About Us

Dr. Mandell, a scientist and entrepreneur, is a leading expert in synthetic biology, protein engineering, artificial intelligence, and biological and medical informatics. Together with Dr. George Church, he leveraged GROs to produce the first proteins with stability and function dependent on non-standard amino acids. Dr. Mandell completed his research fellowship in genetics at Harvard Medical School where he was Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation. Dr. Mandell completed his PhD at University of California, San Francisco, his MSc at University of Edinburgh, and his undergraduate degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University. Prior to his role at GRObio, Dr. Mandell served as a consultant with WarpDrive Bio.

Dr. Gregg developed technologies for multiplexed genome engineering in microbial systems under Dr. George Church and brings leading expertise in genome design, microbial fermentation, and glycobiology of the immune system. Dr. Gregg completed his research fellowship at Harvard University, his PhD in Biomedical Sciences at University of California, San Diego, and his undergraduate work in Biomedical Engineering at The Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Gregg also led the strain engineering and synthetic biology efforts at GreenLight Biosciences prior to joining GRObio as Chief Science Officer.

Dror Berman, is a Founding Partner at Innovation Endeavors. Mr. Berman invests in early-stage startups that are driving exponential rates of change in their industries. Mr. Berman has invested in over 100 different companies from Seed through Series B. Mr. Berman earned an MBA from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a BS in Computer Science from Ben-Gurion University.

Dr. Beutel is an expert in novel therapeutics and platform research, business development, and company creation. He is focused on strategy, vision, team building and value creation at the interface of science and business, particularly for seed through Series A stage biotech. Dr. Beutel received his PhD in Molecular Biology from University of Wisconsin- Madison. In addition to leadership roles at Abbott and Merck, he has had several different C-level roles in multiple biotech companies including founding COO and Chief Business & Strategy Officer at Dewpoint Therapeutics. Dr. Beutel now serves as Venture Partner with Qiming Venture Partners USA.

Dr. Gregg developed technologies for multiplexed genome engineering in microbial systems under Dr. George Church and brings leading expertise in genome design, microbial fermentation, and glycobiology of the immune system. Dr. Gregg completed his research fellowship at Harvard University, his PhD in Biomedical Sciences at University of California, San Diego, and his undergraduate work in Biomedical Engineering at The Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Gregg also led the strain engineering and synthetic biology efforts at GreenLight Biosciences prior to joining GRObio as Chief Science Officer.

Dr. Mandell, a scientist and entrepreneur, is a leading expert in synthetic biology, protein engineering, artificial intelligence, and biological and medical informatics. Together with Dr. George Church, he leveraged GROs to produce the first proteins with stability and function dependent on non-standard amino acids. Dr. Mandell completed his research fellowship in genetics at Harvard Medical School where he was Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellow of the Life Sciences Research Foundation. Dr. Mandell completed his PhD at University of California, San Francisco, his MSc at University of Edinburgh, and his undergraduate degree in Symbolic Systems from Stanford University. Prior to his role at GRObio, Dr. Mandell served as a consultant with WarpDrive Bio.

Geoffrey W. Smith is the Founder and Managing Partner of Digitalis Ventures, a venture capital firm that partners with entrepreneurs, inventors, and scientists across all stages of venture investing to develop technology-driven solutions to complex problems in health. Geoff serves as a Trustee of The Jackson Laboratory where he is a member of the Executive Committee and Chair of the Finance Committee. He is also a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Brigham & Women’s Hospital in Boston. Geoff also serves as the Chair of the Bard Early College Board of Governors. Previously, Geoff was the founding Director of the Mount Sinai Institute of Technology and a Professor in the Department of Population Health Science and Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Geoff received a B.A. (with honors) from Williams College and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School.

