Leadership

Stephen Ekker, PhD - CEO and Managing Partner
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CEO and co-founder Stephen C Ekker PhD (stephen.ekker (at) gmail.com) has been gene editing for three decades at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Johns Hopkins University, University of Minnesota and Mayo Clinic. He has co-authored over 170 scientific publications and is the founding President of the Genome Writers Guild non-profit international genome engineering society. His first company, Discovery Genomics Inc, was acquired by Immusoft in 2016 for key technology that now has IND approval for first-in-class human gene therapy based on programmed B cells. Dr Ekker was the science advisory board for Opentrons Labworks as that startup went from accelerator to unicorn. Dr Ekker is the scientific founder of Primera Therapeutics to develop the first therapies for patients with mitochondrial disease. As CEO of LifEngine Technologies, Dr Ekker is a scientific co-founder, investor and Director of LifEngine Animal Health (LEAH) Laboratories as it focuses on making new therapies for companion animals and their humans, the first gene editing company out of Y Combinator. LEAH Labs just launched its second clinical trial. LifEngine has ongoing work building startup companies to accelerate solutions for the health of people, and the planet, we all live on.

Wesley A. Wierson, PhD - director and Venture Engineer
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Wesley A. Wierson, PhD, is a biotech entrepreneur and has been a gene editor for over a decade, training at Iowa State University first using TALENs and next with CRISPR technologies. After inventing what is now core LifEngine technology, GeneWeld, and working with LifEngine to develop the business thesis, Dr. Wierson is CEO and founder of the first gene editing company to be accepted into Y Combinator, LifEngine Animal Health Laboratories Incorporated (LEAH Labs). LEAH Labs’ mission is to develop novel living therapies, like CAR-T cell therapy, and bring them to pets first, and their people next. Dr. Wierson brings expertise to LifEngine relating to the development of novel strategies for control over the genome, translational medicine, and all things early-stage biotech startup; incorporation, technology licensing, angel and seed fundraising, acquisition of non-dilutive capital, navigating government regulatory pathways, clinical trial design and management, and business management. Dr. Wierson believes that gene editing technology has the power to alter the future for Spaceship Earth, and it is paramount that scientists apply these technologies with precise control over the outcomes, both at the molecular and the societal impact levels.

Zachary WareJoncas - Director and Growth engineer

Zach earned is BA in Biology from St. Olaf College in Northfield Minnesota, and has trained in the Ekker lab on genome engineering at the Mayo Clinic. Zach brings expertise in supporting startup company growth.

Karl Clark, PhD - Partner

Dr. Karl Clark has been conducting molecular biology research for over 20 years. Karl received his BS in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire, his PhD in Molecular, Cellular Developmental Biology and Genetics from the University of Minnesota, and he is an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Mayo Clinic. As a graduate student at the University of Minnesota, Dr. Clark co-invented improvements to the Sleeping Beauty transposon system, the premier non-viral gene therapy vector. After receiving his Ph.D., Dr. Clark joined the gene therapy startup DGI (acquired by Immusoft) and later became a co-founder of Recombinetics. Dr. Clark’s extensive experience in genome engineering includes developing gene delivery platforms and genome modifications like biosensor transgenic zebrafish for real-time detection of hormonal signaling in vivo and gene-break transposons for revertible analysis of gene function.

Jarryd Campbell, PhD - Partner

Jarryd graduated with his PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the Mayo Clinic in 2016. His graduate school career was dedicated to developing new genome engineering tools including targeted genome editing for nuclear and mitochondrial DNA. Jarryd is also an early key contributor and former president of Byolincs, an entrepreneurial club dedicated to building a startup community at Mayo Clinic. Dr Campbell has trained as a post-doc in Dr Dan Voytas’ lab at the U MN and works full-time on engineering pig and bovine genomes.

Team members abroad

Gabriel Martínez-Gálvez, PHD

Gabriel has a double degree in Biomedical Engineering and Microbiology from Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia. He became interested in genome engineering from his desire to predictably program genetic devices into organisms using principles from synthetic biology. He completed his PhD at the Biomedical Engineering and Physiology program at the Mayo Clinic focusing on using AI tools for predicting new gene editing outcomes. Dr Martínez-Gálvez is pursuing post doctoral training in genome engineering of iPSCs in Japan.

EARLY CONTRIBUTORS

Cassie Bullard- Postbac Student