Alexandre Zanghellini,
PhD - Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer and VP Research
Alexandre Zanghellini co-founded Arzeda and leads the team as CEO and Vice President, Research. His responsibilities include overseeing scientific and technology development, defining Arzeda’s business strategy and securing financial and human resource necessary for its execution. Alexandre is an internationally recognized protein design expert. He was the early developer of Arzeda’s protein design software Archytas™ for enzyme design, and is leading the development of Arzeda’s metabolic pathway design software Scylax™. He is deeply involved both with Arzeda’s technology platform development and its applications to the commercial world. Before Arzeda, Alexandre led bioinformatics at Cellectis (NASDAQ: CLLS) a publicly traded protein engineering and gene editing company.
Alexandre strongly believes the convergence of big compute, machine learning, DNA synthesis and high throughput screening represent an inflexion point in human history, and that the rationale design of new proteins will play a key role in solving some of humanity’s biggest societal challenges from improving human health to combating global warming. Alexandre holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from University of Washington, a M.S in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) and BS in Applied Mathematics, both from University of Paris, and a M.Eng. from ENSTA/ParisTech.
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PhD - Co-founder, Chief Executive Officer and VP Research
Alexandre Zanghellini co-founded Arzeda and leads the team as CEO and Vice President, Research. His responsibilities include overseeing scientific and technology development, defining Arzeda’s business strategy and securing financial and human resource necessary for its execution. Alexandre is an internationally recognized protein design expert. He was the early developer of Arzeda’s protein design software Archytas™ for enzyme design, and is leading the development of Arzeda’s metabolic pathway design software Scylax™. He is deeply involved both with Arzeda’s technology platform development and its applications to the commercial world. Before Arzeda, Alexandre led bioinformatics at Cellectis (NASDAQ: CLLS) a publicly traded protein engineering and gene editing company.
Alexandre strongly believes the convergence of big compute, machine learning, DNA synthesis and high throughput screening represent an inflexion point in human history, and that the rationale design of new proteins will play a key role in solving some of humanity’s biggest societal challenges from improving human health to combating global warming. Alexandre holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from University of Washington, a M.S in Computer Science (Artificial Intelligence) and BS in Applied Mathematics, both from University of Paris, and a M.Eng. from ENSTA/ParisTech.
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Daniela Grabs,
PhD – Co-founder, VP Operations
Daniela Grabs co-founded Arzeda and currently serves as its Vice President, Operations. Her responsibilities include managing resources and people across the laboratory and overseeing the development of Arzeda’s high-throughput protein analytics platform, including laboratory automation and workflow development. Her pioneering work in this area has enabled Arzeda to build the most efficient protein design screening capability to date, with the ability to routinely screen 10,000s computationally designed proteins every month.
Daniela believes that the combination of advanced software with highly automated high-throughput experimentation is poised to change the way we do biotechnology and create tremendous value for Arzeda and its partners. Daniela was a Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Washington. She holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Zürich and a Diploma from ETH Zürich.
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PhD – Co-founder, VP Operations
Daniela Grabs co-founded Arzeda and currently serves as its Vice President, Operations. Her responsibilities include managing resources and people across the laboratory and overseeing the development of Arzeda’s high-throughput protein analytics platform, including laboratory automation and workflow development. Her pioneering work in this area has enabled Arzeda to build the most efficient protein design screening capability to date, with the ability to routinely screen 10,000s computationally designed proteins every month.
Daniela believes that the combination of advanced software with highly automated high-throughput experimentation is poised to change the way we do biotechnology and create tremendous value for Arzeda and its partners. Daniela was a Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Washington. She holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Zürich and a Diploma from ETH Zürich.
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Walter Rakitsky,
PhD, MBA – Chief Business Officer
Walter Rakitsky joined Arzeda to lead the business and commercial teams. His responsibilities include crafting Arzeda’s commercial strategy and working with the business team and technical team to source and execute partnerships that leverage Arzeda’s protein design platform and create long-term value for both Arzeda and our partners.
