Vision

Using AI to rethink the science of drug development

DeepCure was founded to accelerate breakthrough science, developed by world-leading AI engineers, data scientists and biologists.

Our founding team includes some of the industry’s preeminent drug-discovery scientists and technologists.

Our vision is to use AI-driven discovery to create better molecules and faster cures for every disease-relevant protein target.

Our Investors

Leadership

Kfir Schreiber

CEO & Co-Founder

Graduate of the MIT Media Lab. Recipient of the inaugural Minsky Fellowship for prominent AI researchers. Previously a Pilot and Major in the Israeli Air Force, with a track record of managing over $100M and 20 people across major R&D projects.

Joseph Jacobson, Ph.D.

CSO & Co-Founder

Associate Professor at the MIT Media Lab. Author of over 70 peer-reviewed papers and conference proceedings. Inventor of 103 issued U.S. patents and a member of the USPTO Investors Hall of Fame. Co-Founder of several successful companies, including E-Ink, Gen9, Kovio and IgC Bio.

Thrasyvoulos (Thras) Karydis

CTO & Co-Founder

Graduate of the MIT Media Lab. Deep Learning and AI expert, with years of experience in leading hardware and software projects. Vast experience in establishing and leading collaborations with large pharma companies.

Georg Duenstl, Ph.D​

VP of Drug Discovery

Having served on DeepCure’s Scientific Advisory Board since its inception in 2018, Georg joined the company as Vice President of Drug Discovery in 2022. He has over 16 years of drug discovery experience emphasizing pharmacology, strategy, and innovation. Before joining DeepCure, Georg was an Associate Research Fellow at LEO Pharma. He worked for more than 13 years in various positions at the company’s Danish headquarters and its Boston-based Science & Tech Hub, where he served as Chief Scientist. Georg studied in Germany and the US and holds a Ph.D. in Biochemical Pharmacology and MSc in Biology from the University of Konstanz. He also completed advanced executive education programs at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania (CPD) and the MIT Sloan School of Management (ACE).

Han Lim Ph.D.

Chief Business Officer

Dr. Han Lim is the Chief Business Officer at DeepCure. DeepCure is creating an end-to-end automated platform to accelerate and personalize small molecule drug discovery through the integration of AI, a virtual library of a quintillion synthesizable compounds, robotic synthesis, and automated assays. Before joining DeepCure, Dr. Lim was instrumental in building one of the first-generation AI drug discovery companies. His experiences are broad, from target selection and portfolio strategy for AI platforms to biopharma deals and academic collaborations. His previous roles include Chief Business Officer at Atomwise and faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Lim obtained a medical degree from the University of Queensland, a Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, and postdoctoral training in the Department of Physics at MIT.

Derrick Miyao

VP of Molecular Foundry

Derrick Miyao joined DeepCure as the Vice President of Molecular Foundry. Derrick Miyao is a trailblazer in robotic synthesis and automated assays. Derrick joins DeepCure from Neurocrine, where he spent 20 years creating systems for automated drug discovery, including building two systems that can synthesize 10,000 compounds a day and successfully integrating synthesis with affinity binding for a closed discovery loop. At DeepCure, Derrick will lead the Molecular Foundry, our fully automated synthesis and screening lab in Rehovot, Israel. When asked about the lab, Derrick replied, “it is something I’ve always believed was the key to unlocking new drugs and pushing the limits of what we can discover. The impact will result in getting better drugs to market faster than traditional methods and more treatments for those who need it.”

Team

Michal Segal Salto Ph.D.

Associate Research Fellow, Biology

As an Associated research fellow, Michal joined the DeepCure drug discovery team in 2022. Michal has over 17 years of experience in cell biology, molecular biology, and biochemistry. She was awarded her Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. In the past seven years, Michal led research groups and development processes in the preclinical and clinical stages. Michal has an in-depth understanding of relevant research, target, product identification, and the selection and experience designing product development programs. Michal has published peer-reviewed articles in high-impact factor journals and precipitated them at many international conferences.

