Team

Geoffrey von Maltzahn is co-founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Director of Tessera Therapeutics, as well as a General Partner at Flagship Pioneering, where he focuses on inventing technologies and starting companies to address global challenges in medicine and environmental sustainability. He is also a co-founder of Sana Biotechnology, Indigo Agriculture, Kaleido Biosciences (NASDAQ:KLDO), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MCRB), Axcella Health (NASDAQ:AXLA), Generate Biomedicines, and others.

Geoffrey currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Generate Biomedicines, Chief Innovation Officer and Director of Indigo, and Director of Kaleido Biosciences and Sana Biotechnology. He recently served as Chief Executive Officer of Cobalt Biomedicine, which he led from inception to merger with Sana Biotechnology, and as Kaleido’s Chief Executive Officer, where he led the company from inception to launching multiple clinical studies. Geoffrey also served as Chief Executive Officer of Indigo, where he led the development of the company’s technology platform and the discovery of the company’s first commercial products. Previously, Geoffrey was the Chief Technology Officer of Seres Therapeutics, where he led the discovery of SER-109 and built out the company’s discovery platform.

Geoffrey has been recognized with numerous patent grants, awards, and publications. He is an inventor on over 200 patent applications and patents, has co-authored more than 20 peer-reviewed publications, and has received a number of awards and honors, including: Business Insider’s 30 Biotech Leaders Under 40, Endpoints top biopharma leaders under 40, the prestigious Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, awarded to the most innovative student at MIT, and the National Inventors Hall of Fame Graduate Student Prize. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics from MIT; a M.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego; and a S.B. in Chemical Engineering from MIT.

Jake is co-founder, Chief Innovation Officer, and founding Chief Scientific Officer of Tessera Therapeutics, as well as a Principal at Flagship Pioneering. Jake joined Flagship Pioneering in 2015 and works as part of a venture-creation team, founding and growing companies based on new biotechnology.

At Flagship, Jake launched Kaleido Biosciences and co-founded Sana Biotechnology. Jake was the Head of Innovation at Cobalt Biomedicine, where he 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.

Steve joined Tessera in 2019 as the head of Quantitative Biology. He leads a data science team applying DNA assembly, molecular assays and computational biology technologies to novel gene writing approaches.

Data Science is Steve’s passion. Working at the cross-roads of science, data, algorithms and software for more than 20 years. He is excited to bring all of his experience back to the gene therapy space. Prior to joining Tessera, Steve spent fourteen years at Novartis beginning as an individual contributor applying pathway principles to drug discovery. Ultimately, he built and lead a global Data Science team that focused on enabling innovative science through software, data analysis, modeling, and data systems. Prior to Novartis, Steve spent several years at GSK in the preclinical safety area data mining and model building. Steve’s thesis research work focused on engineering transposons as potential therapy agents.

Cecilia joined Tessera Therapeutics in 2019 as the Head of Platform Development. She drives the discovery and optimization of novel Gene Writers, and enabling their translation into gene therapy tools.

Cecilia has spent over 20 years in academia and biotech, working in the areas of gene editing, cell engineering, and DNA damage. Cecilia was the first employee at insitro where she was the Head of Functional Genomics. Prior to insitro, Cecilia was one of the first scientists hired at Editas, the first CRISPR-based therapeutic company, where she helped to define and shape the vision of the Editas platform. She spearheaded numerous academic collaborations devoted to platform optimization and led the development of a T cell gene therapy treatment aiming to treat an immunodeficiency disease. She conducted her postdoc in Steve Elledge’s lab at Harvard Medical School where she performed whole genome high-throughput screens in mammalian cells using siRNA/shRNA to identify novel components of the DNA damage response. Cecilia obtained her PhD in genetics at University of Milan, Italy and has been principal author and co-author on several publications in high impact factor journals, such as Science, Nature, Nature Communications and Molecular Cell; moreover, she has been the inventor on several foundational patents in all of the early stage company she has been involved with.

Vik joined Tessera in 2020 as the Head of Corporate Development. Vik drives corporate strategy, business development, and investor relations for Tessera.

