stem-cell-biology
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Joel Schneider
Joel Schneider is the founder, president and CEO of Carbon Biosciences, a Waltham, Massachusetts biotech building gene therapies from parvovirus-derived vectors rather than the more common adeno-associated viruses. He launched the company out of stealth in 2022 with a $38 million Series A led by Agent Capital, pairing his operating background with the science of gene therapy pioneer Robert Kotin. Trained as a stem cell biologist with a Rutgers Ph.D. and a Harvard postdoc, Schneider was the first employee at Solid Biosciences before founding Carbon to push vectors that carry larger genetic payloads, target specific tissues such as the lung, and sidestep the pre-existing immunity that limits current gene therapies. Carbon's lead program targets cystic fibrosis.
John Ramunas
John Ramunas, PhD, is the Co-Founder and CEO of Rejuvenation Technologies Inc., a Mountain View, CA biotechnology company pioneering mRNA-based telomere extension therapy to reverse cellular aging. A serial entrepreneur turned neuroscientist, Ramunas spent his PhD at Stanford's Baxter Laboratory for Stem Cell Biology inventing the first safe, nonimmunogenic TERT mRNA drug - a technology now protected by 50+ patents. His company, backed by Khosla Ventures and Y Combinator, is advancing a pipeline targeting fatal orphan diseases including idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and liver cirrhosis, with the long-term vision of a single therapy taken every few years to prevent age-related disease.
Curi Bio
Curi Bio is a Seattle biotechnology company building human-relevant preclinical platforms for drug discovery. By combining human iPSC-derived cells, 3D engineered tissues, lab instruments, and AI/ML data analysis, it gives biopharma teams functional human data earlier in development - aiming to bridge the gap between animal/2D-cell models and the clinic across cardiac, skeletal muscle, metabolic, and neuromuscular diseases.
Nicholas Geisse
Nicholas Geisse is the CEO of Curi Bio, a Seattle biotech building human-relevant tissue platforms that make lab-grown muscle and heart cells behave more like the real thing. A Cambridge-trained pharmacologist who learned to wire up tiny instruments in Kevin Kit Parker's cardiac engineering lab at Harvard, he spent years at Asylum Research selling and designing atomic force microscopes before joining Curi Bio as Chief Science Officer in 2017. He led development of the Mantarray 3D engineered-muscle-tissue platform and the company's NIH-backed R&D program, then stepped up to chief executive in 2023. His work has collected an Xconomy 'Big Idea' award, an SBA Tibbetts award, and an Edison Award.