taking big strides

Marissa obtained her BS in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina, Asheville and her MS and PhD from UC San Diego in Organometallic Chemistry. There she worked under the direction of Dr. Joseph O’Connor studying photochemically activated ferrocene complexes for photodynamic therapy applications. At Boragen, Marissa leads Formulation Chemistry and IP Analysis. In her downtime she can be found mountain exploring, hiking, backpacking, cooking, running and hanging out with her dog, Milly.

Brittany received a BS in Chemistry from North Carolina State University. She manages Boragen’s compound library, dispenses and ships compounds to research partners and investigates physical chemistry properties for Boragen’s novel library. Her favorite thing to do (besides chemistry) is to spend time with her husband, Jack, and her two cats, Lorelei and Midnight.

Yvonne holds a BA in Biological Sciences from Mount Holyoke College, and a PhD in Microbiology/Immunology from the University of California, Davis. Prior to joining Boragen, she spent over a decade at Anacor Pharmaceuticals in various research and management roles, including Director of Pharmacology as well as the initiator of Anacor’s drug discovery program in Neglected Tropical Diseases. Yvonne played a key role in the collaboration to develop Acoziborole, the first single-dose, oral treatment for Stage 2 Human Africa Trypanosomiasis. Prior to Anacor, Yvonne was Director of the Program in Immunotoxicology at SRI International and an independent researcher at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation. Yvonnne enjoys travelling, skiing, and hiking as well as cooking and eating.

Rich has over 35 years of experience in Accounting and Finance, including 25 years in technology start-up companies. He is a CPA and holds a BS in Accounting from University of Steubenville and an MBA from Duke University Fuqua School of Business. Prior to joining Boragen, Rich served as the contract CFO of Advanced Animal Diagnostics, CFO of Ziptronix Inc., CFO at nTouch Research and, VP of Finance and Administration at Celotek. At Boragen, Rich is responsible for all aspects of Finance and Administration. Though he claims no similarity to the character, Rich was casted as “Scrooge” in his 6th grade play.

Chris earned a BS in Molecular Biology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign after a childhood spent between corn rows in rural Illinois. He developed a passion for microbiology, entomology and epidemiology while at the Laboratory for Soybean Disease Research (UIUC), the Prairie Research Institute (UIUC) and the Center for Integrated Fungal Research (NC State). In the ag biotech industry, Chris has contributed to many projects involving the discovery and development of naturally occurring microbes that possessed biocontrol properties. At Boragen, he is currently working on novel fungicide screening/applications against several economically relevant agricultural pathogens. In his spare time, Chris likes to play sports, fish, hunt and take trips to the beach and mountains.

Ashley-Beth holds a BS in Public Relations and Journalism from Belmont University in Nashville, TN. She went on to work in a top Advertising and PR firm in Nashville before relocating to her native North Carolina. She holds a Professional in Human Resources accreditation from HRCI. At Boragen, Ashley-Beth is responsible for the people, press and logistics. Ashley-Beth credits her love and appreciation for Ag to a childhood spent on her grandparent’s blueberry farm. When she has spare time, she enjoys running, reading and spending time with friends and family.

Sarah obtained her BS in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Texas at Austin and a PhD in Molecular Cancer Biology from Duke University. At Duke she investigated links between extracellular signaling and murine T cell metabolism. After completion of her PhD, she moved to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where she investigated viral mechanisms of host innate immunity dysregulation. Since then, Sarah has worked in a variety of industry roles with experience in immunology, virology, global health diagnostics, and small molecule drug discovery with a focus on assay development. At Boragen, Sarah works on our animal health and human health programs. In her down time, she enjoys daily walks with her dog, baking, and home renovation projects.

Bennett is a native of eastern North Carolina and received his BS from North Carolina State University in Natural Resources. He has over 10 years of experience working in agricultural research in both academic and private sectors. At Boragen, Bennett is responsible for greenhouse operations and maintaining plants used for screening novel fungicides against economically relevant plant pathogens. In his spare time, Bennett enjoys hiking with his dog, fishing at the coast, and supporting the local live music scene.

Roger has served a number of leadership roles for Syngenta including President of Syngenta Biotechnology Inc., Global Head of Crop Genetics Research, and Global Head of Technology Strategy & Integration from 2002 until retiring in 2012. Prior to that, he held management positions at Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a DuPont company (1991-2002), Allelix Crop Technologies, and Allelix Inc. (1983-1991). In parallel to his industrial career, he had an academic career as a professor at the University of Toronto with an adjunct professorship at the University of Waterloo, following work as an Assistant Professor at Kansas State University. Post-doctoral research was performed at the University of Florida and the Plant Breeding Institute, Cambridge, UK following a PhD from King’s College, London. Roger currectly serves as Boragen’s Chief Executive Officer and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board.

