Cyrus Maher
Cyrus is a recent UCSF graduate with a diverse background in bioinformatics, statistics, chemical biology, and epidemiologic methods. After leaving UCSF in November, he joined Human Longevity, Inc. (HLI), a genome sequencing and analysis startup led by Craig Venter. HLI currently has about 10,000 high coverage, full length genomes. The company plans to leverage twenty-two x10 and two PacBio sequencers to reach 40,000 genomes over the next year. Cyrus is a member of the machine learning (ML) team in Mountain View, a group led by Franz Och, the former lead of the Google Translate project. The ML group works on novel ways to discover disease-causing mutations using high-volume genetic data. In his spare time, Cyrus enjoys dog walking, meditating, and skydiving.
Howard Look
Howard Look is the CEO and founder of Tidepool. Tidepool is a non-profit, open source effort with the mission of reducing the burden of managing Type 1 Diabetes with technology. They have built a modern, open source software platform that liberates data from diabetes devices like BGMs, CGMs, and insulin pumps. Previously, Howard was on the founder’s team at TiVo where as VP of Software and User Experience he led the efforts that made TiVo as easy to use as it was disruptive. He has also had stints at Pixar, Amazon, and Linden Lab. Howard has a BS in Computer Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University.
D.J. Kleinbaum
D.J. Kleinbaum is the Co-founder and Co-CEO of Emerald Therapeutics. D.J. received his B.S. in Biological Sciences from Carnegie Mellon University and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford University. While at Stanford, he designed and synthesized new architectures for DNA-templated reactions that can be used to detect RNA in living cells under the direction of Professor Eric Kool. He is an inventor on five patents and his work has been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Bioconjugate Chemistry, and Chemical Communications.
Jonathan Hirsch
Jonathan Hirsch is the Founder and President of Syapse, a software company enabling healthcare providers to deploy precision medicine programs. At Syapse, Jonathan works closely with healthcare providers, creating software that integrates complex genomic and clinical data to provide clinicians with actionable insights at point of care. Jonathan is a member of the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health Clinical Working Group, an Advisory Board member of the SXSW Accelerator, a member of the UCSF Technology Advisory Group, and a member of the Steering Committee of Free the Data!, an effort started by Genetic Alliance to crowdsource the interpretation of cancer genes. Earlier in his career, Jonathan worked in Neuroscience Commercial Development at Abbott Laboratories, where he developed strategies to fund drug development through partnerships and private equity financing. His research at the Center for Molecular Neurobiology at the University of Chicago helped establish the effect of exercise on promoting hippocampal neurogenesis and combating Alzheimer’s disease. Jonathan received an M.Sci. in Neuroscience from Stanford University, and an A.B. in Biology and Political Philosophy from the University of Chicago.
Robin Smith
Originally from Toronto, Canada, Robin majored in Biomedical Engineering at the University of Toronto. He then moved to Florida for graduate school in the lab of Vance Lemmon at the University of Miami. His PhD thesis focused on identifying transcriptional regulators that allow peripheral neurons, but not central neurons, to regenerate after injury. He came to California for a postdoc, working in the lab of Nadav Ahituv at UCSF to identify and dissect gene regulatory elements in vertebrate development as well as in human metabolism. In early 2013, Robin made the jump to 23 and Me, and has been working as a Scientist on the Product team.
Uri Laserson
We are very excited to announce the first speaker in our series will be Uri Laserson. Uri is a data scientist at Cloudera. Previously, he received his PhD from MIT developing applications of high-throughput DNA sequencing to immunology. During that time, he co-founded Good Start Genetics, a next-generation diagnostics company focused on genetic carrier screening.