Verge Genomics Appoints World Leading Experts to Inaugural Scientific Advisory Board
Scientific Advisory Board comprised of leading scientists and key opinion leaders in neurodegeneration
January 8, 2016
SAN FRANCISCO – Verge Genomics, a venture-backed genomic drug discovery company recently launched from YCombinator, today announced the appointment of leading experts to its newly formed Scientific Advisory Board. The SAB will serve as a strategic resource to Verge Genomics as it discovers and develops drugs for neurodegenerative diseases using genomic data.
“We are thrilled with the addition of these experts in computational biology and neurodegenerative diseases to our team of advisors,” said Alice Zhang, Chief Executive Officer of Verge Genomics. “The background and experience our SAB members bring to Verge Genomics will be invaluable as we keep our genomic drug discovery platform on the cutting edge, and also as we advance several existing lead candidates through preclinical proof of concept.”
The inaugural members of Verge Genomics’ Scientific Advisory Board include:
- Paul Aisen, M.D., Founding director of University of Southern California (USC) Alzheimer's Therapeutic Research Institute
- George Church, Ph.D., Robert Winthrop Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School; Professor of Health Sciences and Technology at Harvard and MIT; founding member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard
- Jeffrey Rothstein, M.D., Ph.D., Director, Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins; Professor, Department of Neurology and Neuroscience at John Hopkins School of Medicine
- Eric Schadt, Ph.D., Director of the Icahn Institute for Genomics and Multiscale Biology, Chair of the Department of Genetics and Genomics Sciences, and the Jean C. and James W. Crystal Professor of Genomics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai
- Rudolph Tanzi, Ph.D., Joseph P. and Rose F. Kennedy Professor of Neurology at Harvard University, and Director of the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH)
- Robert Tibshirani, Ph.D., Professor of Health Research and Policy, and Statistics at Stanford University
“The launch of Verge Genomics scientific advisory board underscores our commitment to the research and development of innovative therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases,” said Jason Chen, Chief Scientific Officer of Verge Genomics. “The core of Verge Genomics’ technology development efforts is our broadly applicable systems biology platform for the discovery of treatments for diseases with few or no clinical options. These additions to our team help position Verge to successfully reach our goal of bringing transformative treatments to patients living with neurodegenerative diseases.”
About Verge Genomics
Verge is using its proprietary network algorithms on genomic datasets to accelerate the discovery and development of treatments for neurodegenerative diseases. Alzheimer's Disease, ALS, and Parkinson's Disease are complex diseases that involve networks of genes, not just a single gene. Verge integrates large-scale genomic, genetic, and molecular data across multiple technologies and platforms to maps out the hundreds of genes that cause a disease, and then matches them to drugs that target the entire gene network. Through its cutting-edge algorithms, Verge can analyze thousands of datasets to predict which drugs will work. Verge's genomic network approach offers a breakthrough opportunity to identify drugs that dramatically improve patient outcomes and fundamentally bend the cost curve of pharmaceutical development.