Tony serves as Chief Scientific Officer and is a Co-Founder of Boragen Inc., a discovery stage company that leverages the unique chemical attributes of boron chemistry to address difficult unmet needs. Tony obtained his PhD in Chemistry from Queen’s University in Canada in 2011 prior to joining Dr. Steven Benkovic’s lab at Pennsylvania State University. Tony is a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) postdoctoral Research Fellow whose research has focused on various areas, including Chemistry, Biochemistry, Mycology and Plant Pathology. Over the years, Tony has generated 30 peer-reviewed publications/book chapters, over a dozen patent and patent applications and has been invited to participate in multiple seminars. Outside of Boragen, Tony enjoys cycling, running, cooking and learning about new food and cultures. 

CL received his PhD in Medicinal Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of New Mexico under the direction of Professors Debra Dunaway-Mariano and Patrick S. Mariano. His graduate research focused on enzyme inhibitor design, synthesis and evaluation. Chunliang then joined Stephen J. Benkovic’s lab at Pennsylvania State University where he studied boron-based drug discovery. In addition to pursuing novel compounds for drug discovery, CL enjoys playing basketball and spending time with family.

Megan holds a BS in Food Science from North Carolina State University and began her career in Food Safety & Quality Assurance. Megan then returned to NCSU to earn a Masters in Microbial Biotechnology, a degree that integrates science and MBA-level coursework with real-world industry experience. While in the program, she joined Boragen as a Safety & Compliance intern, before transitioning to Program Manager position, where she plans and organizes programs across multiple market segments to align the science progression with the business objectives. In her free time, she likes to bake, paint and read.

Cari graduated from Radford University with a BS in Environmental Biology. Prior to joining Boragen, she worked in microbiology for a pharmaceutical company. At Boragen, Cari is currently working on novel fungicide screening/applications against a number of economically relevant agricultural pathogens.  In her free time, Cari enjoys scoping out new music and concerts in the area.

Tim earned his PhD in toxicology from the University of Michigan, is certified by the American Board of Toxicology (DABT), is a Fellow of the Academy of Toxicological Sciences (ATS) and has nearly 40 years of experience in the field of toxicology, human health risk assessment, and regulatory affairs.  As an active member and past-president of the Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI), the Society of Toxicology (SOT), and the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), he continues to pursue a passion to resolve difficult scientific issues by collaborating with academic, government, industry, and NGO scientists.  Tim retired from Syngenta in 2015 and was lured out of retirement by Boragen’s fascinating boron-based science and the fast pace of molecule discovery by Boragen’s highly skilled and dedicated scientists. A perfect day for Tim outside of his professional pursuits is to fly-fish and play tennis on the same day, or take a long hike with his wife, Denise and dog, Cassie. And if you happen to have an antique fountain pen, Tim might just “collect” it from you.

A native of Michigan, Luke received his BS in Biology at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor and his PhD in Plant Biology and Plant Pathology from Michigan State University. His graduate research focused on plant-microbe interactions in the rhizosphere, soil microbe population dynamics as they relate to soilborne plant diseases and the implementation of next-generation sequencing and spatial/temporal geographical information into integrated pest management. At Boragen, Luke leads biological development work that grew out of his post-doctoral research of fungicide resistance management and applied field biology for new product development. In addition to his passion for novel fungicide development, Luke enjoys live music, rock climbing and fly fishing.

Hannah holds a BS in Cellular Biology and BS in Microbiology from Central Washington State University and Washington State University, respectively. While in Eastern Washington, she worked in developing and testing biorationale agrochemicals and provided technical assistance to a wide range of pome and stone fruit growers through Pace International. She received her Masters of Microbial Biotechnology and MBA in Technology Commercialization from North Carolina State University while working as an independent Research Consultant for multiple start-ups in the RTP area. She has a strong passion for Ag and food safety, as well as learning how to commercialize technologies to advance these fields for plant and human health. In her free time, Hannah enjoys running with her 100-pound german shepherd and attending classical concerts.

YK earned his PhD from the Institute of Chemistry, the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Before joining Boragen in 2017, YK worked at several biotech companies including Anacor Pharmaceuticals, where he and his colleagues discovered KerydinTM (Tavaborole) and EucrisaTM (Crisaborole), approved by the US FDA in July 2014 and Dec 2016, respectively. He has led medicinal chemistry teams for HCV, malaria and fungal disease, and animal health discovery programs for tick and flea, gastrointestinal worms, bovine respiratory disease and African animal trypanosomiasis. YK is experienced in managing chemistry outsourcing at international CROs, as well as integrating medicinal chemistry research activities for discovery programs. He has contributed to 61 patents and applications, 74 peer-reviewed scientific research articles and 46 scientific conference presentations. YK’s favorite hobbies include watching movies, reading, playing basketball, walking, swimming and traveling.

