Matt De Silva is the Co-Founder and CEO of Notable Labs. Notable is accelerating the process of determining which drugs or combinations are most likely to be effective for pediatric cancer patients. The company has built an automated laboratory that rapidly evaluates thousands of drug combinations on cancer cells relative to healthy cells. A report is generated which prioritizes the drugs that are most specifically active against cancer cells. Notable is actively focused on children with blood cancer, partnering with physician researchers at MD Anderson, Seattle Children’s, Stanford, University of Kansas, and UCSF, among others. Notable was founded in 2014 by Matt in an effort to find treatment options for his father who was diagnosed with Glioblastoma Multiforme, a deadly stage 4 brain cancer that recently claimed the lives of Beau Biden, John McCain, and Ted Kennedy. Headquartered in Foster City, California, the company employs more than 30 scientists and engineers and has raised over $22M from prominent venture capital firms such as Builders VC, First Round Capital, Founders Fund, Lightspeed Capital, and Y Combinator.
Carlos is a leading executive with over 30 years of worldwide experience in the healthcare industry and a track record of excellence in sales, marketing, and finance. He has served as Regional Vice President at Novartis and Eli Lilly around the world leading organizations to accelerated growth and expansion.
Carlos currently serves as Board Member of Skalar Pharma, Welwaze, and as Advisor to Es Vicis in Switzerland. He has also served on the Board of PAHO Foundation and the International Advisory Board of Baptist Hospital in Miami. Other advisory roles include the FIU School of Business, and e-Nova San Andres University in Buenos Aires. He previously chaired the Pharma Association in LATAM.
His main career interests have focused on contributions to expand access to medicine and care worldwide, including the End Malaria Initiative at Novartis and launching the largest pharmaceutical loyalty program in the world in Brazil. Regarding his own experience with cancer, Carlos says he and his family were lucky: his wife discovered an abnormal lump that turned out to be stage 0 breast cancer, but he knows that too many women still discover it too late. He says, “Working in early detection gives a name and a face to our purpose.”
Maria Zannes, President, Chief Executive Officer and Director of bioAffinity Technologies brings more than 30 years of executive experience in the medical and energy industries where she has built strong teams who meet ambitious goals. She was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers and the Earth Engineering Center Award from Columbia University where she co-founded two research centers. She began her career as a journalist and later worked as a Congressional aide before starting her business career. In 2005, Maria turned her focus to advancing scientific research that led to the development by bioAffinity Technologies of a novel test for early lung cancer as well as other cancer diagnostics and therapeutics. Maria’s mother, father, brother, uncle, and cousins have been diagnosed and treated for cancer including those of the lung, breast, blood, lymphatic system, skin, brain, and kidney. She is inspired by their lives and their courage. Maria received her J.D. from the University of Puget Sound in Washington State. She has two brilliant sons who are pursuing careers in physical therapy and medicine.
Zach Rome is science educator turned “inventrepreneur”. In 2013, Zach co-founded Patagonia Pharmaceuticals to develop treatments for unmet needs in medical dermatology. The Company’s lead product is being developed for a rare genetic disorder called Congenital Ichthyosis and is currently in Phase 2 studies.
Previously, Zach was a middle school science teacher and the Founder and Executive Director of The Schooba Academy, a nonprofit after-school program teaching at-risk students science through scuba diving. Zach has degrees in Marine Science and Biology from the University of Miami and an MST in Adolescent Science Biology from Pace University. Zach is a NYC Teaching Fellow, the Grand Prize Winner of the 2041 International Teachers’ Contest (sponsored by Random House), a PADI OWSI Instructor, a First Aid/CPR Instructor, and a former volunteer Emergency Medical Technician. Zach has worked and/or traveled in over 50 countries and all 7 continents.
Till Erdmann is co-founder of Berlin-based pharma start-up Myelo Therapeutics. It develops Myelo001, the first oral treatment for Chemotherapy-induced Neutropenia. Myelo001 is currently in clinical trials with breast cancer patients. It would be the first therapy innovation in over two decades to protect patients from one of the most frequent and most severe side effects of anticancer therapy.
Over the last two decades, Till got to know many facets confronting serious illnesses, as pharma industry management consultant, manager of a patient relationship program, founder of three life sciences start-ups, and family member of loved ones struggling with cancer. Till invented and launched the first virtual nurse visit program for Multiple Sclerosis patients via online video conferencing over 10 years ago and published research that showed it improved treatment adherence.