Jason Deckman

Senior Scientific Software Engineer

Jason joined DeepCure in 2022 as a Senior Scientific Software Engineer. Jason has a Ph.D. in theoretical/computational chemistry from U.C. Irvine. He has several years of graduate and postdoctoral experience in scientific and numerical computing, applied to biochemical simulations and algorithm development. In industry before graduate school, Jason worked in the drug discovery arena, first as a chemist and as a data analyst, enumerating and curating virtual combinatorial chemistry libraries. In the last several years, he has worked as a senior software engineer specializing in back-end infrastructure and cloud architecture, as well as full-stack development. Jason is eager to combine his chemistry knowledge and software engineering experience to deliver novel and effective software solutions for DeepCure.

Daniel Graziano

Senior Machine Learning Scientist

Danny is a Senior Machine Learning Scientist who utilizes data-driven processes to re-imagine critical phases of the drug discovery life cycle. His primary interest is making complex biological data relatable and accessible to a broad audience to draw conclusions and base decisions. Danny brings 5+ years of in-vivo pharmacology experience from his time in the Novartis Neuroscience department. Throughout his work at Novartis and Massachusetts General Hospital, he developed skills in implementing DSP, time series, and statistical analysis pipelines for extracting translatable biomarker readouts from in-vivo electrophysiology data. He will be finishing his master’s degree in computer science from Boston University at the end of 2021.

Mark Schroering

Associate Director, Lead Architect

Mark is a software architect with over 20 years of experience working for companies like Boeing, Raytheon, and Genesys. He has spent the last nine years building large-scale cloud platforms that have been deployed globally in the cloud and used by millions of people. His work has been used in the avionics, medical research, and contact center industries. Mark lives in Indianapolis, IN, with his wife and two daughters.

Luke Nam

Automation Engineer

Luke joined DeepCure as an automation engineer with seven years of experience in the drug discovery industry. He is passionate about leveraging software and automation to make the drug discovery process more efficient. His most recent project involved building custom enumeration software to design small molecule libraries to be synthesized on an automated chemistry platform.

Jon Kaufman, Ph.D

Principal Scientist, Machine Learning

Jon is a senior machine learning scientist focusing on the intersection of machine learning and physics for drug discovery. Jon earned his Ph.D. in physics from UCSD on the controversial BICEP2 experiment, which allowed him to travel to the South Pole in Antarctica. Previously, Jon worked in applied machine learning for the healthcare, finance, energy, and hospitality industries. He loves working on challenges where machine learning and data science meet the physical world.

Ayelet Wagner Azran

Director of People Operations

With a passion for building cultural solid foundations and identifying people’s needs for creating a thriving work environment, Ayelet joined DeepCure as People Operations Lead in 2020. Previously, she had worked at several non-profit organizations and led the HR and operations of ELAL Israel airlines in Boston. She holds a Law degree and a bachelor’s in business administration.

William Kaplan

Principal Scientist, Medicinal Chemistry

I will join DeepCure in 2022 as a Principal Scientist – Medicinal Chemistry. Previously, Will spent 4.5 years at Merck, where he developed his preclinical drug discovery skills, lead ID, lead optimization, design and synthesis, and program strategy/development. Will received his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Michigan (Go Blue!).

Kelvin Chan Ph.D.

Director of DMPK

Kelvin joined DeepCure in 2022 as Director of Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK). He has broad experience and expertise in analytical chemistry, DMPK, and CMC (Chemistry, Manufacturing, and Control) areas. Since 1984, Kelvin’s career has spanned large multinational (Syntex/Roche, Wyeth/Pfizer, Aventis/Sanofi, Alcon/Novartis), small biotech (Assembly Biosciences), and non-profit (CHDI) organizations. He contributed to the discovery or development of multiple molecular entities to successful NDAs. Kelvin received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Illinois and post-doctoral training at Cornell University.