Vik was previously at McKinsey & Company, where he was an Associate Partner in the healthcare practice. At McKinsey, Vik worked with large biopharma and early-stage biotech companies on strategy, M&A, and R&D topics. He led diligence efforts for over $15B in completed deals and advised on clinical strategy for more than 20 programs. Vik also co-led McKinsey’s Center for Asset Optimization, which focuses on clinical-stage asset development strategy. Vik holds a Ph.D. in Genetics and Development from Columbia University, where he studied transcriptional regulation of developmentally important genes at the molecular level. He has a B.S. in biochemistry from Brandeis University, where he was awarded highest honors for his research on DNA damage repair pathways.

Geoffrey von Maltzahn is co-founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Director of Tessera Therapeutics, as well as a General Partner at Flagship Pioneering, where he focuses on inventing technologies and starting companies to address global challenges in medicine and environmental sustainability. He is also a co-founder of Sana Biotechnology, Indigo Agriculture, Kaleido Biosciences (NASDAQ:KLDO), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ:MCRB), Axcella Health (NASDAQ:AXLA), Generate Biomedicines, and others.

Geoffrey currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Generate Biomedicines, Chief Innovation Officer and Director of Indigo, and Director of Kaleido Biosciences and Sana Biotechnology. He recently served as Chief Executive Officer of Cobalt Biomedicine, which he led from inception to merger with Sana Biotechnology, and as Kaleido’s Chief Executive Officer, where he led the company from inception to launching multiple clinical studies. Geoffrey also served as Chief Executive Officer of Indigo, where he led the development of the company’s technology platform and the discovery of the company’s first commercial products. Previously, Geoffrey was the Chief Technology Officer of Seres Therapeutics, where he led the discovery of SER-109 and built out the company’s discovery platform.

Geoffrey has been recognized with numerous patent grants, awards, and publications. He is an inventor on over 200 patent applications and patents, has co-authored more than 20 peer-reviewed publications, and has received a number of awards and honors, including: Business Insider’s 30 Biotech Leaders Under 40, Endpoints top biopharma leaders under 40, the prestigious Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, awarded to the most innovative student at MIT, and the National Inventors Hall of Fame Graduate Student Prize. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering and Medical Physics from MIT; a M.S. in Bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego; and a S.B. in Chemical Engineering from MIT.

John Mendlein is an Executive Partner at Flagship Pioneering.

John joined Flagship in February 2019. A longtime member of Flagship’s broader ecosystem of companies, John is an experienced biotech leader and has served in numerous executive and board roles. At Flagship, John contributes to Flagship’s strategic and operational objectives, including the origination of new Flagship Labs companies. He also serves on the boards of Flagship’s companies and works with portfolio company CEOs and their teams to achieve the best attainable value for each organization.

Throughout his 23+year career in biotech, John has helped start and lead numerous innovative life sciences companies with product platforms. Prior to joining Flagship, John served as president of corporate and product strategy at Moderna Therapeutics (NASDAQ: MRNA), a Flagship Pioneering company, focusing on enterprise and portfolio strategy, program development, partnering, legal, and platform/product protection. He led the cross-functional team responsible for ensuring Moderna’s readiness for its initial public offering in 2018. John was also a member of Moderna’s board of directors from 2012-2018.

He has also held leadership roles at multiple additional biotech enterprises. John was chief knowledge officer and general counsel at Aurora Biosciences (acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals) where he also served as a board member; CEO of Adnexus Therapeutics, a Flagship company (acquired by BMS); executive chairman, founder, and interim CEO of Fate Therapeutics (a publicly-traded immuno-oncology cell therapy platform company); and executive chairman and CEO of Affinium Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Debiopharm Group).

John is co-author or co-inventor of over 210 publications and published patents. He is a founder and board member of Homes for Sudan, a non-profit in Boston, and a scientific advisory board member for Ocean Discovery Institute, a non-profit in San Diego. He has served on the boards of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), as well as on three of Flagship’s companies: Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), Axcella Health and Editas Medicine (NASDAQ: EDIT). John currently serves on the board of Flagship companies Cogen Immune Medicine and Ohana Biosciences.

John holds a Ph.D. in physiology and biophysics from the University of California, Los Angeles, a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings.

