Spiros Liras, Ph.D.

Co-Founder, Interim Chief Executive Officer, and Director

Spiros Liras, co-founder and interim CEO of Nereid Therapeutics and a venture partner at ATP, has led scientific innovation and discovery at some of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. At Biogen, Spiros established and led the External Portfolio Innovation unit within Research and Development. Prior to his work with Biogen, Spiros was vice president of Medicinal Chemistry at Pfizer, where he led the delivery of clinical pipelines in cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and neuroscience. Under his leadership, his divisions explored cutting edge drug discovery concepts including selective protein translation inhibition, design of macrocycles for drug discovery in tough target space, allosterism, and tissue targeting design strategies for the delivery of small molecule oligonucleotide therapeutics and other modalities. Spiros is also interim CEO of ATP portfolio companies Initial Therapeutics and Nine Square Therapeutics and serves as adjunct full professor in the department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco. He holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Iowa State University and completed postdoctoral studies at the University of Texas at Austin.

Seth Harrison, M.D.

Chairman of the Board of Directors

Seth Harrison is founder and managing partner of ATP (Apple Tree Partners), a leading life sciences venture capital firm with $2.65B in committed capital. To date, ATP has launched or invested in over 30 transformative companies focused on delivering cutting-edge therapies for unmet medical needs, out of which 19 so far have gone public or been acquired. Prior to starting ATP in 1999, Seth was a general partner at Oak Investment Partners, and before that a venture partner at Sevin Rosen Funds. From 2002 to 2010, he also served on the board of the International Partnership for Microbicides. He received an A.B. from Princeton University, an M.D. and MBA both from Columbia University, and completed a surgery internship at the Presbyterian Hospital in the City of New York.

Raj Chopra, FRCP, FRCPath, FRSB, Ph.D.

Director

Raj Chopra is head of oncology and a venture partner at ATP. At The Institute of Cancer Research in London, as director of the Cancer Research UK Cancer Therapeutics Unit, he led one of the largest academic drug discovery groups in the world and focused on targeted protein degradation and complex 3D cell culture models. Raj also worked at Celgene from 2009 to 2016 as corporate vice president of Translational and Early Drug Development, leading an international team of more than 100 scientists. Before joining Celgene, he held leadership positions in AstraZeneca’s Oncology Therapeutics group in the UK and US. Raj started his academic career as the director of Hematological Oncology at Christie Hospital and was group leader at the Paterson Institute of Cancer Research, both located in Manchester, UK. He was a non-executive director of Artios Pharma, established to develop a next-generation DNA damage response target pipeline of cancer therapeutics, and co-founder of Monté Rosa Therapeutics, a biotech focused on targeted protein degradation. Raj trained in medicine at University College London, where he earned his Ph.D. in medicine, cell and molecular biology. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London, the Royal College of Pathologists, and the Royal Society of Biology.

Michael Ehlers, M.D., Ph.D.

Director

Michael Ehlers is chief scientific officer and a venture partner at ATP, applying expertise gained through leading research and development at major biopharmaceutical companies. As executive vice president for Research and Development at Biogen, Mike led discovery sciences, translational medicine, clinical development, and regulatory sciences, with a focus on neurological, immunological, and rare diseases. He advanced more than 20 novel clinical candidates and oversaw global filings and approvals of Spinraza^TM (nusinersin), the first drug approved for spinal muscular atrophy. And as Biotherapeutics group senior vice president and Neuroscience chief scientific officer at Pfizer, he created and advanced the neuroscience and rare disease portfolios; directed global development activities in biologics design, synthesis, and manufacturing; steered academic collaborations in immunology and oncology; and brought 22 compounds into the clinic. Prior to his industry career, Mike was a professor and investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, where he pioneered studies on neuronal organelles and the trafficking of neurotransmitter receptors. He earned a B.S. degree in chemistry from Caltech and holds M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Laura L. Forese, M.D.

Director

As executive vice president and chief operating officer, Dr. Laura Forese has ultimate operational responsibility for the NewYork-Presbyterian enterprise, including 10 hospital campuses, 200 primary and specialty care clinics and medical groups, more than 45,000 employees and affiliated physicians, and more than $9 billion in revenue.  A pediatric orthopedic surgeon and faculty member at Columbia University for more than 20 years, Dr. Forese has chaired the board of the NIH Clinical Center Research Hospital since 2016.  She has an engineering degree from Princeton University, and medical and public health degrees from Columbia University.

Bob Hugin

Director

Bob Hugin was instrumental in the strategic growth and global expansion of Celgene during his 19-year leadership tenure until it was acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2019. He served as chairman of Celgene’s Board of Directors and served as chief executive officer from 2016 to 2018. Under his leadership, Celgene saw unprecedented results and grew to a market capitalization of over $100 billion. Bob currently serves as a Director of Chubb Limited and of Biohaven Pharmaceuticals, and Chair of The Darden School Foundation, University of Virginia. Additionally, he chairs the Board of the Garden State Initiative, a nonpartisan research and educational organization focused on economic issues in New Jersey, and serves as a member of the board of trustees of Family Promise, a national non-profit network assisting homeless families, and Director of the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy. He is past chairman of the Boards of The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and the Healthcare Institute of New Jersey. Prior to joining Celgene, he was a managing director with J.P. Morgan & Co. Inc. He received an A.B. degree from Princeton University in 1976 and an MBA from the University of Virginia in 1985, serving as a United States Marine Corps infantry officer during the intervening period.

Rupert Vessey, FRCP, Ph.D.

Director

Rupert Vessey is executive vice president and president of Global Research and Early Development at Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS), a global biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering, developing, and delivering innovative medicines for patients with serious diseases. Under Dr. Rupert Vessey’s stewardship, BMS has made substantial progress advancing the company’s early-stage pipeline and capabilities, focusing its research in therapeutic areas where there is the best opportunity to deliver transformational medicines to patients. Today, the company has more than 50 compounds in development across more than 40 diseases, with emphasis on oncology, hematology, cardiovascular disease and immunology. In his 24-year career in industry, Dr. Vessey has held leadership roles in discovery research, preclinical and early clinical development, and informatics at Celgene, Merck Research Laboratories, Rosetta Inpharmatics, and GlaxoSmithKline. Dr. Vessey graduated from Oxford University with degrees in physiological sciences and clinical medicine.

Cliff Brangwynne, Ph.D.

Co-Founder, Board Observer, and Scientific Advisory Board Chair

Clifford Brangwynne is a biophysical engineer and leading expert in soft matter physics who is currently a professor at Princeton University in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Cliff has devoted his career to advancing understanding of membrane-less biological phase separation and biomolecular condensate formation in living cells – pioneering work which has been recognized with numerous awards, including a Macarthur Fellowship (2018), Wiley Prize (2020), Blavatnik Award (2020), and Nakasone Award (2021). He earned a bachelor’s degree in Materials Science and Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2001 and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Harvard University and conducted postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics and the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems from 2007 to 2010, prior to joining the faculty of Princeton University in 2011.

John F. Reilly, Ph.D.

Chief Scientific Officer

John F. Reilly is chief scientific officer at Nereid and an entrepreneur in residence at ATP, building on over 20 years of biopharmaceutical leadership and drug discovery experience across multiple disease areas. Previously, John was senior vice president of Biology at Goldfinch Bio, where he led efforts ranging from target discovery to clinical biomarkers. Prior to joining Goldfinch, John served as executive director of Biology at Catabasis Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for developing and executing a translational strategy for several molecules with potential applications in multiple rare diseases. Previously he was global head of Applied Human Genetics & Genomics at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, where he led a multi-disciplinary department driving advancements in genomic technologies and their application to clinical trials across general medicine indications. At Merck Research Laboratories, he served as director of Molecular Biomarkers, leading the company’s anti-PD-1 biomarker efforts and developing and qualifying biomarker assays for use in discovery and early-stage clinical trials in multiple programs.

John earned a BA in molecular and cell biology from the University of California Berkeley, a PhD in neuroscience from the University of California Davis, and completed postdoctoral training at the Scripps Research Institute.