Pioneering founders, experienced leadership, and world-class advisors.

Leadership

Timothy Lu, M.D., Ph.D.

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Timothy Lu, M.D., Ph.D.

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Lu has served as our CEO since he co-founded Senti Bio in 2016. Since 2010, Dr. Lu has been an MIT faculty member in the departments of Biological Engineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In addition, Dr. Lu has been a co-founder and a Scientific Advisory Board member to a number of biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies, including BiomX, Corvium, Eligo Bioscience, Engine Biosciences, Synlogic and Tango Therapeutics.

Dr. Lu earned his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his Ph.D. in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology as part of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Medical Engineering and Medical Physics Program. Dr. Lu has extensive experience in the field of synthetic biology and has received numerous awards: NIH New Innovator Award, US President Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, MIT Technology Review’s TR35, Navy and Army Young Investigator Prizes and others.

Deborah Knobelman, Ph.D.

Chief Financial Officer & Head of Corporate Development

Deborah Knobelman, Ph.D.

Chief Financial Officer & Head of Corporate Development

Dr. Knobelman has served as our CFO since joining Senti Bio in 2021. She brings over 20 years of experience on Wall Street and in the biopharma industry. Dr. Knobelman served in interim C-Suite roles for numerous life sciences companies and, prior to that, as CFO for GeneriCo Pharmaceuticals and CBO for Ampio Pharmaceuticals. In these positions, she led a wide range of public and private financing efforts, corporate strategy and finance, and investor relations activities. Earlier in her career, within Pfizer’s Primary Care business, she focused on commercial strategies for Primary Care products, and was involved in operational planning and budgeting. Dr. Knobelman began her career on Wall Street as an Equity Research Analyst covering Specialty Pharmaceuticals and Biotech for JPMorgan and Piper Jaffray, where she was named to Institutional Investor’s list of “Next Generation Analysts”.

Dr. Knobelman earned her PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Pennsylvania, and an AB with Distinction in Chemistry from Duke University.

Kanya Rajangam, M.D., Ph.D.

Head of Research & Development and Chief Medical Officer

Kanya Rajangam, M.D., Ph.D.

Head of Research & Development and Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Rajangam is responsible for leading the development and regulatory strategy to rapidly advance Senti Bio's off-the-shelf CAR-NK cell oncology programs into and through clinical development. Dr. Rajangam served in leadership roles at various biotech companies, most recently Nkarta Therapeutics where, as chief medical officer, she was responsible for clinical development of CAR-NK cell therapies for oncology. Prior to Nkarta, she was chief medical officer at Atara Biotherapeutics where she led the development of T-cell therapies for oncology, neurology and infectious diseases. Prior to that, Dr. Rajangam was chief medical officer of Cleave Biosciences, where she led oncology clinical development programs. Prior to becoming a chief medical officer, Dr. Rajangam gained relevant senior leadership experience at Onyx and Exelixis, while contributing to the clinical development and global approval of several marketed oncology products including Kyprolis®, Cotellic® and Cometriq®/Cabometyx®. Dr. Rajangam currently serves on the board of directors of Turnstone Biologics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing next-generation tumor infiltrating lymphocyte cell therapies and oncolytic virus cancer immunotherapies.

Dr. Rajangam received a medical degree from St. Johns’ Medical College and completed her surgical residency with a focus on oncology at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), both in India. She received a Ph.D. in biomedical cell and tissue engineering from Northwestern University.

Mike Rhee

Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs, Corporate Secretary

Mike Rhee

Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs, Corporate Secretary

Mr. Rhee has been overseeing Senti Bio’s legal function since joining Senti Bio in 2021.  He brings over 20 years of legal and compliance experience working at global public and private companies. Prior to joining Senti Bio, Mr. Rhee served as Vice-President, Legal, at Sangamo Therapeutics, Inc., a biotechnology company developing genomic medicine. Prior to Sangamo, Mr. Rhee held positions at the University of California, San Francisco and Bio-Rad Laboratories, Inc. Prior to going in-house, Mr. Rhee practiced intellectual property law at Dewey Ballantine LLP. Mr. Rhee began his career as a Patent Examiner at the United States Patent and Trademark Office. In these positions, Mr. Rhee built his expertise in a number of practice areas, including intellectual property, litigation, transactions, M&A, compliance, and corporate governance.