Noubar Afeyan is the Founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering.

Noubar has dedicated his career to improving the human condition by systematically creating science-based innovations that serve as the foundation for startup companies. At Flagship Pioneering, which he founded in 2000, Noubar has created an enterprise where entrepreneurially minded scientists invent seemingly unreasonable solutions to challenges facing human health and sustainability. They begin by asking “What if?” and iterate toward the unexpected answer “It turns out,” resulting in the creation of first-in-category companies with significant impact. Flagship has fostered the development of more than 100 scientific ventures resulting in $30 billion in aggregate value, thousands of patents and patent applications, and more than 50 drugs in clinical development.

During his career as inventor, entrepreneur, and CEO, Noubar has cofounded and helped build over 40 life science and technology startups. Prior to founding Flagship Pioneering, Noubar was the founder and CEO of PerSeptive Biosystems, a leader in bio-instrumentation that grew to $100 million in annual revenues. After PerSeptive’s acquisition by Perkin Elmer/Applera Corporation in 1998, he became senior vice president and chief business officer of Applera, where he initiated and oversaw the creation of Celera Genomics.

He serves on the boards of a number of public and private Flagship companies, including Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), where he is chairman and Rubius Therapeutics (NASDAQ: RUBY). Previously, he was a member of the founding team, director, and investor in highly successful ventures including Chemgenics Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Millenium Pharmaceuticals), Color Kinetics (acquired by Philips), Adnexus Therapeutics (acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb), and Affinnova (acquired by AC Nielsen).

Noubar entered biotechnology during its emergence as an academic field and industry, completing his doctoral work in biochemical engineering at MIT in 1987. He has written numerous scientific publications and is the inventor of more than 97 patents. He is a lecturer at Harvard Business School; and from 2000 to 2016 was a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He teaches and speaks around the world on topics ranging from entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic development to biological engineering, new medicines, and renewable energy.

Noubar’s commitment to improving the human condition through science and business goes hand in hand with social investments and a global humanitarian initiative. Together with his partners, he has launched philanthropic projects including the IDeA Foundation, UWC Dilijan School, 100 LIVES, and the Aurora Prize for Awakening Humanity to raise awareness of the world’s most pressing humanitarian problems. Noubar is a member of the Corporation of MIT (the Institute’s governing body) and a member of the board of overseers for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Noubar was born in Beirut to Armenian parents in 1962, did his undergraduate work at McGill University in Montreal, and completed his Ph.D. in biochemical engineering at MIT in 1987. A passionate advocate of the contributions of immigrants to economic and scientific progress, Noubar received the Golden Door Award in 2017 from the International Institute of New England, in honor of his outstanding contributions to American society as a U.S citizen of foreign birth. He was also awarded a Great Immigrant honor from the Carnegie Corporation in 2016, received a Technology Pioneer award from the World Economic Forum in 2012, and was presented with the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2008.

Melissa J. Moore is the Chief Scientific Officer of Platform Research at Moderna.

In her role at Moderna, Dr. Moore is responsible for leading mRNA biology, delivery and computation science research. She joined Moderna in 2016 from the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMassMed), where she served as Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Pharmacology, Eleanor Eustis Farrington Chair in Cancer Research and a long-time Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator. At UMassMed, Dr. Moore was a founding Co-Director of the RNA Therapeutics Institute (RTI) and was instrumental in creating the Massachusetts Therapeutic and Entrepreneurship Realization initiative (MassTERi), a faculty-led program intended to facilitate the translation of UMMS discoveries into drugs, products, technologies and companies. Dr. Moore is an elected member of both the National Academy of Sciences (2017) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2019).

Dr. Moore’s 23-year career in academic research focused on the roles of RNA and RNA-protein (RNP) complexes in regulating gene expression, and touched on many human diseases including cancer, neurodegeneration and preeclampsia. She began working on RNA metabolism during her postdoctoral training with Phillip A. Sharp, Ph.D. at MIT, where she also received her Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry working under Christopher T. Walsh, Ph.D. Dr. Moore holds a B.S. in Chemistry and Biology from the College of William and Mary.

Andy Scharenberg M.D. is the chief executive officer of Umoja Biopharma.