Pegah Kolahi

Scientist, Computational Chemistry

Pegah is a Computational Scientist with broad in-silico expertise and a background in computer-aided drug design and discovery. She graduated with her Masters from New York University in 2019 and has worked in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry since then. Throughout her work at Kadmon and Sanofi, she developed skills in advanced computational techniques such as molecular modeling, virtual library design, and molecular dynamics to support designing and optimizing drug candidates. She is passionate about applying state-of-the-art computational chemistry tools to accelerate the discovery and design of therapeutics and determine novel paths forward for drug development.

Shaked Bar Cohen Ph.D

Scientist, Biology

Shaked joined the Deepcure Molecular Foundry team in 2022 as a Biology Scientist. Shaked completed her post-doctoral studies after graduating from the Direct Ph.D. program of Developmental Biology and Cancer Research at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Ofir Bar

Principal Scientist, Analytical Chemistry

To fulfill the dream of simplifying complicated missions into simple solutions, Ofir joined DeepCure in 2022 as a Principal Scientist, Analytical Chemistry at the molecular foundry unit. Ofir Has more than ten years of experience in analytical chemistry, working with TEVA pharmaceutical API division R&D as a researcher and a team leader. He also holds vast experience in the separation and purification of molecules from his time with the medical cannabis industry working for one of the leading cannabis pharma Israeli companies. Ofir holds a bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology engineering from the Technion, Israel’s institute of technology.

Steven Ferrara, Ph.D

Director of Medicinal Chemistry

Steven joined DeepCure in 2021 and serves as our Associate Director of Medicinal Chemistry. He has over eight years of drug discovery experience, emphasizing medicinal chemistry and chemical biology. Before joining DeepCure, Steven was a Group Leader at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He led a group of medicinal chemists who focused on developing novel therapeutic strategies for use in oncology and cardiovascular disease areas. He was essential in advancing several preclinical programs and was a key contributor and co-inventor of inhibitors targeting DHODH (BAY 2402234) and MCL1 (ANJ810). Steven received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Oxford and was a postdoctoral research associate at Yale University. He also holds a Master of Chemistry from the University of Sheffield.

Orly Dorot Ph.D

Senior Scientist, Assay Development

Orly joined DeepCure in 2022 as a Senior Scientist – Assay Development. Orly, PhD. is a molecular biologist and an expert in early drug discovery and screening and in using automation instrumentation for high content analysis (HCA) and bioassays. Before joining DeepCure, Orly spent five years as a senior scientist and project leader in the High Throughput Screening (HTS) unit at the BLAVATNIK CENTER for Drug Discovery, where she worked on neurodegenerative disorders, metabolic disorders, rare diseases, and oncology projects. Orly received her PhD. from Tel-Aviv University, Israel, where she completed her doctoral and post-doctoral research under the supervision of Prof. Mia Horowitz and Prof. Danny Segal.

Sara Omlid, Ph.D

Business Development & Commercial Strategy Lead

Sara Omlid joins the DeepCure team to build partnerships and shape our pipeline. Sara brings five years of experience in AI drug discovery and clinical oncology market research and has a Ph.D. in Chemistry from Saint Louis University

George Bikos

Senior Software Engineer

I am a Software Engineer with three years of experience. I have a Master’s in Computer Science and Informatics from the University of Patras, Greece. I started working as a Bioinformatics Researcher at the National Research Center of Greece and later jumped into the Health Industry, joining a company associated with Medical-Imaging. I am interested in the BioInformatics and Medical aspect of Engineering. I have lived in Athens, Greece, for the last three years.

Heather L. Osswald, Ph.D.

Principal Scientist, Chemistry & Automation

Heather joined Deepcure in 2022 as a Principal Scientist, Chemistry & Automation. She earned her Ph.D. from Purdue University and performed postdoctoral research at The Scripps Research Institute. Heather’s experience spans structure-based drug design and asymmetric organic synthesis to chemical technologies and laboratory automation. She has impacted multiple preclinical discovery projects spanning from hit ID to lead optimization and developed an automated chemical synthesis platform capable of enabling rapid exploration of chemical space and identification of lead compounds.

Chris MacNaughton

Software Architect

Chris is a software architect with over 15 years of experience working in various industries, including education, e-commerce, pharma, precision health, and wellness. He works across the software stack to build large-scale, highly-available applications and platform services. He resides in Indianapolis, IN, with his wife and three kids.

