Michael Cardone leads the company’s efforts to achieve scientific and corporate milestones. His experience includes over 15 years of scientific and business management at early to mid-stage biotech companies. Prior to Eutropics, he was a scientific co-founder of Merrimack Pharmaceuticals, a Cambridge, MA based company (NASDQ trading symbol: MACK) where he worked with the starting team to develop the oncology program. Prior to this, he led a research team in the Department of Biology at MIT developing tools for small molecule drug target identification and validation. Dr. Cardone received a Ph.D. in protein trafficking from the University of California San Francisco and completed post-doctoral studies in apoptosis signaling at the Burnham Institute in La Jolla, CA

Jess joined Genocea in 2007, soon after the company was founded, and currently serves as Chief Scientific Officer. She is widely recognized as a pioneer in the development of novel vaccines directed toward T cell immunity and has more than 20 years of experience in immunology, cancer, infectious disease, and vaccine development. She leads Genocea’s efforts to develop T cell-directed vaccines and immunotherapies against cancer using the company’s proprietary ATLAS platform to identify and characterize both common and personalized antigens. Prior to joining Genocea, Jess served in a variety of roles developing vaccines and immunotherapies for cancer, infectious disease, autoimmunity, and allergy at companies including Mojave Therapeutics and Antigenics (now Agenus). Jess received a B.S. in Animal Science and a Ph.D. in Cellular Immunology from Cornell University, and performed her post-doctoral work at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School. She is a member of Women in Bio, the American Association of Immunologists, the American Association for Cancer Research, the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer, the President’s Council of Cornell Women, and the American Society for Microbiology. She is also an inventor on numerous pending and issued patents and is the author of multiple peer-reviewed scientific publications.

Dr. Aaron Nelson is a Principal at NVF in Cambridge, MA, USA. Prior to joining NVF, he was an investor at dRx Capital, the joint investment company of Novartis and Qualcomm, focused on Digital Medicine. Previously, Aaron worked on technology strategy across multiple Business Units within Novartis, including Strategic Project Leader for the Trials of The Future program and Group Head in the Investigative Toxicology organization. Aaron studied medicine at Tufts University, cell and microbiology at the University of Pennsylvania and the Karolinska Institutet, and completed his undergraduate studies at Cornell University.

Maria Palasis is an industry veteran in merging material science and drug-delivery innovation to create best-in-class therapies for patients. She brings nearly 25 years of healthcare industry experience to Lyra. A repeat entrepreneur, her transformative leadership as CEO, and previously CTO, of 480 Biomedical and Arsenal Medical resulted in >$160 million of external and non-dilutive funding and the advancement of multiple programs into the clinic. Earlier in her career, she managed a portfolio of external biotech and medical device investments at Boston Scientific and led the development of several combination therapies. She is an inventor on more than 120 issued and pending patents. Maria received her B.S. and Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Cincinnati, and she held a postdoctoral fellowship in molecular biology at the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine.