Life Science Innovation Northwest 2025

Jane Buckner is the President of the Benaroya Research Institute, an affiliate Professor at the University of Washington and practicing rheumatologist. She is known for her research in translational immunology, combining genetics, immunology and clinical medicine to advance the understanding of the causes of autoimmune diseases. At the Benaroya Research Institute, Dr. Buckner was instrumental in developing the translational immunology research program and establishing the BRI biorepository, which currently includes more than 350,000 samples from 14,000 participants. Dr. Buckner has made significant contributions to our understanding of how human T cells are dysregulated in type 1 diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis and multiple sclerosis and has been a pioneer in the development of antigen-specific Treg therapies. Dr. Buckner is the inaugural holder of the Gerald Nepom Endowed Chair at BRI. She also leads the Coordinating Center of the Immune Tolerance Network, an NIH funded collaborative network for clinical research, and is a scientific advisor for Type 1 Diabetes TrialNet, an NIH-funded clinical trial network for type 1 diabetes prevention and early treatment. She is the current chair of the NIH/NIAMS Board of Scientific Counselors and served as the chair of the NIH/NIAID Cooperative Study Group for Autoimmune Disease Prevention. Dr. Buckner is a recent recipient of the American Association of Immunologists Steinman Award for Human Immunology Research.

As President & CEO of Life Science Washington (LSW), Marc sets the strategic direction, guides policy priorities, and directs business operations to ensure our members have the talent, investment, and partnerships needed to sustain the industry’s robust growth and solidify Washington state’s reputation as one of the top life science clusters in the nation. Marc also serves as the Chair of the Life Science Washington Institute, which is an affiliated non-profit focused on supporting life science entrepreneurs and growing start-up companies in Washington.

Before taking the helm as President & CEO, Marc served as Vice President, Public Policy & External Affairs for LSW. Prior to joining Life Science Washington, he served as Director of Policy & External Affairs for Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), where he was actively involved in creating and advocating for several statewide bioscience initiatives including the Life Sciences Discovery Fund. He was also deeply involved in a range of PNNL’s philanthropic science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) education partnerships and science education initiatives. Prior to moving to Washington state, Marc held a variety of policy and consulting positions in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Timothy Dellit is the CEO, UW Medicine, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, and Paul G. Ramsey Endowed Dean of the School of Medicine, University of Washington. UW Medicine is an integrated clinical, research and learning health system with a single mission to improve the health of the public. The clinically integrated parts of UW Medicine include the UW School of Medicine, three hospitals (Harborview Medical Center, UW Medical Center, and Valley Medical Center), a network of primary care clinics (UW Medicine Primary Care), a large physician practice plan (UW Physicians), a fixed wing and helicopter air ambulance service (Airlift Northwest), and the Fred Hutch Cancer Center, which serves as UW Medicine’s cancer program. Previously Dr. Dellit served as Chief Medical Officer, UW Medicine; Executive Vice Dean for Clinical Affairs and Vice President for Medical Affairs, University of Washington; and President, UW Physicians.

Dr. Dellit earned his undergraduate degree in cell biology at Northwestern University and graduated from medical school at Cornell University Medical College in New York. He completed his internal medicine residency training at New York Hospital – Cornell Medical Center serving as chief resident at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. He then moved to Seattle to complete his fellowship in infectious diseases at the University of Washington before joining UW Medicine faculty in 2003. From 2003-2009 he served as medical director of the General Infectious Diseases Clinic and Antimicrobial Stewardship Program, as medical director of infection control at Harborview Medical Center from 2006-2014, as associate medical director at Harborview Medical Center from 2006-2018, and as associate dean for clinical affairs from 2014-2018.

David Fontana, PhD, is a seasoned biotech executive with over 20 years of experience driving drug development, operational excellence, and strategic growth. As CBO and COO of Umoja Biopharma, he has led corporate strategy, business development, and portfolio advancements, including securing the first FDA-cleared IND for in vivo CAR-T therapy. Previously, he played a pivotal role in launching Breyanzi at Bristol Myers Squibb and advancing Avelumab at Pfizer. With a proven track record in scaling organizations from startups to global enterprises, David is now focused on leveraging his leadership and innovation expertise to bring in vivo CAR T therapies to patients

