# Marco Lobba

> Marco Lobba is a chemist turned CEO who co-founded CatenaBio (Catena Biosciences), a UC Berkeley spinout building a new way to staple proteins together. Trained in the labs of Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna and chemist Matthew Francis, he turned a graduate-school enzyme trick into the CysTyr platform, where an engineered enzyme called Catenase forges a durable tyrosine-cysteine bond - the C-Y Bond - to assemble multi-payload conjugates that single-molecule chemistry could not. He was named to the San Francisco Business Times 40 Under 40 in 2025.

- **Role:** CEO & Co-Founder at CatenaBio (Catena Biosciences)
- **Organizations:** CatenaBio (Catena Biosciences), UC Berkeley, Bakar Bio Labs
- **Nationality:** American
- **Education:** Bachelor's degree, Pomona College, PhD in Chemistry (labs of Jennifer Doudna and Matthew Francis), University of California, Berkeley
- **Known for:** Co-founded CatenaBio, a UC Berkeley spinout commercializing enzyme-catalyzed protein conjugation, Named to the San Francisco Business Times 40 Under 40 (2025), Co-developed the CysTyr platform, the Catenase enzyme, and the proprietary C-Y Bond

## Career timeline

- **—** — Earned a bachelor's degree from Pomona College
- **—** — Worked as Quality Manager at Anresco Laboratories
- **—** — PhD researcher at UC Berkeley in the labs of Jennifer Doudna and Matthew Francis, developing tyrosinase-mediated bioconjugation
- **2018** — Co-authored 'Tyrosinase-Mediated Bioconjugation: A Versatile Approach to Chimeric Macromolecules'
- **2020** — Published 'Site-Specific Bioconjugation through Enzyme-Catalyzed Tyrosine-Cysteine Bond Formation' in ACS Central Science
- **2020** — Co-founded Catena Biosciences (CatenaBio), a UC Berkeley spinout
- **2021** — Co-authored 'Synthesis of Multi-Protein Complexes through Charge-Directed Sequential Activation of Tyrosine Residues' in JACS
- **2024** — CatenaBio selected to present its platform and Multi-Payload Conjugates at the Berkeley Bio Startup Showcase at JPMorgan Healthcare Conference
- **2025** — Named to the San Francisco Business Times 40 Under 40

## Achievements

- Co-founded CatenaBio, a UC Berkeley spinout commercializing enzyme-catalyzed protein conjugation
- Named to the San Francisco Business Times 40 Under 40 (2025)
- Co-developed the CysTyr platform, the Catenase enzyme, and the proprietary C-Y Bond
- Pioneered tyrosinase-mediated bioconjugation that joins full-size proteins in under two hours under mild aerobic conditions
- Demonstrated 20-fold improvement in cellular delivery of CRISPR-Cas9 via conjugated cationic peptides
- Published peer-reviewed work in ACS Central Science and the Journal of the American Chemical Society

## Latest updates

- **2025-04** — Named to the San Francisco Business Times 40 Under 40 for contributions to biotech and precision medicine.
- **2024-01** — CatenaBio selected to present its next-generation platform and Multi-Payload Conjugates at the Berkeley Bio Startup Showcase during JPMorgan Healthcare week.

## Links

- Website: https://catenabio.com
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/marco-lobba

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Profile page: https://yespress.io/marco-lobba
Published by YesPress — https://yespress.io
Last updated: 2026-06-22