Mr. Rhee received a B.S. in Chemical Engineering and Biology and a J.D. from the University of Virginia.

Amy Alford

Vice President, Research & Development Operations

Amy Alford

Vice President, Research & Development Operations

Mrs. Alford has been leading Senti’s R&D and clinical operations since 2022. She brings over 20 years of clinical operations experience, including departmental build outs and trial progression from First in Human/Phase I to registration. Prior to joining Senti, Mrs. Alford held various clinical roles at Kronos Bio, Peloton Therapeutics (acquired by Merck), and Reata Pharmaceuticals. She was also a clinical research consultant advising a number of companies on clinical development, strategy, and operations.  Mrs. Alford was part of the clinical teams for several FDA-approved products, including WELIREG® for the treatment of von Hippel-Lindau (VHL)-associated renal cell carcinoma.


Mrs. Alford earned a master’s degree in Clinical, Counseling and Applied Psychology from Northwestern University, and a bachelor’s degree in Biology & Psychology from Rhodes College.

Patrick Chen

Vice President, CMC & Technical Operations

Patrick Chen

Vice President, CMC & Technical Operations

Mr. Chen joined Senti Bio in 2023 and leads the CMC / Technical Operations department and is responsible for the process development, analytical development, and manufacturing activities.  He brings over 30 years of experience in the biopharma industry in the development and manufacturing of proteins, enzymes, monoclonal antibodies, gene and cell therapy products.  Prior to Senti Bio, Mr. Chen was Vice President of Manufacturing at Grace Science and led the CMC activities for the development and manufacturing of a gene therapy for an ultra rare disease indication. Prior to that, he was the head of External Manufacturing at Sangamo Therapeutics and was responsible for GMP manufacturing and supply of plasmids, mRNA, viral vectors and cell therapy products including stem cells and Treg cells. Mr. Chen has had increasing roles of responsibility and has been in involved in the initial process development and manufacturing of Humira®, the design of a large-scale biologics manufacturing facility for Amgen Rhode Island to manufacture Enbrel®, led the CMC project management department at Chiron and was the CMC and tech transfer leader at Genentech for various products including Activase®, Rituxan® and Perjeta®.


Mr. Chen received his Chemical Engineering degree from UCLA and his MBA from the Babson FW Olin Graduate School of Business.

Dee Olomajeye Dragon

Vice President of People Strategy & Culture

Dee Olomajeye Dragon

Vice President of People Strategy & Culture

Mrs. Dragon is responsible for all facets of Senti's people strategy, with DE&I, Empathy and Collaboration as key building blocks in designing Senti's employee experience using a People-Centered approach. Prior to her role at Senti, she was Assistant Vice President with Aon’s Health Solutions Practice where she helped clients develop people attraction and retention strategies, and implemented multiple new employee programs. Prior to that, she worked globally for Mercer Human Resource Consulting, The Los Angeles Times, and Willis Towers Watson.


Mrs. Dragon received her B.F.A. Degree in Electronic Media Communications from The University of Cincinnati.

Karin Thacker, MScc

Vice President, Quality and Regulatory Affairs

Karin Thacker, MScc

Vice President, Quality and Regulatory Affairs

Ms. Thacker joined Senti in 2022 with over 20 years of leadership experience in regulatory affairs and quality assurance in the biopharmaceutical industry, ushering many novel biotherapeutics into First-in-Human clinical trials through development and approval in the US and internationally. Prior to joining Senti, she served as VP and Head of Quality and Regulatory at Harpoon Therapeutics providing regulatory and compliance oversight of their ongoing preclinical and clinical development of their suite of T cell engagers and, prior to that, as VP of Regulatory Affairs at Gritstone Bio where she built out the Regulatory Affairs function and provided regulatory strategic expertise on the development of personalized therapeutic cancer vaccines, bispecific antibodies, biomarkers, and companion diagnostics. She has also led FDA interactions on the design and quality systems, GMP bioinformatics, and manufacturing facilities. Prior to Gritstone, she served as Senior Director, Head of Regulatory Development, Global Regulatory Affairs at Puma Biotechnology. She has also held positions of increasing responsibility in regulatory Affairs and Quality at Gilead Sciences, Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, Genitope Corporation, Chiron Corporation, and Sanofi Pasteur, supporting numerous clinical development programs, product approvals, launches, and post-marketing support.


