Employees Archives - Juvena Therapeutics

Mayowa Agbaje-Williams

Mayowa is the founder of Clinical Scientist Group LLC (CSG), a clinical science consulting and recruiting firm providing regulatory writing services to Juvena Therapeutics. With more than 15 years experience in clinical development, her experience is wide-ranging and includes roles as a study coordinator and clinical research associate. From there she held roles in clinical trial management, and clinical science and medical writing consulting. She is a PGY-1 residency trained pharmacist.

Her therapeutic area experience includes but is not limited to: oncology (solid tumor), transplantation/immunology, cardiovascular, rare disease, ophthalmology, gastrointestinal, and hepatology.

Mayowa received her BSc in Biochemistry from Beloit College in Wisconsin, Masters of Public Health (Concentration in Epidemiology & Biostatistics) and Doctor of Pharmacy Degree at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

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Bernard (Barney) D. King, MD

Dr. King is President of Macnas Consulting International, Inc. Macnas specializes in strategic product development planning and execution for pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device companies and in due diligence consulting for venture capital, investment, and pharmaceutical firms.

Dr. King has more than 25 years’ experience managing business and development operations in the pharmaceutical, medical device, biotechnology and CRO (Contract Research Organization) industries. In particular, he has directed, or been directly involved in, development programs for more than 100 pharmaceutical, medical device and biologics products. The products have addressed clinical targets in a broad range of therapeutic areas and the development programs have included more than 250 separate clinical trials in multiple countries.

Dr. King graduated cum laude from the University of Notre Dame, majoring in English and Preprofessional Studies, and received his MD from the Ohio State University College of Medicine. He is board certified in Cardiology and Internal Medicine. He received his MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. King’s book on development entitled, Get It Right The First Time! Pharmaceutical Product Development: Intelligent Solutions for Challenging Issues was recently published by Macnas Press, San Diego, CA. It is available online at www.macnaspress.com and through Amazon.

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Shari-Anne Burgess

Shari Burgess brings over 25 years of clinical experience to the life science and healthcare industry working in a variety of indications such as but not limited to oncology, neuromuscular disorders, rare disease, regenerative medicine, burn and wound care and orthopedics. She is the Chief Clinical Operations Lead in her clinical consulting company, Clinsytes Inc., a niche clinical consulting company that provides global clinical operation insights and solutions for small to midsize life science companies for the improvement of clinical operational performance and delivery of measurables in drug/device development, trial management and business development strategies. Previous to Clinsytes, Shari held senior management roles at CROs and medical/biotech companies.

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Meredith Brown-Tuttle

Meredith Brown-Tuttle has written and coordinated numerous drug and biologic submissions to US and international regulatory agencies, developed global regulatory strategies, and conducted worldwide regulatory intelligence.

Meredith Brown-Tuttle, RAC, FRAPS, has 31 years of industry experience from bench to clinic to approval of both drugs and devices. Meredith has written and coordinated numerous drug and biologic submissions to US and international regulatory agencies, developed global regulatory strategies and conducted worldwide regulatory intelligence. She is currently both Vice President of Regulatory & Quality at Lyric Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and a strategy/intelligence consultant at Regulatoium. Meredith has written, managed and led over 30 successful domestic and international IND and NDA submissions. She is a founding instructor at UC Santa Cruz Regulatory Certificate Program and author of two books: “IND Submissions: A Primer” and “Regulatory Intelligence 101.” Meredith graduated with a BA in biological psychology (neuroscience) from San Jose State University.

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Hanadie Yousef, PhD

Dr. Hanadie Yousef is a leading expert on the biology of aging and mechanisms underlying tissue degeneration with over two decades of experience in biomedical research. In 2018, she launched Juvena Therapeutics, a venture-backed biotechnology company mapping the therapeutic potential of secreted proteins to develop biologics that prevent, reverse and cure chronic and age-related diseases. The company has secured about $60M to date and developed a proprietary pro-regenerative protein library supported by a computationally driven drug discovery and development platform that enables them to characterize human stem cell-secreted proteins for therapeutic potential. Their artificial intelligence-enhanced platform leverages multiple data modalities and technologies, including quantitative proteomics, multi-omics, high-content imaging and machine learning. Juvena’s scaling platform has enabled the identification, extensive preclinical validation, and lead optimization of three novel drug candidates, including a lead recombinant fusion protein headed towards an investigational new drug and anticipated to enter the clinic in 2024 for Myotonic Dystrophy Type 1, as well as mutliple discovery candidates with in vivo efficacy across several chronic, age-related and rare metabolic and muscle degenerative disease areas.

Dr. Yousef’s high-impact published research has been supported by fellowships and grants from the National Institute of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation, SPARK, and the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine and led to multiple issued and pending patents. She has received multiple awards and been named to various shortlists for her entrepreneurship and innovation, including the Biocom Catalyst award in 2022, Emerging Pharma Leader by Pharmaceutical Executive, Business Insider 30 under 40 in Healthcare, and Endpoints 20 under 40 lists in 2023. She earned her B.S., summa cum laude from Carnegie Mellon University and a PhD from UC Berkeley as an NSF graduate research fellow then completed a 5-year postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford School of Medicine as an NIH fellow and SPARK scholar.

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Jeremy O’Connell, PhD

As Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder of Juvena Therapeutics, Dr. O’Connell oversees research strategy, pre-clinical science and manufacturing, and intellectual property efforts. Dr. O’Connell’s expertise in proteomics and systems biology expert accrued during a PhD from UT Austin, a postdoc at Harvard, and his time in industry.

