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.

Team

Cheryl Koh Ph.D.

Principal Scientist, Biology

Cheryl is a cancer biologist with over ten years of academic and industry research experience. Cheryl received her Ph.D. in Pathobiology from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and completed her post-doctoral fellowship at the Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, A*STAR. Cheryl developed broad early drug discovery experience, encompassing various therapeutic areas (Oncology, Immuno-oncology and Neuroscience) and target classes, during her time at AstraZeneca and Silicon Therapeutics (Roivant Discovery). Cheryl was part of the cross-functional pre-clinical discovery team that delivered Silicon Therapeutics’ first clinical candidate. Cheryl has published 20 peer-reviewed articles in various high-impact journals, including a co-first author publication in Nature.

Panos Terzopoulos

Machine Learning Engineer

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

Matt Cassar

Senior Data Engineer

Matt is a software engineer with a bachelors in applied math. Before joining DeepCure, he was at Amazon for 2 years working on an A/B experimentation platform and other machine learning tools for scientists at Amazon.

Christopher Davitt Ph.D.

Principal Scientist, Biology

Chris is a passionate Immunologist with over a decade of experience in cellular and vaccine immunology. Chris earned his PhD from Trinity College Dublin in 2014, working on oral vaccines against enteric diseases. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Tulane University, working on the immunological signaling of bacterial outer membrane vesicles and their efficacy as a novel vaccine platform, Chris transitioned to industry in 2017. Since then he has worked on a variety of diverse projects from microbiome-based immuno-oncology drugs, mRNA vaccines against Influenza and SARS-CoV-2 to novel treatment modalities against inflammatory and autoimmune diseases.

Michelle Sidor, Ph.D

Director of Biology

A spectacular preclinical biologist experienced in developing, executing and managing research activities across early and late-stage programs within the pharma industry. Prior to this role, Michelle was Principal Scientist in the Neuroscience Department at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research.

Derek Miller

Associate Director of Machine Learning

Derek Miller is a machine learning engineer with 9 years of experience and has worked in a variety of industries such as healthcare, genomics and drug discovery. His work focuses on training models at scale to help provide enriched molecules for a variety of different therapeutics.

Patrick O’Neill ph.D.

Senior Machine Learning Scientist

Patrick is a computational scientist with five years of industrial experience as a machine learning engineer. His professional interests include statistical sampling algorithms, transcriptional regulation, and applications of statistical physics to multiscale modeling problems. He received his Ph.D. in Biological Sciences from UMBC in 2016.

Zack Strater Ph.D.

Machine Learning Scientist

Zack is a synthetic chemist and machine learning scientist whose primary interest lies in combining machine learning methods with high-throughput experimentation in chemical synthesis. He did his Ph.D. work at Columbia University where he developed the merger of photo- and electrocatalysis and subsequently co-founded XL Batteries, a startup flow battery company where he designed novel organic electrolytes.

Jon Kaufman, Ph.D.

Deep Learning Scientist

Jon is a senior machine learning scientist focusing on the intersection of machine learning and physics for drug discovery. Jon earned his PhD 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.

Alex Vig

Senior Machine Learning Scientist

Alex took a curiosity driven deep dive into machine learning in 2013 and hasn’t looked back. He is especially interested in bringing to bear machine learning techniques from seemingly disparate fields to the challenges of drug development. In his free time, Alex enjoys woodworking, kiteboarding, and puzzling.

Mark Schroering

Software 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.

Gregory (Greg) Warren, Ph.D

Director of Computational Chemistry

Greg is a veteran computational chemist with over 20 years of experience, including 8 years at GSK and 13 at OpenEye Scientific. His work encompasses drug discovery projects in oncology, anti-infective and cardiovascular therapeutic areas, as well as the development of multiple commercial computational chemistry tools.

Steven Ferrara, Ph.D

Associate 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 with an emphasis on medicinal chemistry and chemical biology. Prior to joining DeepCure, Steven was a Group Leader at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he led a group of medicinal chemists who focused on developing novel therapeutic strategies for use in oncology and cardiovascular disease areas. He played an important role 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.

Ayelet Wagner Azran

People Ops & Administration Lead

With a passion for building strong cultural foundations, and identifying people’s needs for creating a successful 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 Bachelors in business administration.

Sarah Bowes

Senior Executive Assistant

Sarah is an executive assistant and office manager at DeepCure. Before joining DeepCure, she attended Fairfield University with a Bachelor of Science in Marketing and Data Analytics.

Chaya Stern, Ph.D.

Computational Chemistry Scientist

Chaya is a computational chemist focusing on incorporating physics based modeling for machine learning applications to drug discovery. Chaya earned her Ph.D. in chemical biology from Weill Cornell Medicine. During her Ph.D., she worked on improving physics-based molecular models for drug-like molecules.

Antonio Ferreira Ph.D.

Computational Chemistry Research Fellow

Antonio joined DeepCure in 2021 as a Computational Chemistry Research Fellow focusing on the application of physics-based methods to challenges in drug discovery. After earning a BA in mathematics and a PhD in theoretical chemistry, Antonio spent ten years at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as a computational scientist supporting efforts in drug discovery, chemical biology, structural biology, and bioinformatics. He is a co-inventor on several patents for novel chemotherapeutic agents and has worked on fundamental problems in enzymatic catalysis and membrane transport phenomena.

Marino Convertino Ph.D.

Principal Scientist, Computational Chemistry

Marino is a computational chemist with extensive drug discovery experience. He has been active in the field of neurodegeneration, pain perception, and chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases. He has successfully designed strategies for computational and experimental studies, and managed drug discovery activities in collaboration with academic and commercial partners from early discovery to non-GLP tox.

Daniel Graziano

Biology Data Scientist

Danny is a biological data scientist who utilizes data-driven processes to re-imagine critical phases of the drug discovery life cycle. His primary interest is in making complex biological data relatable and accessible to a broad audience to draw conclusions and base decisions from. 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.

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 in 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.

Georg Duenstl, Ph.D​

Associate Research Fellow, LEO Pharma

Associate Research Fellow at LEO Pharma, a privately held Danish specialty pharma company with a focus on dermatology. Responsible for new strategic initiatives and for providing guidance in research projects, business development evaluations, and strategic and operational decisions. Been working with LEO Pharma for more than 12 years and started his current position in July 2020 after returning from a 4-year US assignment as Chief Scientist at the LEO Science & Tech Hub in Boston. Studied in Germany and the US and holds a MSc in Biology and a PhD in Biochemical Pharmacology from the University of Konstanz (Germany) as well executive degrees from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania (CPD) and the MIT Sloan School of Management (ACE).

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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