Ms. Thacker received a BSc (hons) and MSc from the University of Manitoba in Canada.

Board of Directors

Timothy Lu, M.D., Ph.D.

Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

Timothy Lu, M.D., Ph.D.

Co-founder and Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Lu has served as our CEO since he co-founded Senti Bio in 2016. Since 2010, Dr. Lu has been an MIT faculty member in the departments of Biological Engineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In addition, Dr. Lu has been a co-founder and a Scientific Advisory Board member to a number of biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies, including BiomX, Corvium, Eligo Bioscience, Engine Biosciences, Synlogic and Tango Therapeutics.

Dr. Lu earned his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his Ph.D. in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology as part of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Medical Engineering and Medical Physics Program. Dr. Lu has extensive experience in the field of synthetic biology and has received numerous awards: NIH New Innovator Award, US President Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, MIT Technology Review’s TR35, Navy and Army Young Investigator Prizes and others.

Susan Berland

Senior Financial Executive

Susan Berland

Senior Financial Executive

Susan Berland has served as a member of our board of directors since June 2021. Most recently Ms. Berland was the Acting Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Bluestar Genomics. Prior to Bluestar Genomics, she was CFO at Atreca, a biotechnology company developing novel immunotherapies where she played a key role in closing several strategic financings. As a consultant to the life sciences industry, she has advised numerous companies and was a co-founder of Veracyte Inc. Ms. Berland held leadership positions at Monsanto Company as Head of Financial Planning and as Director of Mergers & Acquisitions.

Ms. Berland earned MBA and BA degrees from the University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee.

Brenda Cooperstone, M.D.

Chief Development Officer, Pfizer Rare Disease

Brenda Cooperstone, M.D.

Chief Development Officer, Pfizer Rare Disease

Dr. Cooperstone has served as a member of our board of directors since 2019. Dr. Cooperstone has held various leadership positions at Pfizer including as Senior Vice President since 2017, Chief Development Officer for Rare Disease in Global Product Development since 2016 and Head of Development for Rare Disease in Global Product Development from 2015 to 2016. Dr. Cooperstone started her career in the pharmaceutical industry at Wyeth Pharmaceuticals in 1999 and joined Pfizer in 2009.

Dr. Cooperstone earned her M.D. from McGill University, and completed her residency in pediatrics at the Montreal Children’s Hospital, her clinical fellowship in pediatric nephrology at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and a research fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania’s Renal Electrolyte division.

Omid Farokhzad, M.D.

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Seer Inc.

Omid Farokhzad, M.D.

Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Seer Inc.

Dr. Farokhzad is a physician-scientist, serial entrepreneur, company founder, company builder, executive and director – across multiple companies and technology platforms. He founded Seer, Inc. (Nasdaq: SEER) in 2017, which advances a transformative proteomics platform, and serves as Founder, CEO and Chair. He previously co-founded BIND Therapeutics (acquired by Pfizer), Selecta Biosciences, Inc. (Nasdaq: SELB), which is developing a novel antigen-specific tolerance platform for biologics and gene therapy, and Tarveda Therapeutics, Inc., a privately held oncology biotherapeutics company. From September 2004 to February 2018, he was a Professor at Harvard Medical School and a director of the Center for Nanomedicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He has authored over 180 papers and is an inventor on over 200 issued or pending patents. He is a Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors. He is also a recipient of the 2016 Ellis Island Medal of Honor; the 2014 Golden Door Award from the International Institute of New England, for his scientific, societal and economic contributions to America as an immigrant; The Worldview 100 by Scientific American in 2015, which recognized visionaries who shaped biotechnology around the world; the 2013 RUSNANOPRIZE, one of the largest international nanotechnology prizes, for his work on nanomaterial surface modification; and the 2012 Ernst & Young New England Entrepreneur of the Year Award. Dr. Farokhzad holds an MA and M.D. from Boston University and an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management.

James Collins, Ph.D

Scientific Co-Founder

James Collins, Ph.D

Scientific Co-Founder

Dr. Collins is the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science as well as Professor of Biological Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is one of the founders of the field of synthetic biology, has been elected to all three national academies—the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Medicine—and has received a number of awards recognizing his work, including the Dickson Prize in Medicine and the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Award. Dr. Collins has been a Rhodes Scholar, a MacArthur Fellow and a recipient of the NIH Pioneer Award. In addition to his role as a faculty member at MIT, Dr. Collins is a Core Faculty member of the Wyss Institute at Harvard and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Dr. Collins is a co-founder of Synlogic, Sherlock Biosciences, Cellarity and Phare Bio, and serves on the SAB of multiple companies including Danaher and Shape Therapeutics. Dr. Collins has a PhD in Medical Engineering from the University of Oxford, and an AB in Physics from the College of the Holy Cross.