Nadav Segev Ph.D

Senior Scientist, Assay Development and Screening

Nadav joined DeepCure in 2022 as a Senior Scientist in Assay Development and Screening. Nadav is a cellular and molecular scientist with over ten years of experience in various biological systems. Before joining DeepCure, Nadav led a research lab as a Scientific Director at the Hadassah Medical Center, where he focused on Acute Myeloid Leukemia and Leukemic stem cell in the search for novel therapeutic targets. Nadav was awarded his Ph.D. from the Weizmann Institute of Science, where he studied specialized ribosomes and translational control. He was also a postdoctoral Fellow, where he studied membrane fusion and organelle dynamics during muscle formation and regeneration.

Derek Miller

Director of Machine Learning

Derek Miller is a machine learning engineer with nine years of experience and has worked in various industries, such as healthcare, genomics, and drug discovery. His work focuses on training models at scale to help provide enriched molecules for various therapeutics.

Yarden Ziv

Senior Automation Engineer

Yarden joined DeepCure in 2023 as a senior automation engineer. He has over 4 years of experience in lab automation and liquid handling. He is familiar with a wide range of automated systems and approaches and uses that knowledge to try and bring out the most out of any automated system he uses. Yarden holds a MSc in medical sciences from Tel Aviv University.

Panos Terzopoulos

Senior Machine Learning Scientist

With a diverse background in mechanical engineering and robotics, Panos completed his master’s thesis on computational biology at MIT and NTUA, and he has been with DeepCure since then. He’s a machine learning scientist who works on finding practical solutions that bridge the gap between machine learning and the traditional drug discovery world.

Julia Antzis

Lab Technician

Julia joined DeepCure in 2022 as a Lab Technician. Julia brings to the team fifteen years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry as an Analytical Chemist. Julia has great expertise in developing, validating, and performing analytical tests. Julia holds a Bachelor of Science in Biology from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Andronikos Kontos

Associate Site Reliability Engineer

Andronikos joined DeepCure in 2022 as an Associate Site Reliability Engineer. He studied Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Patras and is passionate about developing secure and reliable software solutions to support the Drug Discovery process. He enjoys studying biochemistry and contributing to Open Source projects.

Matthew Tieman

Senior Machine Learning Engineer

Matt joined DeepCure in 2022 as a Senior Machine Learning Engineer. Matt is an engineer with ten years of experience developing cloud-native platforms. Much of Matt’s expertise involves leveraging distributed computing technologies in cloud environments for streaming and batch data analytics. Before coming to DeepCure, he had worked in the telecom, APM, and precision medicine spaces.

Ohad Hasin Ph.D

Laboratory Administrator

Ohad joined Deepcure in 2022 as a laboratory administrator. Ohad holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry and marine biology from Tel Aviv University. Since then, he had worked in lab managing and team lead positions before he arrived at Deepcure.

Jacob Gillis

Senior Scientific Program Manager

Jacob is a project and program manager with over five years of scientific program management and product development experience with start-up assay development companies, working on expanding and refining product development programs and implementing quality management processes. Jacob joins DeepCure with a focus on scientific program optimization and maximizing program efficiency.

Elvira Haimov

Principal Scientist, Medicinal Chemistry

Elvira joined DeepCure in 2022 as a Principal Scientist, Medicinal Chemistry. Previously, Elvira worked as a team leader in TEVA, TAPI division, developing novel synthetic methodologies for synthesizing the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient. Then, Elvira joined the Blavatnik Center for Drug discovery, pursuing medicinal chemistry and drug discovery. Elvira led medicinal chemistry through hit selections, hit validation, SAR studies, and hit-to-lead optimization.

Board of Directors

Kfir Schreiber

CEO & Co-Founder

Graduate of the MIT Media Lab. Recipient of the inaugural Minsky Fellowship for prominent AI researchers. Previously a Pilot and Major in the Israeli Air Force, with a track record of managing over $100M and 20 people across major R&D projects.

