Jason Park, PhD is CEO and co-founder of Empress. He is also an Operating Partner at Flagship Pioneering and was a member of the founding team of Inzen Therapeutics where he served as COO.

Prior to joining Flagship in 2015, Jason was a core member of the Boston Consulting Group’s Health Care and Technology practices, operating out of BCG's New York, Mumbai, and Paris offices. His projects included multiple large life science M&A opportunities and the design and implementation of a new funding model for a multinational Global Health organization focused on innovative technologies and interventions. Previously, Jason was a director at an early-stage biotech start-up focused on targeted drug delivery as well as the co-founder of an internet advertising firm.

Jason earned a Ph.D., M.S., and B.S. in Biomedical Engineering from Yale University where his research focused on the use of nanotechnology for immunomodulatory purposes and culminated in the invention and clinical use of a nanoparticle drug delivery platform. He is the author of multiple patents, book chapters, and over a dozen peer-reviewed papers in journals including Nature and Cell.

Murray has more than 35 years of experience in drug discovery and early development with a track record of translating scientific discoveries into breakthrough medicines including the delivery of 30 clinical candidates across multiple therapeutic modalities and disease areas. Murray has also supported the development of numerous blockbusters including Orencia, Nulojix, Remicade, Simponi, Stelara, and Tremfya.

Prior to joining Empress, he was the Global Head of Janssen’s World Without Disease Accelerator (WWDA), an agile, entrepreneurial group within J&J that partners internally and externally to propel science into disruptive solutions that prevent, intercept and cure disease. In this role, Murray led R&D teams investigating new paradigms for tackling challenging diseases including Type 1 diabetes, lung cancer and childhood allergic diseases. For the prior 9 years at Janssen, Murray directed drug discovery efforts within the Immunology therapeutic area, driving both biologic and pharmaceutical based approaches to treating immune and inflammatory diseases.

Prior to joining Janssen, Murray held positions of increasing responsibility within the Immunology discovery organization at Bristol Myers Squibb with a focus on discovery and early development of pharmaceuticals and biologics for Rheumatoid Arthritis and related inflammatory/autoimmune diseases. Murray began his R&D career at GlaxoWellcome, UK, in the respiratory diseases area.

Murray has authored more than 40 peer reviewed publications and four reviews. He holds a B.Sc. Honor’s degree in Biochemistry from the University of Glasgow in Scotland and earned his PhD from the Imperial Cancer Research Fund in London. 

Sabrina is Chief Innovation Officer and co-founder of Empress Therapeutics. She is also a Senior Principal at Flagship Pioneering where, since 2017, she worked towards the conception, creation, and development of multiple innovative life science platforms and companies. 

Prior to joining Flagship, Sabrina was a postdoctoral researcher and an NSF-funded translational fellow at MIT, where she worked with MIT’s venture mentoring service team to bring her academic research from the bench to commercialization.

During her Ph.D., Sabrina worked in the lab of Darrell Irvine and developed a T-cell targeting, cell membrane-penetrating nanoparticle technology to overcome tumor-mediated immunosuppression and improve cancer vaccine outcomes. Her graduate work resulted in publication in multiple peer-reviewed journals and several pending patents. She also pursued research as an undergraduate, engineering nanomaterials for MRI/ CT dual molecular imaging contrast agents, which resulted in several publications and an issued patent.

Sabrina holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in materials science and engineering from MIT and a B.S. in materials science and engineering from National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan, where she graduated summa cum laude and was valedictorian.

Virigina is an accomplished biotechnology executive with more than 25 years of broad corporate development and operational leadership experience. Over the course of her career, she has led, architected, and contributed to numerous development and M&A deals across therapeutic areas within the biotech, medical device, and related technologies fields.

Prior to joining Empress, Virginia served as CBO of early-stage immuno-oncology company Adanate, where she was instrumental in company formation, including team and operational development and investor and partner engagement. During her tenure at Dermira, Virginia held roles of increasing responsibility in driving corporate growth and strategy for the company, culminating in the sale of Dermira to Eli Lilly. As CBO after the Lilly acquisition, she led the G&A group, the transition of the lebrikizumab program to Lilly, and the 2021 sale of the company’s commercial dermatology program, Qbrexza® to Journey Medical.  Prior roles include senior corporate development positions at Fibrogen, DSM Biomedical, and Precigen.

Virginia is active in industry associations, including the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), Women in Bio (WIB), and the California Life Sciences Association (CLSA). She holds a master’s in business administration from Saint Joseph’s University and a bachelor’s degree from Temple University.

Boris has 16 years of leadership experience in computational biology and machine learning across a range of pharma applications.  His specialty is computational systems biology at the intersection of next generation data modalities.  Over the years, Boris has led dozens of successful discovery and translational projects across indications and therapeutic areas for most of the large pharmaceutical companies.