Prior to Juvena Therapeutics, in his postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical school in the lab of Steven Gygi, he leveraged large proteomics datasets to build machine learning classifiers to improve protein-protein interaction predictions within the ubiquitin system.

He has spearheaded research projects in multiple tier-one research institutions, including Harvard and Stanford, employing a combination of mass spectrometry, high throughput imaging, and computational approaches. His work has resulted in numerous peer-reviewed publications, approved and pending patents, millions in award grant funding as the primary PI, fellowships, and awards.

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Fengling Liu, PhD

Dr. Fengling Liu brings over 10 years of industry experience developing multiple biologics. Since 2010 she served as the Protein Biochemistry lead or group lead of Protein Science in multiple biotechs in the bay area including Medimmune (AstraZeneca), Relypsa, Atreca and Arcus Biosciences.

Her protein science-focused research spanned target identification/confirmation, lead optimization, protein purification and engineering to support vaccine development, small molecule and antibody drug discovery in infectious disease and Immuno-Oncology. She was trained in Biochemistry and Structure Biology during her PhD at Georgia State University. She studied the molecular basis of HIV protease drug resistance through enzyme kinetics and X-ray crystal structures. She solved over a dozen super high resolution crystal structures of HIV/drug complexes and discovered a novel drug resistance mechanism.

During her postdoc in the lab of Professor Ted Jardetzky in the Structural Biology Department at Stanford Medical School, Dr. Liu studied human viral glycoprotein interactions to discover viral entry inhibitors.

Besides her passion for science and technology, Fengling also enjoys gardening and hiking with family and friends.

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Neil Berkley, MS, MBA

Neil Berkley brings over 20 years of experience in corporate development, business development, and strategic planning from large pharma, midsize biotech/pharma and small biotech companies. He has completed a wide variety of transactions including in- and out-licensing transactions, M&A transactions, co-development/co-investment/co-commercialization transactions, research collaborations, financing transactions, device and supply agreements, etc. Neil has built and lead multiple business development, corporate development and alliance management teams.

Prior to joining Juvena, Neil was Chief Business Officer at AbCellera, a public biotech company focused on discovering novel antibody therapeutics. Previous to AbCellera, Neil was Vice President, Head of Business Development at Halozyme Therapeutics, a public biotechnology company focused on enabling platforms for the pharmaceutical industry. Neil has also held various business development and corporate development roles at Axerovision, COI (Avalon Incubator), Acadia, and GSK. Earlier in his career, Neil was Head of Business development at Cadence Pharmaceuticals, where he helped sell the company for $1.3B in cash. Neil also co-founded and helped build two San Diego-based biotechnology companies, Mpex Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Aptalis) and Vaxiion (a clinical stage bladder cancer company).

Neil holds a BS in molecular biology from the UC San Diego, as well as a Master of Science in cellular and molecular biology and an MBA from San Diego State University.

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Zhihua Li, PhD

Dr. Li is a biologist with a multidisciplinary background in Biochemistry, Immunology, Cell and Molecular Biology, with 7 years of research experience in academia and 4 years in industry. He joined Juvena Therapeutics as a Protein Engineering Scientist to build protein expression and purification pipelines and to improve Juvena Therapeutics’ pipeline library of rejuvenating proteins for therapeutic purposes.

Following a BS in Biochemistry and Master’s Degree (MS) in genetics from scientific and technical universities in China, and a second MS in Molecular Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Southern California all during which he conducted research, Dr. Li completed his PhD (2007) and postdoctoral training (2014) in Cell and Molecular Biology from UT Austin, where he studied protein-protein interactions in different ways: first by combining computational predictions with experimental validations to discover 15 new protein factors functioning in the biogenesis of ribosomes; then by combining powerful mass spectrometry with protein fractionation techniques to create protein complex maps for both yeast and human cells. Continuing his exploration of novel protein interactions in his postdoctoral research, Dr. Li elucidated the self-cleavage mechanism of a novel membrane-bound transcription factor that drives oligodendrocyte differentiation. He’s published multiple co-authorships and first authorship studies along the way.

Before joining Juvena, Dr. Li worked in industry and biotech startups as Lead Scientist, Life Science Consultant, Scientific Advisor and R&D director. As Lead Scientist at BMLogic, Dr. Li developed and optimized the protein secretory production system in Pichia, leading to improved protein secretion efficiency and greatly reduced protein degradation.

Besides his passion for science, he enjoys spending time with his kid and exploring nature.

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Thach Mai, PhD

Dr. Thach Mai joined Juvena Therapeutics as a Stem Cell Biologist and Bioinformatician to lead the validation and discovery of the key rejuvenating protein factors in Juvena Therapeutics’ complex embryonic secretome cocktail and develop and improve Juvena’s HTS platform for protein therapeutic discovery.

Dr. Mai is a trained stem cell biologist and immunologist with a focus on the mechanisms of muscle degeneration and aging. Dr. Mai received his PhD in Molecular Biology and Immunology from UC Irvine and a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University. During his fellowship, Dr. Mai used bioinformatics to accurately quantify high-throughput genomics data from multi-nucleated cells (heterokaryons) consisting of human and mouse gene transcripts to discover a novel transcription factor that drives the reprogramming of fibroblasts to pluripotency. Self-taught in ML with a strong passion for rapid biological discovery, he has generated deep learning models that identify muscle-specific aging genotypes as well as a machine learning classifier for the myogenic differentiation state of a single cell with a heterogeneous population.

Dr. Mai has been awarded multiple fellowships including from the National Institute of Health (F32), has three, 1st author publications including in Nature Journals, and is co-author of thirteen publications with one in review.

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