Walt brings over 30 years of world-class technology and business development experience and a vast network in the food & feed ingredients, specialty chemicals and nutritional ingredients markets. Prior to Arzeda, Walt was Vice President, Emerging Business at Corbion (CSNVF), a Dutch bio-based chemicals and ingredients company, Senior Vice President Emerging Business at Terravia, Vice President Strategy & Chemicals at Solazyme (a bay area based biotechnology company), and VP Commercial at Advanced Bio-Nutrition (an omega 3 based animal nutrition and health company).
Walt is committed to building a high-performing company that creates superior value for all stakeholders – Arzeda, its industrial partners and customers, and its investors and employees -, while having a key role in making the world a better place with sustainable and health-improving products. Walt holds an MBA from the Wharton School and a PhD in organic chemistry from Penn State.
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PhD, MBA – Chief Business Officer
Walter Rakitsky joined Arzeda to lead the business and commercial teams. His responsibilities include crafting Arzeda’s commercial strategy and working with the business team and technical team to source and execute partnerships that leverage Arzeda’s protein design platform and create long-term value for both Arzeda and our partners.
Walt brings over 30 years of world-class technology and business development experience and a vast network in the food & feed ingredients, specialty chemicals and nutritional ingredients markets. Prior to Arzeda, Walt was Vice President, Emerging Business at Corbion (CSNVF), a Dutch bio-based chemicals and ingredients company, Senior Vice President Emerging Business at Terravia, Vice President Strategy & Chemicals at Solazyme (a bay area based biotechnology company), and VP Commercial at Advanced Bio-Nutrition (an omega 3 based animal nutrition and health company).
Walt is committed to building a high-performing company that creates superior value for all stakeholders – Arzeda, its industrial partners and customers, and its investors and employees -, while having a key role in making the world a better place with sustainable and health-improving products. Walt holds an MBA from the Wharton School and a PhD in organic chemistry from Penn State.
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Yih-En Andrew Ban,
PhD – VP Computing
Yih-En Andrew Ban joined Arzeda at inception and leads the computational design and software development teams as Vice President, Computing. In particular, he oversees computational infrastructure and algorithms development to improve the accuracy and throughput of Arzeda’s computational protein design platform. Since his tenure as VP Computing at Arzeda, Andrew and his team have pioneered new methodologies with the objective of building a scalable and automated protein design infrastructure applicable to any industrial protein engineering application.
Andrew has been the lead developer of Arzeda’s Archytas™ protein design software, Burst™ high-throughput cloud computing infrastructure and Scribe™, Arzeda’s automated DNA writing software, and remains involved in the development of these critical tools. Before joining Arzeda, Andrew developed methods for vaccine design using computational protein design and studied structural biology using the tools of computational topology & geometry. Andrew holds a PhD in Biochemistry from Duke University, and a BS in Mathematics and BS in Biology, both from the University of Texas at Austin.
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PhD – VP Computing
Yih-En Andrew Ban joined Arzeda at inception and leads the computational design and software development teams as Vice President, Computing. In particular, he oversees computational infrastructure and algorithms development to improve the accuracy and throughput of Arzeda’s computational protein design platform. Since his tenure as VP Computing at Arzeda, Andrew and his team have pioneered new methodologies with the objective of building a scalable and automated protein design infrastructure applicable to any industrial protein engineering application.
Andrew has been the lead developer of Arzeda’s Archytas™ protein design software, Burst™ high-throughput cloud computing infrastructure and Scribe™, Arzeda’s automated DNA writing software, and remains involved in the development of these critical tools. Before joining Arzeda, Andrew developed methods for vaccine design using computational protein design and studied structural biology using the tools of computational topology & geometry. Andrew holds a PhD in Biochemistry from Duke University, and a BS in Mathematics and BS in Biology, both from the University of Texas at Austin.
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Sanjay Pal,
MBA – Chief Financial Officer
Sanjay Pal leads Finance & Administration at Arzeda, with a focus on developing the company's financial planning & analysis capabilities, supporting the business development teams, and overseeing the accounting & administrative functions.
Sanjay's background includes a diverse, yet complimentary set of experiences over 20 years with venture-backed companies commercializing new technologies in wireless, and more recently new process technologies that address the environmental sustainability of commodity markets such as biofuels, hydraulic fracturing, wastewater treatment, and phosphoric acid production. Sanjay holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS in Industrial Engineering & Operations Research from UC Berkeley.
