Dr. Kosaraju has spent her career building companies and driving innovation in infectious disease and computational biology. She was most recently Co-Founder & CEO of Variant Bio, a venture-backed company specializing in genomics and therapeutic development, and an executive with SIGA Technologies, an antiviral drug developer that successfully advanced antiviral drug candidates to market.

During her tenure, SIGA achieved FDA approval for a novel smallpox antiviral and worked in partnership with the CDC, BARDA and DoD to deliver 2 million courses to the US Strategic National Stockpile. Dr. Kosaraju was a White House appointee in the Pentagon, serving as the Special Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs. In this capacity, she provided executive leadership in the management of a $50 billion Military Health System that included healthcare for military service members, biodefense, and international humanitarian assistance.

She received the Office of the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Public Service, the highest non-career civilian honor given within the Department of Defense. She has been a Term Member of the Council on Foreign Relations, the Materials Technical Advisory Committee for the Department of Commerce, co-founded the Alliance to End Biological Threats, and is a Lecturer at Stanford's Center for Biosecurity and Pandemic Resilience. She received her M.D. from Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and her B.A. in Human Biology from Stanford University.

Dr. Collins is the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science, a Professor of Biological Engineering at MIT, and a member of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology faculty. He is also a core founding faculty member of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University and an Institute Member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. Between his three laboratories at MIT, the Wyss Institute, and the Broad Institute, he oversees the research of more than 30 postdoctoral researchers and graduate students. Collins’ numerous honors include a Rhodes Scholarship, a MacArthur Fellowship, and an NIH Director's Pioneer Award.

He is an elected member of all three national academies: the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Academy of Medicine. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the National Academy of Inventors, and the World Academy of Sciences. Dr. Collins earned an AB in Physics from the College of the Holy Cross and a PhD in Medical Engineering from the University of Oxford. He has decades of experience in antibiotic discovery and the application of machine learning techniques in biotechnology.

His work has led to important discoveries related to how antibiotics kill bacteria, including research showing that many common classes of antibiotics induce bacterial cell death via a common “oxidative damage” pathway; the paper describing this is the most highly-cited antibiotics study of the last decade.

Dr. Stokes is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences at McMaster University, and directs Phare’s computational and experimental work. He was previously a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow in the Collins Lab at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He received his BHSc in 2011, graduating summa cum laude, and his PhD in Antimicrobial Chemical Biology in 2016, both from McMaster University.

His research applies a combination of chemical biology and machine learning to develop novel antibacterial therapies with expanded capabilities over conventional antibiotics. Amongst his numerous antibiotic projects, he recently led the study published in Cell that resulted in the identification of antibiotic Halicin, a first new antibiotic scaffold discovery in 20+ years. This study shows how a trained deep neural network can predict antibiotic activity in molecules that are structurally different from known antibiotics, among which Halicin exhibits efficacy against broad-spectrum bacterial infections in mice.

Stokes is the recipient of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research Master’s Award, the Colin James Lyne Lock Doctoral Award, and was ranked first of just 23 elite postdoctoral scholars to be awarded the prestigious Banting Fellowship.

Leanne Minall has spent her career conducting research at the interface of chemistry and biology in both academic and industrial settings. She holds a PhD in Chemical Biology from Oxford University, where she researched the chemical modification of viral DNA vaccine vectors. Leanne spent 3 years as a Senior Scientist in Pfizer’s Novel Delivery Technologies Group housed within the Pharmaceutical Research & Development Division. In this role, Leanne served as the lab lead for several projects—both late and early stage—including vaccines (such as COVID-19), oligonucleotide drug products, and nanoparticle-protein conjugates. Leanne oversees Phare’s preclinical development program, compound design, and pipeline strategy. 

Joe Vacca has decades of experience in medicinal chemistry and antibiotic compound design. After receiving his PhD from the University at Buffalo, Joe spent 30 years as Medicinal Chemistry Lead at Merck Research Labs. He then spent 4 years at WuXi AppTec as Senior Vice President of Early Success Sharing Partnerships. In 2011, Joe started his own consulting group, J. Vacca Consulting LLC, and has since helped many pharmaceutical clients with their compound development, design, and strategy. Joe has over 100 publications and patents and is the holder of many awards, including a Merck Directors Award, PhRMA Discoverers Award, and Intellectual Property Owners "National Inventor of the year Award." Joe leads Phare’s analog compound design and helps manage Phare’s CRO relationships and data exchanges.