Yasheen holds her PhD degree in Medicinal Chemistry from the College of Pharmacy at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Before joining Boragen, Yasheen worked for more than 9 years as the head of the computational chemistry and chemo-informatics group at Anacor Pharmaceuticals until it was acquired by Pfizer in 2016. Her work at Anacor focused on structure-based drug design of boron-containing drug molecules in anti-inflammation, as well as anti-parasites and anti-infectious disease states. Prior to Anacor, Yasheen worked as a principal computational chemist at biotech and pharmaceutical companies including MediChem, Wyeth and Chiron/Novartis, namely in the oncology space. Yasheen resides in California and enjoys reading and bird talk.

Dr. Benkovic is the Evan Pugh Professor and Eberly Chair in Chemistry at the Pennsylvania State University. He is a Founder and Head of the Scientific Advisory Board for Anacor Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Anacor was formed in 2001, went through several successful VC funding rounds and an IPO, and was sold to Pfizer for over $5 billion. Dr. Benkovic was awarded the National Academy of Inventors (NAI) Fellow (2015), the National Academy of Science Award in Chemical Sciences (2011), the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Life Science (2009), and the National Medal of Science by President Obama (2009).

Kristina is a Managing Director with ARCH Venture Partners and is focused on the creation and development of biotechnology, pharmaceutical and agbiotechnology companies. Since joining ARCH in 2002, Ms. Burow has played a significant role in the creation and development of several companies. Ms. Burow is a Director of Vividion Therapeutics, Lycera, BlackThorn Therapeutics, Sienna Biopharmaceuticals, Metacrine, Scholar Rock, Unity Biotechnology, AgBiome, AgTech Accelerator and Vir Biotechnology. She previously was a co-founder and Director of Receptos (RCPT – acquired by Celgene). Ms. Burow has participated in several other ARCH portfolio companies including Siluria Technologies, Kythera (KYTH – acquired by Allergan), Ikaria (acquired by Madison Dearborn) and was a co-founder and board member of Sapphire Energy. Prior to joining ARCH Ms. Burow was an Associate with the Novartis BioVenture Fund in San Diego. As an early employee at the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF), she directed Chemistry Operations and was active in Business Development where she helped create numerous companies as spin-outs from GNF. Ms. Burow holds a M.B.A. from the University of Chicago, a M.A. in Chemistry from Columbia University and a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.

Raj has completed about 200 transactions of different types during his career, ranging from licensing transactions, joint ventures, research agreements, partnerships, acquisitions and divestments. The single largest transaction was the acquisition of Aventis CropScience by Bayer CropScience for € 7.25 billion and the subsequent divestments, which needed to be, and were completed, in a period of 6 months. He recently retired as member of the Group Leadership Circle of Bayer AG and Senior Vice President of Bayer CropScience AG. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Gowan, USA, PI Industries, India and Sajjan Ind., India. Raj continues as an advisor to Bayer CropScience AG and is a member of an expert panel of a leading European private equity fund. He is also a managing partner of RK Associates, a business and advisory consulting company.

Joel S. Marcus is the Executive Chairman and Founder of Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc. (NYSE:ARE), an urban office REIT and the first and longest-tenured owner, operator, and developer uniquely focused on collaborative life science, technology, and agtech campuses in AAA innovation cluster locations. Mr. Marcus co-founded Alexandria in 1994 as a garage startup with $19 million in Series A capital and, as Chief Executive Officer from March 1997 to April 2018, he led its growth into an S&P 500 company with an approximately $18 billion total market capitalization and a total shareholder return of approximately 1,300% since the company’s IPO in 1997. Alexandria, which reached its 20th anniversary as an NYSE listed REIT in May 2017, is the only publicly traded pure-play office/laboratory REIT. As of June 30, 2019, Alexandria has an approximately $22 billion total market capitalization and a total shareholder return of more than 1,500% . Alexandria is a four-time Nareit Gold Investor CARE (Communications & Reporting Excellence) Award winner and was selected as the NAIOP 2019 Developer of the Year.

