Jake Becraft is a synthetic biologist and entrepreneur. He is the co-founder and CEO of Strand Therapeutics, and serves on its Board of Directors. Together with colleagues at MIT’s renowned Synthetic Biology Center, he led the development of the world’s first synthetic biology programming language for mRNA. Jake has been featured in Fierce Biotech, Bloomberg, the Boston Business Journal, and BioCentury, among others, for his vision and mission at Strand of applying this unique platform for real world disease applications. He has also been the recipient of prestigious national and international awards for his scientific and entrepreneurial achievements, including the Barry Goldwater Scholarship and Excellence in Education Award, the Andrew Viterbi Fellowship of MIT, Amgen Fellowship, and the Bristol-Myers Squibb 2018 Golden Ticket for recognition of Strand as an innovative startup. Beyond his work at Strand, Jake’s broader interests span synthetic biology, biologically engineered organism-machine interfaces, and the intersection of tech and biotech methodologies. He is an advocate among the life science entrepreneurial ecosystem for supporting young founders in biotech entrepreneurship. Currently, he serves on the advisory board of Starlight Ventures, an early stage venture firm, and also serves on the Executive Board of Public Health United, a non-profit focused on helping scientists better communicate their research for maximum impact. Previously, he served as a Science and Technology advisor to legislators in the Massachusetts State Legislature. Jake received his Ph.D. in Biological Engineering and Synthetic Biology from MIT and his B.S. in Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, graduating Magna cum Laude with distinction. He is an author or inventor on numerous high profile publications, patents and white papers, including in top tier journals such as Nature Chemical Biology and PNAS.
Tasuku Kitada is President and Head of R&D of Strand Therapeutics. He co-founded Strand and serves on its Board of Directors. Prior to Strand, Tasuku was Senior Biotechnology Analyst at Candriam Investors Group, where he conducted due diligence for the company’s multi-billion-dollar biopharma public equity investment strategy. At Candriam, he focused on cell and gene therapy companies, and also covered numerous oncology companies. Currently, Tasuku continues to serve Candriam Investors Group as an advisor. Prior to Candriam, Tasuku was a researcher at the Synthetic Biology Center at Massachusetts Institute of Technology where he became the first scientist to create synthetic gene circuits using synthetic mRNA. This was the first demonstration of post-transcriptional circuits that can be “wired” to create a variety of networks of increasing complexity, which enabled cell type specific expression as well as small-molecule based control of gene expression from synthetic mRNA. This important research led to publications in Science, Nature Biotechnology, and Nature Chemical Biology. The mRNA synthetic biology platform developed from this research has been exclusively licensed to Strand. Tasuku holds a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from University of California, Los Angeles and a B.S. in Biophysics and Biochemistry from University of Tokyo.
Samta Kundu is the Chief Operating Officer of Strand Therapeutics. She has nearly three decades of business strategy and operations experience spanning pharma and biotech. She spent over a decade at Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), and was a member of the leadership team of Molecular Discovery Technologies, a department within BMS’ Discovery organization. During her tenure at BMS, she also led initiatives to increase the company’s visibility in the Cambridge/Boston life science community to support the opening of BMS’ Cambridge R&D site. A key initiative she launched and executed was the company’s “Golden Ticket” contest to award lab space to innovative local startups, of which Strand was a 2018 winner. Previously, Samta was in business development at Adnexus Therapeutics, acquired by BMS in 2007, where she supported deal execution, management of the IP portfolio, and diligence operations. Post BMS acquisition, Samta led business operations for the newly acquired Adnexus-BMS site and executed a number of research transactions on behalf of the site. Earlier in her career, Samta held business development roles at Dyax and Consensus Pharmaceuticals, and was a project manager at Genzyme Tissue Repair. Samta began her career at LEK Consulting, providing strategic analysis to a number of healthcare and biotech clients. She received her MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Business and a B.A. from Princeton University.
Jay Stella is the Chief Business Officer of Strand Therapeutics. He has almost three decades of experience across various disciplines, often at the intersection of strategy, finance, and operations. Prior to joining Strand, Jay was responsible for Corporate Strategy and Business Development at Akouos, Inc., a Boston-based precision genetic medicines company and played an instrumental role in the sale of the company to Eli Lilly for about $500M. Jay spent 15 years at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, including time at Millennium prior to the acquisition by Takeda. At both Millennium and Takeda, Jay held positions of increasing responsibility in the areas of Strategy & Operations for Preclinical Development and CMC, leading strategic initiatives for scalability and sustainability, global cross-functional operating models, and modality diversification. As Chief of Staff for Takeda’s Center for External Innovation, Jay worked alongside industry leaders in R&D Business Development, Corporate Venture, Strategic Academic Alliances, and a Rare Disease Incubator, while overseeing External Outreach and Due Diligence. Jay also led divestitures of certain assets and operations in Japan to support Takeda’s R&D Transformation. In addition to his time at Millennium and Takeda, Jay worked at Sai Life Sciences, Biogen, Genetics Institute, and as an independent consultant. He currently serves as a Trustee of Tower School of Marblehead and on the Board of Directors of Reforest the Tropics. Jay received a Baccalaureate degree from the University of Vermont and an MBA from Boston University.
