Jacob (Jake) Rubens

Jake is Co-Founder and Chief Innovation Officer of Tessera Therapeutics and an Origination Partner at Flagship Pioneering. Previously, Jake was the founding Chief Scientific Officer at Tessera and led the research and development of the company’s platform and pipeline.

At Flagship, Jake is a scientist entrepreneur and leads a team that founds, builds, and grow companies based on new biotechnology. Jake co-founded Quotient Therapeutics, where he currently serves as president. He has also co-founded Sana Biotechnology, launched Kaleido Biosciences and was the Head of Innovation at Cobalt Biomedicine, where he co-invented and developed the company’s Fusosome platform prior to its merger with Sana Biotechnology.

Before joining Flagship, Jake received his Ph.D. in microbiology from MIT, working in the Synthetic Biology Center with Professor Tim Lu with the support of a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. At MIT, Jacob invented gene circuits that allow engineered cells to do novel analog, digital, and hybrid computations, enabling the emerging field of “intelligent” cell therapies.

Jake’s work has resulted in multiple pending patents and publications, including articles in Nature and Nature Communications. Jake was honored in 2017 in Forbes' 30 under 30 list in science.