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MBA – Chief Financial Officer
Sanjay Pal leads Finance & Administration at Arzeda, with a focus on developing the company's financial planning & analysis capabilities, supporting the business development teams, and overseeing the accounting & administrative functions.
Sanjay's background includes a diverse, yet complimentary set of experiences over 20 years with venture-backed companies commercializing new technologies in wireless, and more recently new process technologies that address the environmental sustainability of commodity markets such as biofuels, hydraulic fracturing, wastewater treatment, and phosphoric acid production. Sanjay holds an MBA from Columbia Business School and a BS in Industrial Engineering & Operations Research from UC Berkeley.
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Eric Althoff,
PhD – Co-founder, VP Business Development
Eric Althoff co-founded Arzeda and serves as Vice President of Business Development. Passionate about the potential of protein and pathway design to solve difficult problems in the chemical, agriculture and healthcare industries, he is one of Arzeda’s technology evangelists. He has sourced and negotiated several high value partnerships in ag-biotech, the chemical industry and diagnostics, and participated in ensuring Arzeda’s exceptional execution. In concert with the business development team, he leverages his deep understanding of synthetic chemistry and biology to “connect the dots” between Arzeda’s technology and industrial partners’ most pressing needs.
Eric, who was initially trained as an organic chemist, believes that proteins and biological catalysts can fundamentally change the way we make molecules, and open entire new avenues compared to industrial synthetic chemistry. Eric holds a PhD in chemistry from Columbia University and a SB and SM in organic chemistry from the University of Chicago.
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PhD – Co-founder, VP Business Development
Eric Althoff co-founded Arzeda and serves as Vice President of Business Development. Passionate about the potential of protein and pathway design to solve difficult problems in the chemical, agriculture and healthcare industries, he is one of Arzeda’s technology evangelists. He has sourced and negotiated several high value partnerships in ag-biotech, the chemical industry and diagnostics, and participated in ensuring Arzeda’s exceptional execution. In concert with the business development team, he leverages his deep understanding of synthetic chemistry and biology to “connect the dots” between Arzeda’s technology and industrial partners’ most pressing needs.
Eric, who was initially trained as an organic chemist, believes that proteins and biological catalysts can fundamentally change the way we make molecules, and open entire new avenues compared to industrial synthetic chemistry. Eric holds a PhD in chemistry from Columbia University and a SB and SM in organic chemistry from the University of Chicago.
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Michael Cockrem,
PhD – Head of Engineering
Michael Cockrem leads engineering efforts at Arzeda, with a focus on developing scalable downstream processing, techno-economics analyses and robust production plant designs. He works closely with Arzeda’s team of chemists and chemical engineer and interface with the strain engineering and process engineering teams.
Michael brings over 30 years of experience in engineering processes for the production of bio-based chemicals. He was instrumental in developing the technology scaled up by DuPont-Tate&Lyle for the production of 1,3-propanediol and BioAmber’s succinic acid 30kt/y plant. He also was involved in process development for LanzaTech, Lygos, Provivi, and others. Michael is passionate about bringing sustainable and performance chemicals to market and contributing to reducing the carbon footprint of our industrial processes. He believes that precise rigorous engineering is needed in addition to advances in biotechnology. Michael holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from University of Wisconsin and a BS in Biotechnology from Massey University in New Zealand.
PhD – Head of Engineering
Michael Cockrem leads engineering efforts at Arzeda, with a focus on developing scalable downstream processing, techno-economics analyses and robust production plant designs. He works closely with Arzeda’s team of chemists and chemical engineer and interface with the strain engineering and process engineering teams.
Michael brings over 30 years of experience in engineering processes for the production of bio-based chemicals. He was instrumental in developing the technology scaled up by DuPont-Tate&Lyle for the production of 1,3-propanediol and BioAmber’s succinic acid 30kt/y plant. He also was involved in process development for LanzaTech, Lygos, Provivi, and others. Michael is passionate about bringing sustainable and performance chemicals to market and contributing to reducing the carbon footprint of our industrial processes. He believes that precise rigorous engineering is needed in addition to advances in biotechnology. Michael holds a PhD in Chemical Engineering from University of Wisconsin and a BS in Biotechnology from Massey University in New Zealand.