Joseph Jacobson, Ph.D.

CSO & Co-Founder

Associate Professor at the MIT Media Lab. Author of over 70 peer-reviewed papers and conference proceedings. Inventor of 103 issued U.S. patents and a member of the USPTO Investors Hall of Fame. Co-Founder of several successful companies, including E-Ink, Gen9, Kovio and IgC Bio.

Gerald Chan

Director

Gerald Chan is the co-founder of Morningside, an investment group engaged in private equity and venture capital investments. Working with academic scientists, he has started more than two dozen biotech companies across diverse therapeutic areas of oncology, inflammation, ophthalmology, autoimmunity, diabetes, neurodegeneration, rare genetic diseases, and prophylactic vaccines. Gerald is a board member of several privately held biotech companies. He is the chairman of two Nasdaq listed biotechnology companies: Apellis Pharmaceuticals and Stealth BioTherapeutics. From 2016 to 2020, he chaired the Innovation Advisory Committee of the Wellcome Trust. He is currently a trustee of the Scripps Research Institute and a member of the Dean’s Board of Advisors of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, which was renamed in honor of his father, Mr. T.H. Chan, following a gift from the Morningside Foundation in 2014. Gerald was educated at UCLA, Harvard University, and Dana Farber Cancer Institute. He has been honored with six honorary degrees conferred by universities in the UK, Hong Kong and America. In 2017, he was elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2019, he gave the Andrew Carnegie Lecture in University of Glasgow, Scotland and held a visiting fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge University.

Yonatan Mandelbaum

Observer

Investing principal at TLV Partners. At the firm since 2017, he spends most of his time on fintech, bottoms-up SaaS and anything out of the ordinary, but has a true passion for working closely with humble founders whose ambitions vastly outweigh their accomplishments. Prior to joining TLVP, Yonatan was an analyst at iAngels. He holds a bachelors in finance from IDC Hertziliya, spent two years studying at Yeshivat Har Etzion and served as a commander in the Israeli Defense Force’s Haruv unit.

Shahar Tzafrir

Director

Managing Partner at TLV Partners where he focuses on seed-stage investments at the intersection of AI, enterprise, and bio. Shahar began his venture career at Magma Venture Partners as a General Partner in funds III and IV. While at Magma, Shahar led seed investments in Aidoc, Guesty, Applitools (acquired by Thoma Bravo), Argus (acquired by Continental), Cloudendure (acquired by Amazon), and Indegy (acquired by Tenable), among others. Before venture capital, Shahar spent 17 years across three enterprise software startups: Federation (acquired by Cordys), Oblicore (acquired by CA) and DigitalFuel (acquired by VMware). Prior to that, Shahar spent six years in the Israeli Defense Force’s Mamram computer division as a software developer, where he received three annual distinction awards.

Thrasyvoulos (Thras) Karydis

Observer

Graduate of the MIT Media Lab. Deep Learning and AI expert, with years of experience leading hardware and software projects. Vast experience in establishing and leading collaborations with large pharma companies.

Scientific Advisory Board

John Baldoni, Ph.D

Ex SVP, DPU Head, In-Silico Discovery, GSK Pharmaceuticals

Headed innovative drug discovery unit dedicated to explore and apply in silico methodology to drug discovery and development at GSK. This followed his role as Senior Vice President, Platform Technology and Science (PTS), GSK Pharma R&D. Joined GSK in 1989 and worked in the pharmaceutical industry for 42 years. His experience spans new chemical entity design, development and commercialization, and biopharmaceutical development. Held various positions at GSK including Senior Vice President, Preclinical Development; Vice President, Product Development; Director, Product Development; and Assistant Director, Biopharmaceutical Formulation Development, among others. Led several key cross-functional problem solving and strategic initiatives. BS in biochemistry (1974), and MS and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry (1980) from Penn State University.

Marti Head, Ph.D

Director Joint Institute, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

Director of the Joint Institute for Biological Sciences, a collaborative research effort between Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee focused on new approaches to drug development, personalized treatment, diagnosis and prediction of outcomes in health management.

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