Ed Mathers

Partner, NEA

Ed Mathers

Partner, NEA

Mr. Mathers has served as a member of our board of directors since 2016. Mr. Mathers has served as a General Partner at New Enterprise Associates (NEA), a private venture capital firm focusing on technology and healthcare investments, since 2019, and prior to that served as partner at NEA from 2008 to 2019. Prior to joining NEA, Mr. Mathers served as Executive Vice President, Corporate Development and Venture at MedImmune and led its venture capital subsidiary, MedImmune Ventures. Mr. Mathers currently serves on the board of directors of Affinia Therapeutics, Akouos, Amplyx Pharmaceuticals, Inozyme Pharma, MBX Biosciences, Mirum Pharmaceuticals, ObsEva SA, Reneo Pharmaceuticals, Rhythm Pharmaceuticals, Synlogic, (formerly known as Mirna Therapeutics) and Trevi Therapeutics.

Mr. Mathers earned his B.S. in Chemistry from North Carolina State University.

Scientific Advisory Board

James Collins, Ph.D.

Scientific Co-Founder

James Collins, Ph.D.

Scientific Co-Founder

Dr. Collins is the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science as well as Professor of Biological Engineering at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is one of the founders of the field of synthetic biology, has been elected to all three national academies—the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering and National Academy of Medicine—and has received a number of awards recognizing his work, including the Dickson Prize in Medicine and the Sanofi-Institut Pasteur Award. Dr. Collins has been a Rhodes Scholar, a MacArthur Fellow and a recipient of the NIH Pioneer Award. In addition to his role as a faculty member at MIT, Dr. Collins is a Core Faculty member of the Wyss Institute at Harvard and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Dr. Collins is a co-founder of Synlogic, Sherlock Biosciences, Cellarity and Phare Bio, and serves on the SAB of multiple companies including Danaher and Shape Therapeutics. Dr. Collins has a PhD in Medical Engineering from the University of Oxford, and an AB in Physics from the College of the Holy Cross.

Michael Andreeff, M.D., Ph. D.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Michael Andreeff, M.D., Ph. D.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Dr. Andreeff is a Professor of Medicine and holds the Paul and Mary Haas Chair in Genetics at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He has worked extensively on drug resistance in hematopoietic malignancies, such as acute myelogenous leukemia (AML), and developed or co-developed several new therapeutic agents. Dr. Andreeff has an MD and PhD from the University of Heidelberg Medical School, and additional training and faculty appointments at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) in New York in the Departments of Pathology and Leukemia.

Lawrence Fong, M.D.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Lawrence Fong, M.D.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Dr. Fong is the Efim Guzik Distinguished Professor in Cancer Biology and leads the Cancer Immunotherapy Program at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Fong is a physician-scientist in UCSF’s Department of Medicine, Division of Hematology/Oncology directing both a translational research program and an NIH funded research lab. He has been focused on cancer immunotherapy for two decades and has been involved in both preclinical and clinical studies of FDA-approved immunotherapies including sipuleucel-T and immune checkpoint inhibitors. Dr. Fong has an MD from Stanford University, and a BA from Columbia University. He completed a residency in internal medicine at the University of Washington and completed an oncology fellowship at Stanford Medicine.

Martin Fussenegger, Ph.D.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Martin Fussenegger, Ph.D.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Dr. Fussenegger is a Professor of Biotechnology and Bioengineering at ETH Zurich. He is a pioneer in therapeutic synthetic biology and a member of the National Academy of Engineering, and is the recipient of numerous honors including the AIChE Bailey Award and the Merck Cell Culture Engineering Award. Dr. Fussenegger graduated with Werner Arber at the Biocenter of the University of Basel, has a PhD in Medical Microbiology from the Max Planck Institute for Biology, and completed his postdoctoral studies at the Max Planck Institute for Infection Biology.