Teresa (Teri) Foy is an immunologist with 30 years of experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry developing novel therapeutics in the areas of oncology and inflammation. Teri is currently leading Bristol Myers Squibb's (BMS) Cancer Immunology and Cellular Therapy Thematic Research Center (CICT TRC), focused on discovery, pre-clinical development and translational research of BMS’s Cancer Immunology and Cell Therapy pipeline. She is a member of BMS’s Research Leadership Team as well as the Cell Therapy Leadership Team. Teri also serves as the site head for BMS Seattle

Atul Jain, PhD is currently part of the Search & Evaluation team at Novo Nordisk with regional responsibility for the Pacific Northwest and Canada. Atul has expertise in building, and managing strategic alliances, and a strong scientific background in a variety of therapeutics areas evident by his PhD and postdoctoral work in medicinal chemistry from Virginia Commonwealth University and University of Illinois at Chicago, respectively. Atul has successfully brought in multiple opportunities across diverse therapeutic areas and development cycles (early academic findings to clinical assets). He resides in Seattle, WA and is delighted to engage with the life sciences ecosystems in the regions above.

Hetu Kamisetty is a co-founder and CTO of Xaira and has played a pivotal role in scaling the firm since its inception in 2023. He has nearly two decades of experience in AI and ML. Prior to Xaira, he spent a decade at Meta, where he played a leading role in several AI-related initiatives, including early efforts in Generative AI. Before that, Hetu was a postdoctoral fellow in Dr. David Baker's laboratory at the University of Washington, where he pioneered the use of self-supervised generative models of protein families in protein folding and design. Kamisetty holds a Ph.D. in Machine Learning from Carnegie Mellon University, where his thesis focused on Probabilistic Models of Proteins, and a B.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Madras. At Xaira, Hetu and his team are focused on developing state-of-the-art AI models for drug discovery to address unmet clinical needs.

Leen Kawas is the co-founder and managing general partner at Propel Bio Partners. Leen is building a biotech focused fund to support life science innovations, leveraging her experience as an inventor, scientist, and entrepreneur. She came to the US from Jordan in 2008. She co-founded Athira and became CEO in 2014. She led the advancement of multiple late-stage clinical programs and took the company public in 2020 raising over $400 million. She was the first woman in 20 years in Washington State, and one of only 22 women founders in the US to take their company public. She has received numerous awards and recognitions, including Life Science Entrepreneurial Achievement Award (2020), French-American Foundation Leader (2019), and GeekWire Startup CEO of the Year (2019). Leen serves on multiple boards including Inherent Biosciences and Persephone Biosciences, and she is part of the Springboard Network and is a passionate supporter of scientist entrepreneurs, in particular women. In her current position, in addition to capital, her vision is to support impactful research and next gen innovators; helping people live better healthier lives. Leen lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two young children – she enjoys music, good food, learning and engaging conversations.

Tyler has been building a career in the commercial development area of the pharmaceutical industry, and has long been intrigued by the intersection of science and business. In his current role, he leads a team that evolves the Bristol Myers Squibb cell therapy strategy from both the internal as well as the external business development perspective, and provides commercial representation to the pipeline of cell therapy programs in development.

Prior to joining the cell therapy organization, Tyler held roles in the BMS’ worldwide commercial oncology team during the launch and growth of several transformational immuno-oncology drugs. Before joining BMS, Tyler was in business development at AstraZeneca where he contributed to the search, evaluation, and negotiation of transactions across therapeutic areas.  Previously, he was in a corporate strategy role at MedImmune ahead of the integration with AstraZeneca.  Tyler has also held positions at a life sciences management consulting firm, a biotech startup, and his early career was in the finance industry.  Tyler has a degree in economics and biology from Wake Forest University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Lucas is trained in computational biophysics and protein engineering. He brought Cyrus to sales with over 120 BioPharma companies and collaboration on over 30 discovery stage programs, including work with the majority of top-20 BioPharma firms including Janssen, Genentech, Selecta Bio, and the Broad Institute. At Cyrus Lucas was a co-founder of the OpenFold consortium in Protein AI software with Genentech, Amazon, Outpace and Arzeda. Prior to Cyrus he was a Translational Investigator & Senior Fellow at the Baker lab at UW, developing small-molecule binding proteins and protein design algorithms, and leading efforts to improve the stability and usability of the Rosetta software package. Lucas’ academic work includes a patented computationally designed enzyme, an RNA-dynamics-modeling software toolkit he built from scratch during his PhD, and algorithm optimization for automation of computational protein design. Harvard A.B., Biochemical Sciences (summa cum laude and Goldwater Scholar) and Ph.D., Biophysics; Hertz Fellow. 