Mr. Marcus serves on the boards of Applied Therapeutics Inc., Atara Biotherapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ:ATRA), Intra-Cellular Therapies, Inc. (NASDAQ:ITCI), MeiraGTx Holdings (NASDAQ:MGTX), Boragen Inc., Frequency Therapeutics, Inc., Yumanity Therapeutics, the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH), MassBio, Scripps Research; the Emily Krzyzewski Center, the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, the Navy SEAL Foundation, the Partnership for New York City, and Robin Hood Foundation. Additionally, he is a member of the MIT Corporation’s Visiting Committee for the Department of Biology.

Prior to co-founding Alexandria, Mr. Marcus had an extensive legal career specializing in corporate finance and capital markets, venture capital, and mergers and acquisitions. During that time, he acquired an expertise in the biopharmaceutical industry and was one of the principal architects of the Kirin-Amgen EPO joint venture in 1984. He was also a practicing certified public accountant and tax manager with Arthur Young & Co., where he focused on the financing and taxation of REITs.

He was named one of Real Estate Forum’s 2017 Best Bosses in commercial real estate and was previously a recipient of the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year Award (Los Angeles — Real Estate). Mr. Marcus earned his undergraduate and Juris Doctor degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dr. Schimmel is a Professor of Cell and Molecular Biology at the Scripps Research Institute. He has been a cofounder in multiple biotech companies that have gone to successful exits including: RepliGen Corporation, Alkermes, Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Sirtris, a GSK Company, and aTyr Pharma. He was a founding scientific advisory board member for Illumina, Inc. For his achievements and discoveries in scientific research in the biological sciences, Schimmel has been elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, and the Institute of Medicine.

Dr. Hertl earned his PhD in analytical organic electrochemistry and quantum mechanics from Eberhard-Karls University, Tübingen, Germany and has enjoyed 30+ years of international experience in technical leadership directed towards agricultural innovation. Dr. Hertl led diverse teams comprised of up to 900 professionals representing more than 30 nationalities in the complex development of environmental and human safety data for global registrations.  In addition to his technical leadership, he led and sponsored major functional and corporate transformation programs that re-engineered the discovery and development pipeline, outsourcing strategies, and holistic corporate governance. Dr. Hertl is recognized for his inspirational people leadership and has been a sought-after senior mentor for talent management. Dr. Hertl retired from Syngenta in early 2018 and has completed several consulting projects with global management-strategy consulting firms, focusing on regulatory and product development opportunities in agrochemicals and biologicals.

Dr. Plattner served as Anacor's Senior Vice President of Research beginning in February 2004. From 1998 to 2004, Dr. Plattner was Vice President of Small Molecule Discovery Research at Chiron, a biopharmaceutical company. Prior to joining Chiron, Dr. Plattner held managerial and research positions in chemistry and pharmaceutical research with Abbott Laboratories, a pharmaceutical company, from 1977 to 1998. Dr. Plattner earned a B.S. from the University of Illinois and a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Steffens served a number of leadership roles for Bayer including V.P., Product Development North America, Crop Science and V.P., Agronomic Development. With more than 30 years of experience, Dr. Steffens holds exceptionally broad international and domestic experience in research, development, and technical market support within the biological sciences industry. He has a proven record of identifying opportunities, developing strategies, successfully implementing action plans, and accomplishing bottom-line results. Dr. Steffens earned his B.S. in Biology and M.S. in Genetics from the University of Mainz, Germany, and his PhD in Applied Entomology from the University of Giessen, Germany.

Over the course of Dr. Zettler’s career, he has held global leadership positions in New Business Development for Dow Chemical, Dow AgroSciences, and AgroFresh Solutions. In these roles, he has overseen the discovery, development, regulatory approval and launch of new active ingredients and formulated products across the global pre-harvest and post-harvest food and agriculture sectors. These solutions spanned agronomic and horticultural crops, from grower to retailer. Dr. Zettler received a B.A. in Chemistry from Wittenberg University and a PhD in Organic Chemistry from Case Western Reserve University.

Dr. Metcalf has held a number of executive management positions in the field of drug discovery and innovation; most recently he served as Chief Scientific Officer for Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT).  Under Dr. Metcalf’s direction, GBT’s voxelotor was discovered.  The drug was  later approved and sold under the brand name Oxbryta® for sickle cell anemia in 2019.  Earlier, he served as Head, Drug Discovery at Incyte Pharmaceuticals. During his tenure at Incyte, the company was transformed from a genomics information company to one focused on drug discovery, culminating in the discovery of Jakafi®, a JAK1/2 kinase inhibitor. Jakafi® was approved for the treatment of myelofibrosis in 2011.

Other positions Metcalf has held include the Chief Scientific Officer of Kosan Biosciences and several executive roles with SmithKline Beecham over the course of 17 years. Dr. Metcalf is also credited with the discovery of Sabril®, for epilepsy, and has numerous patents and publications in the drug discovery arena.