Board members

Dr Tassos Konstantinou, PhD

Investment Manager, Life Sciences, IP Group

Professor Tony Kouzarides, PhD, FMedSci, FRS

Founder & Director

Professor Paul Workman

Independent Director (STORM) & Chief Executive and President, The Institute of Cancer Research (ICR)

RNA Epigenetics in Human Disease

A STORM Therapeutics conference | 2023 Dates To be Confirmed

Dr Michael Anstey is an Investment Director specialising in healthcare investments.

Before joining Cambridge Innovation Capital he was a Principal in the Healthcare Practice Area at The Boston Consulting Group’s (BCG) Toronto office. Michael has experience in advising multinational healthcare businesses across North America, Europe, India, and Japan on a broad range of topics, including corporate strategy, sales and marketing, new launches, R&D and medical strategy, and M&A.

Michael was co-founder and COO of an early stage biotechnology company focused on developing small molecule drugs that target protein-protein interactions implicated in disease.

Prior to BCG, Michael worked in venture capital, where he focused on investing in early stage healthcare and life science businesses.

Michael earned his DPhil in Zoology in the field of neurobiology, jointly supervised by professors at the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford.

Michael sits on the board of Bicycle Therapeutics, Congenica and Storm Therapeutics.

Sakae Asanuma the founder of Taiho Ventures in 2016. Prior to joining Taiho, he was President and CEO at Astellas Venture Management and US Head of Astellas Innovation Management. At Astellas, he closed more than 10 research collaboration deals with academia and biotech ventures, including establishing six new build-to-buy or spin-out companies. Prior to working at Astellas, he was General Manager at Yasuda Enterprise, a Japanese VC firm with $800M under management. He has invested in more than 35 companies, achieving 11 IPOs and 8 M&As to date as a Bay Area-based biotech venture capitalist since 2000.

Christopher O’Donnell, PhD is Executive Director, Worldwide Research, Development & Medical and Principal, Pfizer Ventures. Chris has 20 years of scientific leadership at Pfizer and a strong track record of delivering clinical candidates across multiple disease areas and modalities. Prior to Pfizer Ventures, Chris built and led the Applied Synthesis Technologies group within Pfizer Worldwide Research & Development to help accelerate the delivery of Pfizer’s small molecule portfolio. Prior to that, Chris built and led Pfizer’s Antibody Drug Conjugate Oncology Medicinal Chemistry group which delivered new linker, payload and conjugation methods resulting in 7 conjugates entering clinical development. Chris started his career in the Neuroscience Medicinal Chemistry group where he invented and helped deliver numerous clinical candidates, with the most advanced being the AMPA positive allosteric modulator in Phase II that was licensed to Biogen. Chris has co-authored 55 peer reviewed manuscripts and is the inventor/co-inventor on 25 patents.

Chris earned his BS in Chemistry from the University of Illinois-Urbana/Champaign and his PhD in Chemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and joined Pfizer after his post-doctoral research studies as an American Cancer Society Fellow at the University of California – Irvine.

Chris currently sits on the boards of Adapsyn Biosciences, ARKUDA therapeutics, and Kymera Therapeutics and is a board observer of BioAtla, Morphic Therapeutic, Petra Therapeutics and Strata Oncology.

In addition to being Chair of Storm Therapeutics Ltd, Tim is Chair of EndLyz Inc., Modulus Oncology Ltd and a NED of AstronauTx Ltd. Among main-market listed companies, he is Chair of Schroders UK Public Private Trust plc investing mostly in high-growth, disruptive-technology companies with strong management teams and co-investors, and Senior Independent Director of Record PLC, a leading specialist currency manager.

Previously Tim was a Governing Board member of InnovateUK, the UK's Innovation agency, Non-Executive Director of the Cell & Gene Therapy Catapult; Chair of the UK BioIndustry Association, and a member of the Dept of Health ‘Ministerial Industry Strategy Group (Life Sciences)'.

In the past decade, he has led two companies to exit by trade sale: as Chair of Atopix Therapeutics Limited acquired by Chiesi Farmaceutici S.P.A. in 2016; and President and Chief Executive Officer of Cellzome Inc. acquired by GlaxoSmithKline plc in 2012.