David Pompliano is a drug discovery scientist, entrepreneur, and executive focused on creating and building transformative life science enterprises. Earlier in his career, as Vice President at GlaxoSmithKline and as Worldwide Basic Head of Infectious Diseases at Merck, he led drug discovery teams that produced preclinical credentials for >30 development candidates and five registered oncology (Tykerb, Votrient, Promacta) and anti-infective (Recarbrio, Altabax) drugs. He has also founded and led biotech companies, including BioLeap, Revolution Medicines (a Third Rock company), Lodo Therapeutics (an Accelerator company acquired by Zymergen), and most recently, Odyssey Therapeutics. He has helped to raise over $400mm in Series A and B financing. He earned the BS and PhD degrees in Chemistry from the University of Virginia and from Stanford University, respectively, and conducted research in enzymology and molecular biology as a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow in Jeremy Knowles’ laboratory at Harvard University. David advises on Phare’s preclinical development and pharma partnership strategy.

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Magdalena Zalacain has 20 years of experience in antibacterial drug discovery and development in the pharmaceutical industry. Magda spent 9 years as an Investigator then Senior Investigator with SmithKline Beecham/GlaxoSmithKline, followed by 10 years as GSK’s Microbiology Manager of Antibacterial Research. In this role, Magda led the in vitro Microbiology group, specifically conducting antibacterial profiling, mode of antibacterial action research, cell-killing and spontaneous resistance studies, and development of enzymatic assays to support all of GSK’s antibacterial programs. Currently, Magda runs her own consulting company, ZALA Drug Discovery Consulting LLC, where she advises pharmaceutical and biotech companies, academia, and venture capital groups on antibacterial research. Magda holds a PhD in molecular biology from the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. At Phare, Magda advises on preclinical development, particularly regarding biological assay work, animal models, and target product profiles.

David Holmes spent over 25 years in the pharmaceutical industry, working in a variety of leadership roles in antibacterial research. David headed the Bacterial Genetics group at GSK and was responsible for the early-stage portfolio, including target validation, high throughput, encoded library, and fragment-based screening. He led various small molecule lead optimization programs and the antibacterial monoclonal antibody program, and initiated efforts to investigate the role of the human microbiome in disease states. Since retiring from GSK in 2019, he has been consulting for pharmaceutical and biotech companies. At Phare, David advises on preclinical development, particularly on microbiology, animal models, and target product profiles.

Retired Army Colonel (Dr.) Kevin Chung is the past professor and Chair of the Department of Medicine at the F. Edward Hebert School of Medicine at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, Bethesda, Maryland. Dr. Chung is a 1995 graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point and a 1999 graduate of Georgetown University School of Medicine. After finishing residency in internal medicine at Dwight D. Eisenhower Army Medical Center in Fort Gordon, Georgia and fellowship in Critical Care Medicine at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, Dr. Chung was assigned to the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research (USAISR) in San Antonio, Texas, where he served in the capacity of Medical Director of the Burn Intensive Care Unit, Task Area Manager of Clinical Trials, and the Director of Research for 12 years. He also previously served as Chief of the Department of Medicine at Brooke Army Medical Center in San Antonio. Dr. Chung deployed as the Chief, Intensive Care Unit, for the 86th Combat Support Hospital in Baghdad, Iraq 2008, and as Director, Joint Combat Casualty Research Team in Bagram, Afghanistan 2012. Dr. Chung has authored over 300 peer reviewed manuscripts, reviews, editorials, and book chapters, and has been an invited speaker for over 150 lectures internationally on a variety of topics of to include burns, combat casualty care, critical care, organ failure, and organ support. Chung advises on Phare’s target product profiles and clinical development strategy.

Claire Nishioka has spent her career in the pharmaceutical industry as both a strategist and marketer. In her previous role as Content Strategist at Syneos Health, Claire worked in the Managed Markets division, where she helped pharmaceutical clients develop their market access strategies and execute payer marketing initiatives upon FDA approval/product launch. Her experience spans a variety of therapeutic areas, including oncology, rare disease, and biosimilars. Claire holds an MBA from Columbia Business School. She leads Phare's business strategy, operations, and communications efforts.

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