Prior to joining Empress Therapeutics, Boris spent thirteen years at Aitia, a causal AI/ML computational platform provider, in progressively more senior roles.  Bookending his career at Aitia with machine learning research, Boris spent a decade working in the company's consulting group, including several years leading it.  In this role, he led research in discovery, translational, precision medicine, vaccines/epidemiology, and drug positioning and reimbursement.   The capstone of his time at Aitia was the "virtual twins" prototype of the company's future Gemini platform.

In addition to his pharma/biotech experience, Boris has five years of experience in high tech, largely in Natural Language Processing/web search.

Boris has co-authored and led over a dozen patents and publications.  He holds BS and MS in Computer Science from Johns Hopkins University, where he trained in NLP with Fred Jelinek, and a PhD in Bioinformatics from Boston University, where he trained in systems biology with James J. Collins.

Joe has more than 20 years of leadership in small molecule drug discovery with a focus on oncology, inflammatory and monogenic disease indications. With extensive experience with novel platforms and areas of biology, often at the intersection of biology and chemistry, Joe has successfully delivered multiple development candidates, two clinical proof of concept studies and one approved and marketed drug (Odomzo/sonidegib).

Prior to joining Empress, Joe spent three years at Civetta Therapeutics where he led the company’s efforts to define and build the target portfolio and the platform targeting beta-propeller proteins, including cell biology, pharmacology, genetics, structural biology and bioinformatics. As a senior director of Discovery Biology at Kymera Therapeutics, he co-led the IRAK4 Degrader program which is now in clinical trials for lymphoma and inflammatory diseases.

Previously, Joe spent more than 13 years in roles of increasing responsibility at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research. While there, he helped build and lead the molecular and developmental pathways group, identifying novel targets within evolutionarily important pathways, which ultimately led to the discovery and successful development of Odomzo. Joe began his career as a discovery scientist at Exelixis. 

Joe holds a PhD in biochemistry, cell and molecular biology from Johns Hopkins University and received his B.S. in cell/cellular and molecular biology from the University of Connecticut.

Kevin has over 20 years leadership in drug discovery with a focus on chemistry interfacing with biology, and more recently in mass spec-based ‘omics and synthetic biology. He is a co-inventor of three clinical candidates and six development candidates.

Prior to joining Empress, he led the chemistry and DMPK efforts of multiple programs at Nimbus Therapeutics and co-led CRO selection and wet screen initiatives to deliver advanced chemical matter for further optimization. Before joining Nimbus, Kevin spent 15 years at J&J/Janssen where he co-invented safimaltib and JNJ-64264681, and co-led the enteric-restricted JAK program culminating in the discovery of lorpucitinib.  Kevin also led the Immunology Chemistry due diligences for the J&J Boston Innovation Center, vetting 20+ external opportunities that culminated in J&J’s investment in Rodeo Therapeutics and its Research Agreement with Aldeyra Therapeutics.  Prior to J&J, Kevin was an ACS Postdoctoral Fellow at The Scripps Research Institute and joined 3-Dimensional Pharmaceuticals, later acquired by J&J.

Kevin is a co-inventor on 30+ patents and applications spanning immunology, oncology, metabolic, and cardiovascular diseases, and has co-authored 20 peer reviewed publications and reviews.  He earned his PhD in Bioorganic Chemistry from Brandeis University and holds a B.S. in Chemistry from the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Dawn Thompson, PhD, is Senior Vice President, Head of Platform Development of Empress. With more than 20 years of experience leading cross-functional teams and building technology platforms at early-stage companies, Dr. Thompson focuses on platform innovation, adding new workflows and advanced genomics capabilities as well as efficiency and scale to all existing functions.

Before joining Empress, Dr. Thompson was Vice President, Microbiology and Automation and Head, Synthetic Biology at LifeMine Therapeutics, where she led teams in the discovery of therapeutically relevant natural products. Previous to LifeMine, Dr. Thompson was Head of Next Generation Sequencing at Gingko Bioworks, where she led the development of a diverse portfolio of technologies, including fully automated DNA sequencing, genome assembly, and RNA-seq. At Gingko, she also oversaw platform development for engineering of novel organism factories to deliver products across diverse commercial applications and markets including pharmaceuticals, living medicines, agriculture, and electronics. 

Prior to Ginkgo, Dr. Thompson spent nine years as Associate Director of the Cell Circuits Program under Aviv Regev, Ph.D. at the Broad Institute, where she was integral to the scientific vision and ‘Omics technological development toward systematically defining the genetic and molecular circuits of a wide range of cell types. At the Broad, Dr. Thompson was concurrently a Senior Group Leader in Evolutionary Genomics. She has co-authored more than 30 peer reviewed publications and reviews. Dr. Thompson was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University and received her Ph.D. from the University of Oregon and her B.S. in biology from University of New Hampshire.

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