Life Science Innovation Northwest 2026

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Keynote Speaker

Fred Ramsdell, PhD

Co-founder & Scientific Advisor at Sonoma Biotherapeutics

Fred Ramsdell, PhD is a veteran biotechnology leader in immunology with nearly three decades of experience and was named a winner of the 2025 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

A co-founder of Sonoma Biotherapeutics, Dr. Ramsdell was the former Chief Scientific Officer (CSO) and current Scientific Advisory Board Chair of the Company.

Dr. Ramsdell earned his doctoral degree in microbiology and immunology from the University of California, Los Angeles and holds a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry and cell biology from the University of California, San Diego.

Following a fellowship at the NIH, Dr. Ramsdell joined Immunex studying T cell activation and tolerance, with a focus on gene discovery and functional characterization. He later joined Darwin Molecular (which was later acquired by Celltech R&D) to establish the immunology program. Amongst other programs, he led the team that discovered and characterized FoxP3, a gene critical to the function of regulatory T cells. Dr. Ramsdell joined ZymoGenetics in 2004, where he led teams studying novel proteins with potential regulatory activity in lymphoid cells. In 2008, Novo Nordisk brought on Dr. Ramsdell to help establish the company’s new Inflammation Research Center in Seattle and lead the Immunobiology group.

Prior to SonomaBio, Dr. Ramsdell was the CSO at the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy (PICI) where he helped to build and advance multiple research programs from the inception of the Institute.

Luke Timmerman

Journalist at Timmerman Report

Luke Timmerman is a biotech journalist, author, and entrepreneur. He is the founder of Timmerman Report, a leading biotech industry newsletter, and author of "Hood: Trailblazer of the Genomics Age," a biography of automated DNA sequencing pioneer Leroy Hood. Luke was named one of the 100 most influential people in biotech in 2015 by Scientific American. He has a bachelor’s in journalism from the University of Wisconsin, and in the 2005-2006 academic year, he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT. His mountain climbing campaigns have mobilized the biotech community to give more than $6 million to fight cancer and poverty.

Speakers

Ragan Hart, PhD

Senior Associate for Strategic Investments | WRF Capital at Washington Research Foundation
Speaker

Dr. M. Ragan Hart is the senior associate for strategic investments at Washington Research Foundation, where she leverages over a decade of experience in health economics, diagnostics, artificial intelligence and tech-enabled services to guide WRF’s venture investments in Washington-based startups. Prior to joining WRF, Dr. Hart was a senior associate at MultiCare Capital Partners, leading investments in healthtech and AI-driven healthcare solutions.

Dr. Hart co-founded MDisrupt, a platform connecting life-sciences experts with companies to accelerate healthcare product development, and previously co-led venture creation efforts at F-Prime Capital focused on health data sciences.

Dr. Hart holds a Ph.D. in public health genetics with a concentration in health economics from the University of Washington and completed  postdoctoral research in biomedical data science at Stanford University. She earned a master’s in genetic epidemiology and a certificate in biomedical regulatory affairs from the University of Washington following a bachelor’s in exercise science from Auburn University.

In addition to her role with WRF, Dr. Hart is a member of the board of directors for OUTbio Seattle and serves as a scholarship and community grants application reviewer for Pride Foundation in Seattle.

Jonathan Kil, MD

Co-Founder, CEO, and Chief Medical Officer at Sound Pharmaceuticals
Speaker

Dr. Kil is the Co-Founder, CEO, and Chief Medical Officer of Sound Pharma and has led their hearing loss and tinnitus R&D since its inception in 2002. He has served on the Board of Trustees at Harborview Medical Center/University of Washington since 2014, and the Board of Trustees for the Woodland Park Zoo since 2022. In addition, Jonathan has served on the Boards of several independent K-12 schools in Seattle. He is an advisor to the DoD Hearing Center of Excellence, the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, and Seattle Children’s Hospital. 

Karen Tkach Tuzman, PhD

Director of Biopharma Intelligence at BioCentury
Speaker

As Head of Discovery and Preclinical Research, Karen guides BioCentury’s coverage of emerging biology and technologies. She has written extensively about immunology, synthetic biology, and data science, covering innovative breakthroughs in industry and academia, and dissecting trends in company formation and investments around new science. She oversees BioCentury's Distillery feature, and coordinates activities and interactions with BioCentury’s Scientific Advisory Board. She is a frequent guest on the BioCentury This Week, guiding the podcast’s monthly “What’s on Tap in the Distillery” feature.

Karen joined BioCentury in 2015 after a postdoctoral research fellowship in Stanford University’s Department of Chemical and Systems Biology. She holds a Ph.D. in Immunology from Weill Cornell Medicine and a B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California Berkeley. Outside of BioCentury, she is passionate about youth leadership development and land use policy.

Keynote Speaker
Panelists