Dr. Church is a synthetic biologist with foundational contributions to genome sequencing, DNA synthesis, multiplex accurate genome editing (MAGE) and protein engineering. Dr. Church is Professor of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, Director of Wyss Inst. SynBio platform, and recipient of awards like Bower, Time100, NAS, NAE. Dr. Church led the development of genomically recoded organisms (GROs) at the core of the GRO Biosciences platform, and leads the company’s Scientific Advisory Board.

Dr. Ellington is the Fraser Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Texas at Austin and is a respected expert in using evolutionary techniques to engineer biopolymers and cells. Dr. Ellington led the development of key protein translational machinery to incorporate non-standard amino acids into proteins using GROs. Dr. Ellington is a GRObio co-founder and serves on the company’s Scientific Advisory Board.

Ms. Howson is a highly experienced business development executive and consultant with more than 30 years of service in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Ms. Howson currently serves on the board of directors of MEI Pharma, Inc. and Immunic, Inc. Between 2009 and 2019 she has also served on the boards of various life sciences companies. Ms. Howson also served as executive vice president, corporate business development at Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a public biotech company. Prior to joining Lexicon, Ms. Howson served as senior vice president, corporate and business development at Bristol-Myers Squibb and SmithKline Beecham PLC. Ms. Howson holds an MBA from Columbia University, an M.S. from City University of New York and a B.S. in chemical engineering from the Technion, Israel.

Arthur Hiller is a Boston-based biopharma executive. Over the last decade, he has been CEO of two early stage companies in the areas of drug discovery and cardiovascular medical devices. He currently provides consulting and business advisory support, and serves in part-time senior executive operating and mentoring roles for a wide range of start-up and early stage companies in the Boston area. His career spans more than 35 years of experience across a wide range of functional areas and sectors of the life sciences and healthcare technology industry, where he has held executive positions in general management, marketing, sales, sales management, and business development at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Merck and Co, and two other large, multinational pharmaceutical companies.

Dr. Peattie is a veteran life science executive and entrepreneur who currently serves as Executive Director of Business Development at Valo Health. She has served in senior leadership roles at GlaxoSmithKline and as Director of Business Development in the Office of Technology Development at Harvard University. Previously, Dr. Peattie maintained her own biotechnology consulting firm and held executive scientific, strategy and planning positions at Cubist Pharmaceuticals and Valeo Medical, of which she was a co-founder. Prior to that, Dr. Peattie was a founding member of MPM Capital and a founding scientist at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. She holds an MBA from Harvard Business School, a PhD in Biochemistry & Molecular Biology from Harvard University and a BA in Chemistry from Hollins University. Dr. Peattie conducted post-doctoral research at Stanford University as a Helen Hay Whitney fellow before entering the life sciences business sector.

Dr. Roberts currently serves as CEO of Civetta Therapeutics. He is an accomplished R&D executive with expertise in building companies focused on the discovery and clinical development of innovative new therapeutics. Dr. Roberts has a track record of advancing highly novel targets, biology and pharmacological approaches through to development candidates, into first in human clinical studies and successful clinical proof of concept. Dr. Roberts has experience in startups, small biotech and Big Pharma and he has a proven track record in corporate and business development in/out licensing, mergers and acquisitions, and public financings. Dr. Roberts holds a PhD in Organic Chemistry from University of California, Riverside, and completed his post-doctoral work at University of Bern in Organic Chemistry and Chemical Biology.

Dr. Kaarsholm has 21 years of experience at Novo Nordisk leading development and commercialization of metabolic therapeutics. He has delivered several key metabolic disease therapeutics serving in senior leadership roles in protein engineering. Dr. Kaarsholm provides scientific and commercialization expertise for GRObio’s DuraLogic technology.

Dr. Lodie now serves as Chief Scientific Officer at Quell Therapeutics, and was previously Chief Scientific Officer at Gamida Cell, Ltd. Prior she held senior leadership roles at Blue Rock Therapeutics, Syros Pharma, and Sanofi/Genzyme where she led immunology efforts from discovery through early clinical development. Dr. Lodie provides scientific, early clinical translation, and commercialization expertise for GRObio’s ProGly technology.