Chad Robins co-founded Adaptive Biotechnologies in September 2009 and has served as the Chief Executive Officer and a member of our board of directors since incorporation. Prior to co-founding the company, Chad held numerous executive-level positions in medical technology, investment and real estate companies. Chad holds an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BS in Managerial Economics from Cornell University.

Mazyar Shadman, MD, MPH, is the Innovators Network Endowed Chair and an Associate Professor at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center (Fred Hutch) and the University of Washington (UW) in Seattle, he is also the Medical Director, Cellular Immunotherapy and Bezos Family Immunotherapy Clinic at the Fred Hutch. He is a hematologic malignancies expert who specializes in treating patients with lymphoma/CLL.

He is involved in clinical trials using novel therapeutic agents, cellular immunotherapy (CAR-T cell), and stem cell transplant for treatment of lymphoid malignancies.  He also studies the clinical outcomes of patients using institutional and collaborative retrospective cohort studies.

Dr. Shadman received his MD from Tehran University in Iran. He finished internal medicine internship and residency training at the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio and completed his training in hematology and medical oncology fellowships at the UW and Fred Hutch. Dr. Shadman also earned an MPH degree from UW and was a fellow for the National Cancer Institute’s cancer research training program at Fred Hutch, where he studies cancer epidemiology.

Eric Tham, MD, MS, FAAP, FAMIA, is senior vice president and chief research operations officer for Seattle Children's Research Institute. In this role, Dr. Tham oversees the
research operations, finance, and strategic initiatives that support Seattle Children’s mission to provide hope, care, and cures—helping every child live the healthiest and most fulfilling life possible. He provides executive leadership of Seattle Children’s Therapeutics, a novel therapeutics innovation engine that accelerates lab discoveries into pediatric treatments, as well as Seattle Children’s commercialization strategies and industry partnerships.

Dr. Tham has cared for acutely ill and injured children in Seattle Children’s Emergency Department and continues to see patients at Seattle Children’s Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic.

He earned his MD from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and his master's in biomedical informatics from the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, where he also completed his pediatric residency and pediatric emergency medicine fellowship. Dr. Tham serves as an affiliate associate professor in the University of Washington’s Department of Biomedical Informatics and Medical Education.

Throughout her career, Marjorie Thomas has led and supported businesses in all stages of maturity, from start-up and high growth, to reinventions of businesses. Marj is currently the CFO of the Allen Institute where she is focused on bringing forward her experience with the impact of growth in size and complexity.  Her background, before joining the Allen Institute, was in public technology companies, working as CFO at RealNetworks, and a finance executive at Intuit, Sony and Hewlett Packard.   

Marj currently serves on the MoPop board of directors, RealNetworks Foundation board of directors and has held other not-for-profit and for-profit board positions.   

Vidya leads GHIC’s investment team and chairs its investment committee. A pioneer of investing in global health, GHIC has been supporting high-impact biomedical innovations for over a decade.  Previously, Vidya was the Chief Strategy Officer of a venture-backed newco focused on development of best-in-class vaccines. Prior to that, she spent over a decade at the Gates Foundation where she led the $2.5bn Strategic Investment Fund (“SIF”) and chaired the SIF Investment Committee.  In this capacity, Vidya worked across sectors and geographies to source, structure, and manage venture capital, debt, and guarantee investments and led the foundation's investment effort in vaccines and biologics. Previously, Vidya was an investment professional in the public markets proprietary hedge fund of Goldman Sachs (GSPS) where she led the healthcare portfolio and invested in financial institutions. Vidya started her career in investment banking at Goldman Sachs, advising and executing on innovative structured finance transactions for financial institution clients. Vidya received an MBA and a Public Management and Social Innovation certificate from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. She also holds a BA in Astrophysics with concentrations in Mathematics and Economics from Columbia University.

David is A-Alpha Bio’s founding CEO. He invented A-Alpha Bio’s AlphaSeq platform with Scientific Advisors David Baker and Eric Klavins at the University of Washington, where he received his PhD in Bioengineering. Prior to graduate school, David studied bioengineering and economics at Rice University and the London School of Economics. David’s technical expertise spans synthetic biology, protein engineering, and assay development. In his free time, David enjoys spending time with family and friends, woodworking, cycling, backpacking, climbing, and skiing in the Cascade Mountains.