, in addition to leadership of M&A, strategy, and biotherapeutics functions. Before Millennium, he served as Director of Molecular Biology and Director of Market and Business Development at Biogen, Inc. where he invented and led the discovery and development of ANGIOMAX® (bivalirudin) for injection. Previously, he was a scientist at ZymoGenetics, Inc. and the Upjohn Company. Dr. Maraganore received his M.S. and Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Chicago. He is currently a Venture Partner at ARCH Venture Partners, a Venture Advisor at Atlas Ventures, an Executive Partner at RTW Investments, and Senior Advisor for Blackstone Life Sciences. He is also member of the Board of Directors of publicly traded companies (Agios Pharmaceuticals, Beam Therapeutics, Kymera Therapeutics), private companies (Hemab, TranSend, Aerium, and Versanis), and the Biotechnology Industry Organization, where he was Chair from 2017-2019 and is Chair Emeritus. In addition, he serves on the Board of the Termeer Foundation – committed to continuing the legacy of the late Henri A. Termeer, as Chair of the n-Lorem Foundation Advisory Council – committed to meeting the needs of patients with nano-rare diseases, and on the Advisory Board of Ariadne Labs – advancing global health system innovations. John also serves as a strategic advisor to a number of innovative biotechnology companies, with a focus on mentoring CEOs in their mission to advance science and innovation for patients.