Alex Aravanis is the CEO and co-founder of Moonwalk Biosciences, a precision epigenetics company he launched in 2024 with $57 million and Broad Institute scientist Feng Zhang. An engineer-turned-physician with degrees from UC Berkeley and Stanford, he co-founded the cancer early-detection company GRAIL, later returned to Illumina as Chief Technology Officer, and now wants to rewrite the 'software of the genome' without cutting a single strand of DNA.
Ken Drazan is the Chairman, CEO and co-founder of Arsenal Biosciences (ArsenalBio), a South San Francisco clinical-stage company building computationally designed, programmable T-cell therapies to attack solid tumors. A board-certified liver transplant surgeon turned operator and investor, he previously was President and Chief Business Officer of GRAIL (acquired by Illumina), founded the robotic surgery company Verb Surgical (acquired by Johnson & Johnson), and co-founded the private equity firm Bertram Capital. At ArsenalBio he has raised hundreds of millions of dollars and forged collaborations with Bristol Myers Squibb and Genentech, betting that gene-edited 'integrated circuit' T cells - and an AI foundation model of the T cell - can turn cell therapy into something curative for cancers that have resisted it.
Elaine Cheung is Chief Business Officer at Moonwalk Biosciences, a South San Francisco biotech backed by $57 million in funding and co-founded by CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang and former Illumina CTO Alex Aravanis. With 20+ years navigating the inflection points of genomic medicine - from spinning GRAIL out of Illumina, helping architect its $900M+ Series B, and steering Lyell Immunopharma through its IPO - Cheung brings a rare combination of scientific literacy and deal-making precision. At Moonwalk, she is helping build the business infrastructure for a company that has pivoted from epigenetic editing to siRNA-based therapeutics targeting adipose biology and obesity.
Maneesh Jain is the CEO and Co-founder of Mirvie, a South San Francisco-based biotech company pioneering RNA-based blood tests to predict pregnancy complications like preeclampsia and preterm birth months before symptoms occur. A serial entrepreneur with 20+ years in life sciences and more than $1.5B in combined exits across five prior startups - including Ion Torrent (acquired by Life Technologies) and Cirina (acquired by GRAIL) - Jain trained at the Stanford Genome Technology Center and holds a BS from Caltech and a Master's in Applied Physics from Stanford. Mirvie has raised over $90 million from investors including Khosla Ventures, GV, General Catalyst, and the Gates Foundation, and received FDA Breakthrough Device Designation for its preeclampsia risk test in 2022.
Vasiliki 'Vicky' Demas, PhD, is the CEO and founder of identifeye HEALTH, an AI-enabled retinal imaging company that brings specialized eye screening to primary care settings. A chemical engineer by training with a PhD from UC Berkeley and a postdoc at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, she cut her teeth as a founding member of Google Life Sciences (which became Verily) and helped build foundational technology for GRAIL's Galleri multi-cancer early detection test. At identifeye HEALTH — which she joined in 2021 and rebranded from Tesseract Health — she leads a 38-person team developing a portable, FDA-registered AI retinal camera that lets minimally trained staff detect diabetic retinopathy and systemic disease markers in the same visit patients already make to their primary care doctor.
Mark Lee, MD, PhD is the CEO and Co-Founder of N-Power Medicine, a Redwood City-based company reinventing how oncology clinical trials reach patients. A medical oncologist and scientist trained at Stanford and Harvard, Lee has spent his career at the frontier of personalized medicine - from developing Oncotype DX diagnostics at Genomic Health, to helping build early cancer detection at GRAIL, to leading personalized healthcare at Genentech/Roche. In 2021, he co-founded N-Power Medicine to embed research infrastructure directly into community oncology clinics, combining AI, embedded staff, and real-time registries to dramatically expand clinical trial access. After raising a $72M Series B led by Merck's Global Health Innovation Fund, N-Power acquired Syapse in late 2024 to build the largest community-based prospective clinical research network in oncology.