Till holds a degree in Industrial Engineering from Technical University of Berlin and a MBA from San Francisco State University. He loves to spend time with his Brazilian-German family, kitesurf, and play soccer.
Dr. Apfel is the Founder, CEO, and Chairman of the Board. Prior to starting SageMedic, he was a Professor in the Department of Anesthesia at UCSF, where he worked as a clinician and led the Clinical Research Core. He is a nationally and internationally known authority on designing, conducting, and publishing highest quality clinical trials with thousands of patients that have changed medical practice with over 100 peer-reviewed publications. Most notable, he developed the “Apfel Score,” a standard tool that is now used in clinical practice world-wide. He also teaches clinical trial design as an Adjunct Associate Professor at UCSF and is the Chair of the Life Science Committee at the Keiretsu Angel Investment Forum and a member of Life Science Angels in the Bay Area. Dr. Apfel is a California licensed physician with 20+ years of clinical experience in anesthesiology, critical care medicine, and emergency medicine. He received his medical degree (MD) and his doctoral degree (PhD equivalent) from Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Germany, and his master of business administration (MBA) from The Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania, PA.
Thierry Desjardins, the CEO and Co-founder of Surgisafe Ltd, has been a qualified Neurosurgeon since 1995. Throughout his years of surgical experience, he has focused primarily on minimally invasive techniques whilst also taking an active role in international conferences (Europe, Middle East, China, etc..). This combination has put him in a unique position to be able to detect new surgical needs and his contacts in the medical profession have allowed him to discuss the product with qualified individuals in the best position to advise and judge it’s efficiency.
Thierry, along with his Co-founder Nicolas Veau (an engineer specialising in medical technology) originally identified the « smart Cannula » concept for CSF leakage detection then adapted the same technology for use in detecting abnormal tissues with many possible applications (cancer, endometriosis, etc…).
Boaz Gaon is the founder and CEO of Wisdo – a mission driven company helping people take on life’s greatest challenges and opportunities, by relying on the wisdom of people who have been there. Wisdo was founded after Boaz’s father, formerly President of the Israel Cancer Association, passed away from cancer of the lung, blood and kidney (all primary cancers), bringing close to home the realisation that when coping with a serious illness – the road ahead is invisible, although millions have already earned wisdom that can and should be shared proactively. Wisdo helps people anticipate what and whom they don’t know that they should, when it matters – without even searching. Prior to founding Wisdo, Boaz was an award winning novelist, playwright and journalist. He is a graduate of the London School of Economics (MSc, Global Media and Communications) and of the Iowa Writers Program for international writers. He is the author of seven produced plays, two novels and three non-fiction books. In 2014, Boaz was granted a Fulbright award in recognition of his work in theatre.
Ms. Agarawal is passionate about empowering people to live life to the fullest by making integrative medicine accessible to people where they are. She started her career as a software engineer in Silicon Valley, working for companies including IBM, Motorola/Google. She then developed the world’s first mobile video technology at a startup which was later acquired by Skype. This invention continues to change the world even today.
She then changed her career into integrative medicine by studying, practicing, and conducting research in both eastern and western medicine. She spent the next decade as a researcher, oncology nurse, and integrative medicine practitioner at institutions including the Mayo Clinic, Stanford Cancer Center, and UCSF Cancer Center. Her groundbreaking research work on the development of algorithms for clinical impact of integrative medicine was recognized by UCSF and the NSF. She received support from them to start Helpsy, the world’s first Artificial intelligence nurse for wholistic symptom management and navigation (SAN).
Ms. Agarawal is passionate about empowering people in health care to understand and be at the forefront of the technology revolution.
I’m currently an undergraduate student in Computer Science at MIT. I have a long-term interest in healthcare, and particularly in cancer, due to many health issues my family had to endure. As a result, I have pursued computational research of cancer immunotherapy at MIT, developed a microfluidics device for accelerating cancer drug development at the National University of Singapore and started my company ConquerX. ConquerX is developing a multi-cancer diagnostic platform based on proprietary nanomaterials and machine learning. Our Metachip platform uses electrochemistry to measure the concentration of cancer-related biomarkers in blood or biopsy samples. We are currently testing our prototype on 3 different types of cancer. Moreover, our technology is portable to other diseases as well, which we demonstrate through our collaboration with a research laboratory in Brazil on the development of a novel test for diagnostics of syphilis. We are alumni of MassChallenge Boston and MassChallenge HealthTech, currently raising our seed round and looking to expand our team.