He has held multiple roles in early stage biotechnology companies including chief scientific officer at Casebia, chief scientific officer at Cellectis, and scientific co-founder of Pregenen, a gene editing pioneer acquired by Bluebird bio in 2014. He is currently on leave from his academic positions as an attending physician at Seattle Children's Hospital, principal investigator in the Center for Immunity and Immunotherapies at Seattle Children's Research Institute, professor in the Department of Pediatrics and adjunct professor in the Department of Immunology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and member of the Transplantation Biology Consortium Program at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Andy’s prior academic executive experience includes roles as the principal investigator and co-director of the Northwest Genome Engineering Consortium, and co-director of the Program for Cell and Gene Therapy at Seattle Children's Hospital, Andy earned his Bachelor of Science in biochemistry from Indiana University and his medical degree from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine.

David Schaffer is a Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, Bioengineering, Molecular and Cell Biology, and the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute at U.C. Berkeley.

He has served as the Director of the Berkeley Stem Cell Center since 2011. In addition, he is co-founder and since 2013 has served as Chief Scientific Advisor and a member of the board of directors of 4D Molecular Therapeutics. He has also co-founded five other companies.

He has served on the board of directors of the NASDAQ-listed company uniQure NV since January, 2014. Dr. Schaffer received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from Stanford University in 1993 and his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1998.

John V. Moran is the Gilbert S. Omenn Collegiate Professor of Human Genetics and a Professor of Internal Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School.

During the past 21+ years, Dr. Moran’s laboratory has been at the forefront of human transposable element research and has made discoveries about the mechanism of Long Interspersed Element-1 (LINE-1) and Short Interspersed Element (SINE) retrotransposition and their impact on the structure and function of the human genome. His laboratory currently uses a battery of multidisciplinary approaches to answer the following questions: What are the molecular mechanisms responsible for LINE-1 and SINE retrotransposition? To what extent do somatic and germline LINE-1 and SINE retrotransposition affect the human genome? What host factors influence LINE-1 and SINE retrotransposition? Dr. Moran has worked in the mobile genetic element field for over 30 years and has published approximately 90 articles (the total includes articles, book chapters, perspectives, and a thesis). Dr. Moran takes pride in teaching and in the accomplishments of his former trainees. To date, he has trained nine postdoctoral fellows and ten graduate students, many of whom are now independent principal investigators throughout the world. He is the Director of the NIH-funded University of Michigan Interdisciplinary Genetics Predoctoral Training Program, has organized national and international meetings on mobile genetic elements, and has earned several research and teaching honors during his time at the University of Michigan.

He received his B.S. degree in Chemistry from the Rochester Institute of Technology. He conducted his graduate studies with Dr. Philip S. Perlman, earning a M.S. degree in Molecular Genetics from The Ohio State University, and a Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas. His graduate research focused on elucidating group I and group II intron mobility mechanisms in Saccharomyces cerevisiae mitochondrial DNA. He conducted postdoctoral studies with Dr. Haig H. Kazazian Jr. in the Department of Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins Medical Institute and the Department of Genetics at University of Pennsylvania Medical School as a Damon Runyon/Walter Winchell Cancer Research Fund Fellow. His postdoctoral research focused on developing systems to study the mobility of LINE-1 retrotransposons in cultured human cells. Dr. Moran became a faculty member at the University of Michigan Medical School in 1998. He was promoted to the rank of Associate Professor in the Departments of Human Genetics (with tenure) and Internal Medicine (without tenure) in 2003, was promoted to Full Professor of Human Genetics (with tenure) and Internal Medicine (without tenure) in September 2008, and was an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He became a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012, received the Curt Stern Award from the American Society of Human Genetics in 2013, and currently serves on the American Society of Human Genetics Board of Directors.

Jonathan Weissman is the Landon T. Clay professor of Biology at Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research and the Department of Biology at MIT, and an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

He serves as the co-director of the Innovative Genomics Institute (IGI) of Berkeley and UCSF and on the President’s Advisory Group for the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub. He also is the chairman of the scientific advisory board for the Stowers Institute and serves on the scientific advisory board for Amgen and the Helen Hay Whitney Foundation. Additionally, Jonathan is a co-founder of KSQ therapeutics and Maze therapeutics.

