Joanne’s life sciences experience spans research, business and operations. She helped formulate the initial scientific strategy for Jnana and has led the business and operations of the company since its launch in 2017. Prior to Jnana, she had a leadership role at FBRI, F Prime Capital’s initiative to enable therapeutic breakthroughs in Alzheimer’s disease and related brain disorders by funding innovative academic research and launching companies. Before F-Prime, Joanne was a director at the Broad Institute, where her research and business responsibilities included defining strategy and leading efforts in early stage drug discovery through collaborations with patients, disease foundations and biopharma. Joanne received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.S. in chemistry and B.A. in sociology from the University of Florida. She conducted postdoctoral research at the Necker Children’s Hospital in Paris and at Genentech. Following Genentech, she was at Nature Publishing Group, including as founding editor of the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

George has over 20 years of experience in roles spanning translational medicine, late-stage clinical development, and medical affairs. Prior to joining Jnana, he held several senior leadership roles at Janssen Pharmaceuticals. Most recently, he served as SVP, Translational Science and Medicine for the immunology therapeutic area, a division he formed to bring transformational new medicines and treatments to patients with immune diseases, including rare diseases. Previously, George served as Executive Global Program Head at Novartis, where he led multiple biologic global submissions for immunology indications. Before that, he led Roche’s early clinical development team in autoimmune diseases as Translational Medicine Leader and served as a medical brand lead and global director of immunology at Bristol-Myers Squibb.

A rheumatologist by training and Fellow of the American College of Rheumatology, George earned his M.D. from New York University and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in investigative rheumatology/immunobiology at Yale University. In addition, he holds a B.S. and an M.S. in biomedical engineering from Columbia University and an M.S. in clinical investigation from Vanderbilt University.

Serving Jnana as Chief Financial Officer, Jim brings over 25 years of pharmaceutical and life science experience. He has held roles of increasing responsibility within Controller and Financial Planning departments at AstraZeneca, Covance and Otsuka after starting his career at PWC in Philadelphia. At Otsuka, Jim is the Executive Director of Finance and Assistant Treasurer, with responsibility for FP&A support to commercial functions and brand teams and FP&A support to clinical and global development function teams, and he oversees all Treasury operations. Jim holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting from Rutgers University, an MBA degree from Temple University, and he is a CPA.

Joel came to Jnana from Achillion Pharmaceuticals, where he served as their chief scientific officer. Most of Joel’s career was spent as a medicinal chemist in pharma, where he capped a 28-year career at Bristol-Myers Squibb by spending the last five years as vice president and head of discovery chemistry, working across all therapeutic areas. In that role, Joel worked with teams responsible for advancing more than 40 compounds into clinical development, including Sprycel (dasatinib), which he co-invented. While at BMS, Joel and his colleagues made notable advances in the area of kinase inhibitor drug discovery, particularly in immunology and oncology. He is a co-author on over 130 peer reviewed publications and is a co-inventor on 40 issued U.S. patents. Prior to moving to BMS, he spent five years at Hoffmann La-Roche as a research scientist. Joel received his doctorate in organic chemistry from Columbia University and his bachelor’s in chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Throup joined Jnana from Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) where he was most recently Vice President and Development Lead responsible for leading the development of assets in the Immunology pipeline across early and late development. Most recently, Dr. Throup led the development of the TYK2 inhibitor, deucravacitinib, from preclinical to NDA and MAA submission. Before joining BMS in 2014, Dr. Throup spent 15 years at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in operational and strategic leadership roles across the R&D organization. Dr. Throup received his Ph.D. in molecular microbiology from the University of Nottingham, UK.

Dean has over 20 years of drug discovery experience at AstraZeneca (AZ) where he held the position most recently of Director of Chemistry. Dean has been responsible for building many new drug discovery programs in both neuroscience and infection, several which have resulted in successful transition to clinical trials. Dean is a globally recognized leader in medicinal chemistry, lead generation, library design, DNA-encoded library screening, and applications of computational chemistry. He has also been responsible for leading multiple industrial-academic collaborations which resulted in successful external grants in neurodegenerative disease research. Dean is listed as an author or co-author on more than 60 publications and patent applications in medicinal chemistry and drug design, including granted patents on clinical candidates. He obtained a B.S. in chemistry at Abilene Christian University and a Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota in synthetic organic chemistry.

Justin joined Jnana shortly after its founding in 2017. While at Jnana, he co-invented and has continued to evolve the technology underlying the RAPID platform, which is a next-generation chemoproteomics method that identifies lead-like small molecules that bind to any target of interest inside of a cell. Every drug discovery program at Jnana has used the RAPID platform to identify drug-like chemical starting points, including Jnana’s allosteric inhibitor of SLC6A19 currently in clinical trials for PKU. Justin also played a key role in establishing and supporting Jnana’s two active partnerships with Roche, which leverage RAPID to tackle challenging targets across immunology, oncology, and neurological disease. Today, Justin leads the Early Discovery group, which is responsible for supporting teams in taking new projects from conception through to cellular proof of concept.

Prior to Jnana, Justin completed postdoctoral training in discovery biology at the Whitehead Institute with the late Susan Lindquist. He obtained his PhD in chemical biology working with Jim Wells at UCSF to discover small molecules targeting allosteric sites and protein-protein interfaces.

Andreu Viader is Senior Director and Head of Late Discovery at Jnana Therapeutics, where he oversees late preclinical through early clinical programs across Jnana’s pipeline. Prior to Jnana, he held discovery and translational positions at Axcella Health and Abide Therapeutics, leading teams and scientific programs in neuroscience, metabolic disease, and inflammation, and contributing to the progression of several novel assets into the clinic. Andreu has authored or co-authored over 20 scientific publications and patents. He obtained a B.A. in biochemistry from Hamilton College, a Ph.D. in neuroscience from Washington University in St. Louis, and completed postdoctoral training in chemical biology and metabolomics with Dr. Benjamin Cravatt at the Scripps Research Institute.

Joining us as Jnana’s Vice President, Head of People & Culture, Danielle brings a wealth of knowledge and experience, having held roles of increasing responsibility across multiple human resources domains and a diverse set of industries. Prior to Jnana, Danielle held senior business partner roles at bluebird bio, supporting Pharmaceutical Sciences, Clinical Development, Regulatory and Medical Affairs, and built a centralized People Operations capability to support the organization’s rapid growth. She is a Master’s-level Organizational Development practitioner with expertise in organizational assessment and design, leadership development, and talent management. She leads with an unwavering dedication to the employee experience and focus on building foundational operations that allow businesses to scale effectively. Danielle holds a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and Education from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and a Master’s degree in Organizational Psychology from William James College.

Heather brings over 18 years of drug discovery experience to Jnana working in pharma and biotech on pre-clinical and clinical development programs. Prior to Jnana, Heather served as director of Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics at Nimbus Therapeutics focusing on immunology, oncology and metabolic disease. She was a member of the clinical group working on Nimbus’ allosteric ACC inhibitor for NASH, as well as the preclinical team advancing their TYK2 allosteric inhibitor and STING discovery programs. Prior to Nimbus, Heather led the DMPK group at Cubist Pharmaceuticals, a position in which she served from 2010 until the company’s acquisition by Merck in 2015. In her time at Cubist, Heather’s work focused on acute care therapies for pain and antibiotics developed for the treatment of gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria, including the clinical development of programs including Cubicin, and Zerbaxa and more. Heather received her bachelor’s in chemistry from the University of New Hampshire and doctorate in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Oregon prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry.