# Francisco Leport

> Francisco Leport is the co-founder and CEO of Gordian Biotechnology, a South San Francisco-based company pioneering high-throughput in vivo drug discovery for age-related diseases. Trained as a physicist at Stanford, Leport pivoted from particle physics and energy tech into biotech, driven by a lifelong fascination with longevity sparked by his mother's fruit fly research. Gordian's signature 'mosaic screening' platform uses gene therapy vectors and single-cell RNA sequencing to test hundreds of therapies simultaneously in single animal models, with an AI system called Pythia scoring results against human disease signatures - achieving 80% accuracy in predicting clinical outcomes. The company raised a $60M Series A in April 2024, backed by Founders Fund, Gigafund, and The Longevity Fund, and in early 2026 announced a research collaboration with Pfizer to accelerate obesity drug discovery.

- **Role:** Co-founder and CEO at Gordian Biotechnology
- **Organizations:** Gordian Biotechnology, Tachyus, Tesla, Integrated Plasmonics, Boom Supersonic, LePort Schools
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** B.S. in Physics & Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, Ph.D. in Experimental Physics (Neutrino Physics), Stanford University
- **Known for:** Raised $60M Series A in April 2024 from Founders Fund, Gigafund, The Longevity Fund, and former Novartis CEO Thomas Ebeling, Built a drug discovery platform achieving 80% accuracy in predicting human clinical outcomes, Pioneered 'mosaic screening' - the first method to test hundreds of gene therapy targets simultaneously in a single living animal

## Career timeline

- **2003** — Graduated UC Irvine with B.S. in Physics & Astronomy
- **~2009** — Completed PhD at Stanford on the EXO-200 liquid xenon neutrino detector experiment
- **~2010-2012** — Senior Research Scientist at Tesla, worked on battery technologies for the Model S
- **~2012-2014** — Director of Engineering at Integrated Plasmonics, led development of a medical diagnostics device
- **~2014-2018** — Co-founder, CTO, and later CSO/AI Lead at Tachyus, an energy-tech software company
- **2018** — Met co-founder Martin Borch Jensen at Cinderella Bakery in April; attended Burning Man together to vet their partnership
- **2018** — Co-founded Gordian Biotechnology; incorporated in October 2018
- **2019** — Completed seed funding for Gordian Biotechnology by February
- **2021** — Validated mosaic screening by correctly predicting 13 of 16 clinical outcomes in a MASH mouse study
- **2024** — Raised $60M Series A led by Founders Fund, Gigafund, The Longevity Fund, and others (April 2024)
- **2024** — Launched high-throughput in vivo screening platform; announced 80% accuracy in osteoarthritis clinical outcome prediction
- **2026** — Announced non-exclusive research collaboration with Pfizer for obesity drug discovery (January 2026)
- **2026** — Released preprint on Gordian's multispecies, modality-agnostic scalable in vivo mosaic screening platform (March 2026)
- **2026** — Selected as speaker at BIO International Convention 2026

## Achievements

- Raised $60M Series A in April 2024 from Founders Fund, Gigafund, The Longevity Fund, and former Novartis CEO Thomas Ebeling
- Built a drug discovery platform achieving 80% accuracy in predicting human clinical outcomes
- Pioneered 'mosaic screening' - the first method to test hundreds of gene therapy targets simultaneously in a single living animal
- Secured a research collaboration with Pfizer for obesity drug discovery in January 2026
- Completed PhD at Stanford in experimental neutrino physics, working on the EXO-200 experiment
- Former Senior Research Scientist at Tesla, contributing to battery technology for the Model S
- Correctly predicted 13 of 16 clinical trial outcomes in the company's initial MASH study in 2021
- Published academic work in physics indexed on Google Scholar
- Named speaker at BIO International Convention 2026

## Latest updates

- **2026-03** — Gordian Biotechnology released a major preprint: 'A Multispecies, Modality-Agnostic Scalable In Vivo Mosaic Screening Platform for Therapeutic Target Discovery'
- **2026-01** — Gordian Bio announced a non-exclusive research collaboration with Pfizer to accelerate in vivo target discovery for obesity drug development
- **2026** — Francisco confirmed as speaker at BIO International Convention 2026
- **2025-08** — Gordian Biotechnology was a Tier 5 sponsor at ARDD 2025 (Aging Research & Drug Discovery Meeting)
- **2024-04** — Gordian raised $60M Series A and publicly launched its high-throughput in vivo screening platform, announcing 80% accuracy in osteoarthritis clinical outcome prediction

## Links

- Website: https://gordian.bio
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/leportfr
- Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/leportfr
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyUTWL5vae4

---

Profile page: https://yespress.io/francisco-leport
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-05-14