Leadership

Peter is a scientist-turned entrepreneur who has held positions at small, medium and large biotech companies during his 20 year career. He is also an angel investor and advisor to multiple biotech companies. Prior to Eclipsebio, Dr. Chu was founding CEO of Eclipse Therapeutics, a Biogen spin-out developing cancer stem cell antibodies. After Eclipse Therapeutics was acquired by Bionomics Limited, Dr. Chu led Bionomics’ US operations and successful Phase I clinical trials for BNC101 antibody therapy in colon cancer.

Dr. Chu began his career as a scientist at Biogen Idec, where he led the cancer stem cells program and also worked with business development and new ventures to evaluate licensing and investment opportunities. He is a graduate of McGill University, where he majored in microbiology and immunology, and holds a Ph.D from the biomedical sciences program at UC San Diego and a master’s degree from the University of Toronto.

Edmond Wong is a Partner at iGlobe Partners, a venture capital fund with interests in early growth companies. He sits on the boards of Inkbit and SourceSage. His expertise covers the biotech, AI, and engineering investments.

Gene Yeo PhD MBA is a Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). Dr. Yeo has a BSc in Chemical Engineering and a BA in Economics from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, a Ph.D. in Computational Neuroscience from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from the UCSD Rady School of Management. His primary research interest is in understanding the importance of RNA processing and the roles that RNA binding proteins (RBPs) play in development and disease. Dr. Yeo has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications. Gene is on the Editorial Boards of the journals RNA, Cell Reports, Cell Research and eLife, and on the Advisory Board of Review commons. Gene is also a Paul Allen Distinguished Investigator (2020) and received the 2021 Elisa Izaurralde Award for Innovation in Research, Teaching and Service from the RNA Society. Gene has co-founded multiple biotech companies including Eclipsebio. In addition, Gene currently serves on the scientific advisory boards of n-Lorem, the Allen Institute of Immunology, LGC, Insitro, IntronX, Atomic.AI, Automera and Amberbio. Gene is a senior advisor to Accelerator Life Sciences Partners. In 2022, Gene found himself on the list of the top 50 serial academic entrepreneurs by BIOS. Gene recently received the inaugural Entrepreneurial Achievement Award by the Rady School of Management in 2023.

Daniel Vasella, M.D., works as board director, coach and strategic consultant for top executives. After the foundation of Novartis in 1996 he led the company for 17 years as CEO (1996-2010) and Chairman of the Board of Directors (1999-2013). Since 2013 Dr. Vasella is Honorary Chairman of the Board of Directors for Novartis AG. Before the Novartis merger, Dr. Vasella was CEO of Sandoz Pharma Ltd. and a member of the Sandoz Group Executive Committee. From 1988 to 1992, he worked for Sandoz Pharmaceuticals Corporation in the United States, prior to which he held a number of medical positions in Switzerland. He graduated with an M.D. from the University of Bern and completed executive training at Harvard Business School. Dr. Vasella also trained as psychoanalyst and executive coach. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Basel and the Harvard Business School Alumnus Award and many other distinctions. Dr. Vasella is a member of the board of directors of PepsiCo, Inc., the American Express Company, SciClone Pharmaceuticals Inc. and several biotech companies. He is also a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, as well as of various cultural establishments. Daniel Vasella is married and father of three children.

Eckhard Jankowsky is a strategic advisor / consultant with focus on the mRNA space. He has continuously worked for the last three decades on RNA-related topics ranging from RNA chemistry, biochemistry, biology and mRNA medicines. Eckhard was the Vice President of RNA Science at Moderna and prior to this role, Professor and Director of the Center for RNA Science and Therapeutics at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, OH. Dr. Jankowsky has published more than 100 research papers, reviews and book chapters, including high impact articles in Cell, Science, and Nature

Doug recently retired as Chief Scientific Officer for NuGEN/Tecan and brings a wealth of experience and knowledge to the role as an accomplished leader in the development and commercialization of complex systems for nucleic acid analysis. He has extensive experience with microarray and DNA sequencing technologies, and successfully directed a robust expansion of NuGEN’s product portfolio, including the introduction of novel sample preparation technologies for next-gen sequencing applications. Prior to NuGEN, Doug led the research and development organization for Agilent Genomics. He has also held positions with DuPont and Life Technologies. Doug earned a PhD in biochemistry at Colorado State University, and served post-doctoral fellowships at the Salk Institute and at the University of Texas Health Science Center.

Dr Peach has 30 years of drug discovery and development experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry. Robert co-founded Receptos, becoming Chief Scientific Officer and raising $59M in venture capital and $800M in an IPO. Receptos was acquired in 2015 by Celgene for $7.8B. Robert held senior executive and scientific positions in other companies including Apoptos (co-founder), Biogen Idec, IDEC Pharmaceuticals and Bristol-Myers Squibb, supporting in-licensing, acquisition and venture investments. His extensive drug discovery and development experience in autoimmune and inflammatory diseases, and cancer has resulted in multiple drugs entering clinical trials and 4 registered drugs. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Amplia Therapeutics, AdAlta and ReKover Therapeutics, and has been a Scientific Advisory Board member and consultant for several other biotechnology companies.

Dr. Underwood is Vice President of Technology Development at RNAConnect, a biotech developing enzymatic tools for visualizing and manipulating RNA. He was previously at PacBio where his work focused on method development with specific focus on RNA and profiling difficult regions of the genome and transcriptome using long read sequencing. He previously led a technology development group in the UW Northwest Genome Center. There he built better ways to study genomes and transcriptomes using high-throughput Illumina sequencing technologies, at production scale. He has co-authored 6 publications and 2 patents from this work.

Dr. Spitale received his Ph.D. degree in Chemistry at the University of Rochester in 2009 as an Elon Huntington Hooker Fellow. He then transitioned to postdoctoral studies at Stanford University and was awarded the A.P. Giannini Fellowship to support his research. Dr. Spitale is a Professor in the Pharmaceutical Sciences department at UC Irvine, where he joined as an Assistant Professor in 2014. In this time his research has focused on developing novel chemical and bioinformatic approaches toward understanding the role of RNA structure and function in normal biology as well as disease. He has received numerous awards for his research contributions, including: the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, Pew Biomedical Research Fellowship, an American Cancer Society IRG Award, a W.M. Keck Medical Research Grant Award, the Ono Pharmaceuticals Breakthrough Science Award, and was recently named the Rising Star by the International Chemical Biology Society.

Keith Brown is Founder and Chief Technical Officer of Jumpcode Genomics. Previously, Keith was Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of iGenomX. Prior to founding iGenomX, Mr. Brown served as Vice President of Sales for Complete Genomics Inc. After the acquisition of Complete Genomics by BGI, Mr. Brown became CEO of the BGI Americas Corporation. Before joining Complete in 2011, Mr. Brown was the National Sales Director at RainDance Technologies, a small start-up founded by serial entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg. Keith has also held sales and market development positions at Affymetrix, Inc, Li-Cor Biosciences, and at Chemicon International (acquired by Serologicals). Mr. Brown started his career as a molecular biologist at Chemicon International supporting the launch of PCR based assays for infectious disease and genetic disorders. Mr. Brown has seven issued and twelve patents pending in the field of nucleic acid analysis.