Hakan Goker (Ph.D.) is a senior investment director at M Ventures, corporate venture arm of the biopharmaceutical division of Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. Hakan has been investing for the past 12 years and joined Merck Ventures in 2013. Previously Hakan was a partner at Aescap Venture and prior to that worked at Atlas Venture. Since 2006, Hakan was instrumental in the creation, financing, and corporate strategy of multiple biotechnology companies globally including Artios, Asceneuron, Storm, Bicycle, and F-star. Hakan received his PhD in cancer biology from the Institute of Cancer Research/ University of London and continued his scientific career with post-doctoral work at the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Centre/Royal Marsden Hospital. He gained his BSc Honours, from University College London. Hakan currently is a board member at Artios Pharma, Asceneuron, Forendo, Macrophage Pharma, Tocopherx, Synaffix, Storm Therapeutics, Raze Therapeutics and is the chairman of iOnctura.

John Haurum has over 20 years’ experience in the international biotech industry. Previously John was Chief Executive Officer of F-star, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company pioneering the development of novel bispecific antibodies, with multiple strategic collaborations with AbbVie, Merck KGaA, Denali and Boehringer Ingelheim.

Prior to F-star, Dr Haurum was VP Research at ImClone Systems, and was previously CSO and Co-Founder of Symphogen. He is currently Executive Chairman of the Board at Synklino, Chairman of the Board of Agomab and is on the board of NeoPhore and Synact Pharma ApS. Dr Haurum has a Medical Degree and MSc in Immunology from Aarhus University, and a DPhil in Immunology from the University of Oxford.

Tassos specialises in early stage investing in the life science sector. Before joining IP Group, Tassos was a business development executive at CRUK Commercial Partnerships (ex CRT) where he led the intellectual property sourcing, licensing and spin-out creation of CRUK-funded technologies. Prior to that he held an investment analyst role with SR One, GSK’s venture capital arm. His experience also includes roles in technology transfer and consulting in the US.

Tassos holds a PhD in molecular oncology from the University of Oxford.

Tony is Professor of Cancer Biology at the University of Cambridge, Deputy Director of the Gurdon Institute and Director of the Milner Therapeutics Institute.

Tony did his PhD at the University of Cambridge and postdoctoral work at MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology on the cancer-inducing potential of human cytomegalovirus. He then went to NYU Medical Center in New York where he worked on the c-Fos onco-protein and the characterisation of the leucine zipper. He returned to Cambridge to lead a research group at the Gurdon Institute.

Tony is part of the Executive Board of the Cambridge Cancer Centre and on the Scientific Advisory Board of two Institutes on Spain (CRG in Barcelona and CABIMER in Seville). He is the founder and director of a cancer charity based in Spain, Vencer el Cancer (Conquer Cancer), which raises funds from the Spanish public to fund research on cancer.

Tony is a co-founder of Abcam plc (a publicly trading research reagents company) and a co-founder of two UK-based cancer drug discovery companies, Chroma Therapeutics (based in Oxford) and STORM Therapeutics (based in Cambridge).

Tony has been elected member of the European Molecular Biology organisation, is a Fellow of the British Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci), Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) and is a Cancer Research UK Gibbs Fellow. He has been awarded the Wellcome Trust medal for research in biochemistry related to medicine (UK), the Tenovus Medal (UK), the Bodossaki Foundation prize in Biology (Greece), the Bijvoet Medal (Holland), the Biochemical Society Award Novartis Medal and Prize (UK) and the Heinrich Wieland Prize (Germany)

Research

Tony’s research team is interested in the role of epigenetic mechanisms in the development and maintenance of cancer. A particular area of focus for the lab is the role of RNA and Chromatin modifications, and their regulation and interpretation by epigenetic writers, readers and erasers.

Chromatin is decorated with many different types of modification on histones and on DNA. These can potentially affect any biological process. An even larger set of chemical modifications has been identified for RNA. Tony’s lab is involved in identifying and characterising modifications of histones, DNA and RNA, primarily concentrating on their role in transcription and translation. Our interest is fuelled by the fact that many of these modification pathways are deregulated in cancer. We are keen to understand how mis-regulation generates uncontrolled cell growth and in finding small molecule inhibitors that can target the damaged pathway in cancer cells.

Tony’s research group identified one of the first enzymes that modify chromatin, the acetyltransferase CBP. His lab has also discovered many other chromatin modification pathways including deimination, proline isomerisation and tyrosine phoshorylation and glutamine methylation. His group identified HP1 as a protein that binds to methyl-lysine 9 on Histone H3. Many links between epigenetic modifications and cancer have been demonstrated by his group. Most recently, a small molecule inhibitor, I-BET, has been shown to be effective against epigenetic pathways leading to MLL-leukaemia. This I-BET compound is currently in clinical trials.

