Mo (Mohammad) Tabrizi, PhD brings over 25 years of experience in basic research, integrative pharmacology, translational sciences, and development of biologics. Prior to Joining Juvena Therapeutics, Dr. Tabrizi served in positions with increasing responsibilities at large companies such as Merck Research Laboratories, Medimmune (acquired by AstraZeneca), Abgenix (acquired by Amgen), and biotech companies such as Soteria Biotherapeutics and Acendis pharma. His product development experience spans many therapeutic areas including oncology, immune-oncology, and inflammatory diseases.
He has been an author or co-inventor on more than 50 original papers, reviews articles, published books and patents. Dr. Tabrizi has been an invited speaker to numerous national and international conferences. Dr. Tabrizi received his bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from University of Houston (Summa Cum Laude) and his PhD from University at Buffalo, State University of New York (SUNY) in Pharmaceutical Sciences. He completed a postdoctoral training in Pharmacology at University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY) with a focus on therapeutics.
Dr. Ali joined Juvena Therapeutics as a Pharmacology Scientist to lead the in vivo studies for the adipose and pulmonary research programs. He is an accomplished lung biologist with 10 years of a strong background in inflammatory, allergic, respiratory, pulmonary vascular, and infectious diseases. His overarching goal is to discover improved therapies for individuals with lung and metabolic diseases.
Dr. Ali’s academic training and research experience across 4 nations and 3 continents have provided him with an excellent background in multiple biological disciplines, including immunology, molecular biology, microbiology, and cell biology. He received a B. Sc in Biotechnology and Genetic Engineering from Khulna University, Bangladesh, an M.Sc. in Systems Biotechnology from Chung-Ang University, South Korea, and a Ph.D. in Immunology and Microbiology from the University of Newcastle, Australia. His Ph.D. focused on investigating how iron, infection, and immunity affect one another in the context of lung diseases, including asthma, COPD, and IPF. These studies showed that increased iron in the lung is associated with small airway fibrosis, inflammation, and reduced lung function in systemic iron-overloaded mouse models. Targeting with an iron chelator drug prevented airway fibrosis and lung function reduction in a mouse model of IPF, highlighting the potential for a novel therapeutic approach to this disease. Having shown iron overload in clinical asthma, he used two mouse models of systemic iron overload and showed that this was associated with inflammation, increased mucus secretion, and scarring in the airways. Subsequent studies demonstrated that the combined treatment with the iron chelator deferoxamine and antibiotic tobramycin reversed lung dysfunction in mice infected with Pseudomonas aeruginosa. As a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford, he investigated ways to enhance bone morphogenic protein 2 (BMPR2), a gene that is haploinsufficient or reduced in expression and function in PAH, a disease of lung blood vessel dysfunction. RNAseq, siRNA-mediated high throughput screening, and in vitro and in vivo models led to the identification of two proteins, PTP1b and ELK3 as modifiers of BMPR2 signaling. In addition, his research discovered two long non-coding RNAs LINC02593 and RGMB-AS1, that modulate BMPR2 signaling and pulmonary vascular remodeling. A second project focused on hemorrhagic telangiectasia (HHT), a related disease associated with mutations in ALK1, ENG, and SMAD4. He identified a small molecule drug that activates BMPR2 signaling and inhibits VEGF signaling pathways, two critical pathways in HHT.
To date, he has published 36 peer-reviewed high-impact publications, 12 as first author and 9 as a second author (average IF >10, with 800+ citations), 23 conference abstracts, 13 conference presentations, 2 book chapters, 1 patent, and 2 funded research grants. His research was also selected for oral and poster presentations at international/national conferences. Recognizing his contributions, he received seven academic and research awards. He mentored 5 undergraduates, 1 junior Ph.D. student, demonstrated immunology and microbiology lab course for 3 years, and 1 high school summer student. He took on a leadership role as a co-Director of the Stanford Cardiovascular Institute Postdoc conference 2020. In addition, he has been regularly invited to conduct peer reviews for elite journals in the pulmonary medicine field.
Beyond academic, professional life, he enjoys traveling, playing, and watching cricket, watching movies.
Hee Ju joined Juvena Therapeutics as a Research Associate to work on the validation of our pipeline of pro-regenerative lead protein therapeutic candidates in in vivo preclinical models of aging and degenerative diseases caused by aging.
She is originally from Korea and she received her master’s degree in biochemistry from Korea University. Her master’s degree was supported by Brain Korea 21 (BK21). During her masters, she was trained in basic molecular techniques and in vitro experiments. Her master’s thesis was about double stranded DNA repair in yeast ribosomal protein S3.
Before joining Juvena Therapeutics, Hee Ju was trained as a research volunteer in the Peter W. Laird lab, Norris Cancer Center at the University of Southern California (USC). She was involved in the epigenomic projects and she designed the reaction oligo for Mouse MetyLight and some of the primers, which she designed, were published in the paper, Urology.
Hee Ju started improving her in vivo skills in the David J. Anderson’s lab as a research assistant for 5 years at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). She was involved in the projects of anxiety and aggression. After she moved to Austin, she worked with Michael R. Drew as a research associate for 4 years at the Center for Learning and Memory, UT Austin. Then she worked at the KPC lab in Korea for 2 years in preclinical models of neurodegeneration, in particular Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease.
In Hee Ju’s free time, she enjoys traveling with family, playing golf, and spending time with her lovely dog Kelly.
Ashil joined Juvena Therapeutics as a Research Associate to contribute to pre-clinical in-vivo research, including the functional and behavioral validation of lead protein therapeutics developed by the in-vitro team.
Ashil obtained his bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of California, Riverside. Working in the Nabity Lab, he focused on genetics with the aim to parse out an endosymbiont genome from that of its host, the woolly apple aphid, to elucidate the mechanisms the endosymbiont utilized to fortify the amino-acid poor diet of the aphid.
Realizing his aptitude for dissection and surgery, he began a two-year stint at the Oka Lab at Caltech post-graduating. After beginning by managing and genotyping mouse colonies of up to 55 lines and 400+ animals for the lab, he moved towards behavioral testing and survival intracranial surgery. He worked as a co-author on a project to create an opiate-biosensor, validating in-vitro and ex-vivo results in-vivo by both optimizing and executing intracranial viral injections, and optic fiber implantation in the VTA in the brain. This in conjunction with post-op fiber photometry and DeepLabCut analysis allowed visualization of how the brain processes mu opiates such as fentanyl.
In Ashil’s free time, he is a basketball fanatic, both in playing pickup and following the pros!