Colleen Wilson is Chief People Officer for Strand Therapeutics. Colleen Wilson was most recently SVP, Human Resources at Rheos Medicines and has also consulted for multiple public and private biotechnology companies at various stages of development. Prior to founding her own consulting firm, she was VP and Head of Human Resources at Chiasma, Inc. and also led the Human Resources function at Omni-Guide Surgical and Rib-X Pharmaceuticals (now Melinta Therapeutics). She has also held HR roles at Infinity Pharmaceuticals, Genzyme Corporation, Targanta Therapeutics (acquired by Medicines Company) and Therion Biologics. She has an MBA from Babson College and a bachelor’s degree from the University of New Hampshire.
Robert Sikorski, M.D., Ph.D., is an experienced drug developer who currently serves as the Managing Director of Woodside Way Ventures, a firm that advances the clinical development of novel, lifesaving technologies.
Prior to his current role, Dr. Sikorski served as the Chief Medical Officer of FivePrime Therapeutics, a public biotechnology company that was acquired by Amgen. He led the development of FivePrime’s biologics pipeline that spanned preclinical discovery through proof of concept to pivotal registration trials. During his tenure at the company, FivePrime grew from a market cap of $150 MM to $1.5 B.
Previously, Dr. Sikorski led an early-stage clinical development group at Medimmune and then AstraZeneca that advanced six novel molecules into clinical trials. He played a leading role in building Medimmune’s oncology portfolio through partnering and acquisition efforts. Before joining Medimmune, he led late-stage clinical development and post-marketing efforts for several commercial drugs and drug candidates at Amgen. His leadership in the development of Vectibix resulted in the drug’s global approval with a first-in-class companion diagnostic based on tumor genotype.
Dr. Sikorski began his career as a Howard Hughes Research Fellow and Visiting Scientist at the National Cancer Institute and the National Human Genome Research Institute in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Harold Varmus. Dr. Sikorski received a combined M.D. and Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine through a Medical Scientist Training Program scholarship. He completed his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and an Oncology fellowship at The Johns Hopkins Oncology Center and has been board certified in both Medical Oncology and Internal Medicine. He is a former editor of the journal Science and the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dr. Sikorski resides with his wife and four children in Woodside, California.
Prashant Nambiar is Senior Vice President of R&D at Strand Therapeutics where he is leading Discovery, Nonclinical, Translational, and Data Science. Prior to Strand, Prashant was Vice President at 2seventybio and bluebird bio leading the preclinical and translational group developing cell and gene therapies for oncology and rare disease indications. Prashant started his career in academia at MIT followed by 18+ years in biotech and pharma including Genzyme, Pfizer, bluebird bio and 2seventybio. He has worked on various modalities such as small molecules, biologics, AAV, cell and gene editing therapies at various stages of development including discovery, target selection, preclinical development, and beyond. His expertise is in Translational Biology, Pathology, and Toxicology with a focus on bringing transformative therapies from bench to the clinic and beyond. He is passionate about leveraging data in drug R&D and had built a data operations team at Pfizer to execute on that strategy. Prashant’s PhD is in cancer biology, specifically understanding the molecular pathogenesis of precancerous lesions in the colon. He has board certifications in Toxicology and Veterinary Pathology. He also has an MBA from Sloan School of Business, MIT.
Joseph Barberio is a biochemist and molecular biologist with a proven track record of solving complex problems with innovative solutions. He is the Vice President of Technical Operations at Strand Therapeutics and oversees Strand’s manufacturing strategy to support clinical development. With over fifteen years of industry experience, Joe specializes in process and analytical development and has extensive expertise in manufacturing of both viral and RNA based gene therapy medicinal products. The majority of Joseph’s career has been focused on building platforms for small biotech organizations. Most recently at bluebird bio, he constructed and led the mRNA process development team, a group designed to enable gene editing programs. Earlier in his career, Joe held process development roles at Moderna, Percivia, and Acceleron Pharma. In addition to his work at Strand, Joseph also serves on the Board of Directors of Sophie’s Hope Foundation, a non-profit charity supporting research for Glycogen Storage Disease (GSD). He received his B.A. in Biochemistry, Cellular and Molecular Biology at Connecticut College, graduating Cum Laude with distinction.