For more information, please visit: www.gurdon.cam.ac.uk/research/kouzarides

Jerry has over 30 years of biotechnology leadership, scientific innovation, creative deal-making, and financing experience. With broad disease-area expertise and a specialty in oncology therapeutics, Jerry has held scientific, pharmaceutical and venture capital positions and has been the CEO or President of multiple biotechnology companies leading novel therapeutic programs from discovery, development to drug approvals for internal and in-licensed products.

From 2016 to late 2021 Jerry was President and CEO of NASDAQ listed Harpoon Therapeutics building the Company from early stage through to IPO, follow-on financings, and development collaborations. Prior to that he held multiple positions, including President and CEO of Kolltan Pharmaceuticals which was acquired by Celldex, Innovative Medicine Head of Oncology and SVP at AstraZeneca-Medimmune, managing a more than $1 billion global R&D budget and President at SUGEN/Pfizer where he was instrumental in invention and full development of several ground-breaking protein kinase inhibitors including sunitinib (Sutent®).

Jerry has also held academic appointments at the Yale Comprehensive Cancer Center at Yale University, Tufts University School of Medicine, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received his BS in biology and PhD in the field of biochemistry and genetics from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has authored over 100 scientific and medical publications and is an inventor on over 60 US patents.

Eric is the Herchel Smith Professor of Molecular Genetics and a Senior Group Leader at the Gurdon Institute at the University of Cambridge. He has an appointment as associated faculty at the Cambridge Systems Biology Centre and the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Research Institute. Eric was an EMBO Young Investigator and is a full member of EMBO since 2012. Eric is the 2013 recipient of the Hooke Medal awarded by the British Society of Cell Biology. He joined the faculty of the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton in 2014 and is a Senior Investigator of the Wellcome Trust.

Eric studied mathematics, physics and biology at Heidelberg, Berlin and Mainz and holds a BA in Biochemistry from Trinity College, Dublin. He received his PhD in Pathology from the University of Cambridge, UK, in 2000, working with Professor Tony Kouzarides, and was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Nobel laureate Bob Horvitz at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA from 2000 to 2004. He started his own research group at the Gurdon Institute in 2005.

Research

Eric’s research team at the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge is interested in all aspects of gene regulation by non-coding RNA. Current research themes include: miRNA biology and pathology, miRNA mechanism, piRNA biology and the germline, endo-siRNAs in epigenetic inheritance and evironmental conditioning, small RNA evolution and the role of RNAi in host pathogen interaction.

Bruno Montanari is a Partner at Seroba Life Sciences. He has a background in venture capital and in investment banking, with a focus on the pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical device industries.

Prior to joining Seroba in 2017, Bruno was a Partner at Omnes Capital (Paris) in charge of life sciences investments for the venture capital team. His previous venture capital experience was at Atlas Venture (Paris/London) and CDP Capital (Paris/Montreal). He started his career in 1999 in London, in the healthcare teams of the investment banking divisions of Deutsche Bank and later Merrill Lynch.

Bruno graduated in 1998 with a PharmD. from the Université René Descartes, Paris V and in the same year completed a Master’s degree in Strategic Management at HEC.

Paul is Harrap Professor of Pharmacology and Therapeutics at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), as well as the former Head of the Division of Cancer Therapeutics Division of Cancer Therapeutics and former Director of the Cancer Research UK Cancer Therapeutics Unit from 1997-2016.

A leader in the field of molecularly targeted cancer drugs, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society, Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Society of Medicine, the Royal Society of Chemistry and the Royal Society of Biology and is a Cancer Research UK Life Fellow. Paul's research focus is the discovery and development of cancer drugs that exploit our knowledge of the cancer genome and cancer biology and his passion is personalised medicine.

A full list of his awards and achievements can be found in his ICR biography.

Board members

Michael Anstey, DPhil

Sakae Asanuma

Christopher O’Donnell, PhD

Tim Edwards

Hakan Goker, PhD

John Haurum, PhD

Dr Tassos Konstantinou, PhD

Professor Tony Kouzarides, PhD, FMedSci, FRS

Jerry McMahon, PhD

Professor Eric Miska, PhD

Bruno Montanari, PharmD

Professor Paul Workman

RNA Epigenetics in Human Disease

A STORM Therapeutics conference | 2023 Dates To be Confirmed