He has received the Ira Herskowitz Award from the Genetic Society of America, Irving Sigal Young Investigator Award from the Protein Society, the Raymond and Beverly Sackler International Prize in Biophysics, the National Academy of Sciences Award for Scientific Discovery, and the Keith R. Porter Lecture Award from the American Society for Cell Biology. Jonathan is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Luigi Naldini is the Director of the San Raffaele Telethon Institute for Gene Therapy and professor at the San Raffaele University in Milan, Italy.

For the past 25 years, he has pioneered the development and applications of lentiviral vectors for gene transfer, which have become one of the most widely used tools in biomedical research and, upon recently entering clinical testing, are providing a long-sought hope of cures for several currently untreatable and otherwise deadly human diseases. Throughout this time, he has continued to investigate new strategies to overcome the major hurdles to safe and effective gene transfer, bringing about innovative solutions that not only are being translated into new therapeutic strategies for genetic disease and cancer, but have also allowed novel insights into hematopoietic stem cell function, induction of immunological tolerance, and tumor angiogenesis. His work also contributed to advance the use of artificial nucleases for targeted genome editing in cell and gene therapy. In his early career, he identified the ligand for the Met receptor with hepatocyte growth factor. Has published 266 scientific papers cited >39,000 times. SCOPUS Author h-index: 93.

Luigi received his medical degree from the University of Torino, Italy, and his PhD from the University of Rome. He is Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), has been President of the European Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ESGCT), and has been appointed as expert on the “Human Gene Editing Study” of the US National Academies of Sciences and of Medicine, and on the Italian National Committee for Biosafety, Biotechnology and Life Sciences. He was awarded the Outstanding Achievement Award from the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (ASGCT) in 2014 and from ESGCT in 2015, an Honorary doctorate from the Vrije University, Brussel, in 2015, the Jimenez Diaz Prize in 2016, the Beutler Prize from the American Society of Hematology (ASH) in 2017 and the 2019 Jeantet-Collen Prize for Translational Medicine. He was nominated “Grande Ufficiale dell’Ordine Al Merito della Repubblica Italiana”, one of the highest ranking honor in Italy, from the President of the Republic and the Prime Minister of Italy on December 27th 2019.

Nancy Craig was a Professor and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in the Department of Molecular Biology & Genetics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and was previously a member of the Department of Microbiology & Immunology at the University of California, San Francisco.

For over 30 years in these positions, she studied the mechanism of transposition both in vitro and in vivo of several bacterial and eukaryotic mobile elements using genetic, biochemical and structural methods. She found that the bacterial element Tn7 uses a novel targeting mechanism to guide chromosomal insertions to a single “safe” site in the chromosome. Her work on both Tn7 and several eukaryotic elements revealed new mechanisms of DNA breakage & joining during transposition. She exploited yeast as a heterologous host system to identify interesting transposase mutants that have been used for genome engineering in mammalian cells and also found that patterns of transposon insertion can be diagnostic of nucleosome position, a finding that lead others to develop a widely used method of chromatin characterization.

Nancy received her undergraduate degree in Biology and Chemistry from Bryn Mawr College and her graduate degree in Biochemistry from Cornell University. She did postdoctoral work at the National Institutes of Health with Howard Nash studying the integration/ excision cycle of bacteriophage lambda. She was a visiting scientist at the Carnegie Institution in Science in Baltimore with Alan Spradling working on transposition of Drosophila P elements. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

George Church is the Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, a Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and a core faculty member of the Wyss Institute.

Dr. Church is a pioneer of genome engineering, systems and synthetic biology. He has co-founded more than 14 biotech companies, has authored over 400 papers, and holds 60 patents in his name. He is the Principal Investigator of the Center for Genomically Engineered Organs (CGEO), the Harvard/MIT DOE Genomes-to-Life Center, the Lipper Center for Computational Genetics, and is a founding core member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering.

Dr. Church was elected to the National Academy of Sciences (2011) and Engineering (2012), and the Franklin Institute’s Bower Award for Achievement in Science (2011). He holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Harvard University.