Michael Kalos, Ph.D.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Michael Kalos, Ph.D.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Dr. Kalos is an independent advisor and consultant as well as an internationally recognized expert in T cell therapy, oncology vaccines and immuno-oncology with over 25 years of experience in both industry and academia. He has served in leadership and executive roles at Janssen, Eli Lilly and most recently at Arsenal Bio. Prior to industry, Dr. Kalos spent 10 years in academia, including founding and directing the Translational and Correlative Studies Laboratory at the University of Pennsylvania that played a key role in the development of the CTL019 program that was licensed to Novartis and commercialized as Kymriah, the first approved CAR-T cell therapy product. Dr. Kalos has a PhD from the University of Minnesota and completed post-doctoral training in the laboratory of Phil Greenberg at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. He has over 85 peer-reviewed publications including multiple high-impact and field-defining manuscripts, and over 26 issued patents in the fields of cell therapy, immunotherapy and vaccines.

Ahmad (Mo) Khalil, Ph.D.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Ahmad (Mo) Khalil, Ph.D.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Dr. Khalil is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and the Associate Director of the Biological Design Center at Boston University, and a Visiting Scholar at the Wyss Institute at Harvard University. An expert in synthetic biology, Dr. Khalil has done pioneering work in designing transcription factors and gene regulatory systems for mammalian synthetic biology and therapeutic applications. He is a recipient of several awards including the DoD Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship, Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), NIH New Innovator Award, NSF CAREER Award, DARPA Young Faculty Award and a Hartwell Foundation Biomedical Research Award. Dr. Khalil is a co-founder of K2 Biotechnologies and Fynch Biosciences, and a SAB member of Chroma Medicine. Dr. Khalil has a MS and PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, as well as a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University.

Robin G. Taylor, M.B.A., Ph.D.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Robin G. Taylor, M.B.A., Ph.D.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Dr. Taylor is an independent consultant with two decades of biopharma experience in global development and commercialization of oncology drugs. Most recently he was the Chief Commercial Officer at Seagen, leading the organization for the launches of PADCEV (enfortumab vedotin) and Tukysa (tucatinib). He began his career at Genentech with leadership roles in Product Marketing, where he contributed to the success of several leading brands, including HERCEPTIN® (trastuzumab), AVASTIN® (bevacizumab) and ALECENSA® (alectinib). Subsequently, he was the Franchise Head for Immuno-Oncology (IO) at both Genentech/Roche and AstraZeneca, gaining significant experience in development and commercialization of IO therapies, including TECENTRIQ® (atezolizumab) and IMFINZI® (durvalumab). He earned a PhD in Molecular and Medical Genetics from the University of Toronto, an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley, and a BSc from the University of British Columbia.

Michael Varney, Ph.D.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Michael Varney, Ph.D.

Scientific Advisory Board Member

Dr. Varney is the Chairman of R&D, SAB Member and Board Director at Erasca, an early-stage biotechnology company on a mission to erase cancer by shutting down key cancer pathways. Dr. Varney is a pioneer drug discoverer and biotech leader—he has led research and early drug development efforts at Agouron, the developers of an early HIV protease inhibitor, Viracept®, as well as multiple approved anti-cancer agents, including Xalkori® (crizotinib) and Inlyta® (axitinib). Dr. Varney was instrumental in expanding Genentech’s drug discovery capabilities to include small molecules, building an organization that produced anti-cancer drugs Erivedge® (vismodegib) and Cotellic® (cobimetinib). He most recently retired from Genentech as the Head of Research and Early Development. Dr. Varney has a BS in Chemistry from the University of California, Los Angeles, and a PhD in synthetic organic chemistry from the California Institute of Technology. He was an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University.

Wilson Wong, Ph.D.

Scientific Co-Founder

Wilson Wong, Ph.D.

Scientific Co-Founder

Dr. Wong is an Associate Professor at Boston University. He is an expert in immune cell engineering and synthetic biology for therapeutic applications. Dr. Wong’s research has been published in numerous high-impact journals including Nature, Nature Biotechnology, Cell and PNAS. Dr. Wong has been recognized with multiple early academic career awards, including the NIH New Innovator Award, the ACS Synthetic Biology Young Investigator Award and the NSF CAREER Award. Dr. Wong has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley, and a PhD in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles. Dr. Wong completed his postdoctoral studies in the laboratory of Professor Wendell Lim at University of California, San Francisco.