Our team
Co-Founder, Chief Executive Officer
David is responsible for leading the scientific vision of the company which was founded based on his novel discovery of algorithms that identify mutations in small RNA genes, predict their regulatory targets, and designs corrective therapies for them.
David’s work spans over two decades, where he uncovered many of the functional roles small RNA play in biology, as well as seminal discoveries to the field regarding small RNA biogenesis and characterizing RISC activity.
Prior to Gatehouse Bio, David pioneered the creation of gold standard R&D tools that have been used in >50,000 publications, including the first two anti-DICER mAbs, and a dual-luciferase assay platform used to measure small RNA function. He has also held leadership roles in startups such as MiraDx, where he managed the development of commercial diagnostics for radiation and immunotherapy response and at Biogen where he designed and implemented the biomarker strategy to support the antisense oligo pipeline including BIIB067 (tofersen).
David is Business Advisor Board member for the Harvard Institute of RNA Medicine. David earned a PhD in molecular biology from the University of Connecticut and completed a postgraduate fellowship in radiation oncology and molecular genetics at the Yale University School of Medicine.
Co-Founder, Chief Business Officer
Neal is responsible for establishing the business strategy for the company, where he formed partnerships with leading, global pharma developers that have provided a foundation for the company’s growth. In addition to business, Neal is leading the execution of the software that is driving Gatehouse Bio’s platform.
As a serial intrapreneur, Neal has started new businesses within large organizations, and has led the technical diligence for mergers and acquisitions over $1B in value. Neal’s experience in building large scale ecosystems and complex commercial collaborations has led to creative partnerships that continue to drive growth within these companies.
Prior to co-founding Gatehouse Bio, Neal held executive leadership roles in Fortune 500 companies (NYSE: MSI, DELL, VMW, and NASDAQ: CMCSA), managing execution and sales for organizations focused on data-driven systems and software platforms.
Neal earned an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a BS in computer and electrical engineering from Rutgers University. He earned dual certificates in Computational Biology and Precision Medicine from the Harvard Medical School. Neal holds 12 patents covering software architecture and complex data system design.
Chief Operating Officer
Alan is responsible for establishing the overall program plans across functions and external partners and managing the day-to-day operations of the business, which he has established many of the processes for how Gatehouse Bio operates.
Prior to joining Gatehouse Bio, Alan was the Director of Technology at Gee Partners and led the new introduction and commercialization of multiple products in the high-tech space. Alan also managed the product development architecture at Dell and was the director of global portfolio management at Motorola launching several mobile phones through the FCC regulatory process. Prior to that, he was the lead engineering manager at Bell Laboratories for over 20 years, where he worked on breakthrough innovations and technologies such as high-speed cable, satellite transmission systems, wireless infrastructure, fiber-to-the-home, loop plant electronics, and wired products.
Alan holds a PhD in applied mechanics and mathematics, an MS in applied mechanics, and a BS in aerospace engineering from the NYU Polytechnic School of Engineering. He also holds a black belt in Six Sigma Process Management.
Drug Development
Johnny directs Gatehouse Bio's early-stage drug development from hit-to-lead validation through IND enabling studies. He is responsible for designing Gatehouse Bio's RNA therapeutics, managing the oligonucleotide screening platform, hit-to-lead validation, and preparing data packages for regulatory review.
Prior to joining Gatehouse Bio, Johnny was a senior scientist at Alltrna on the cell biology and discovery screening team, where he developed a high throughput oligonucleotide screening platform for tRNA function, toxicity, and stability. He also established the standard cell on-boarding procedures and all cell-based assays. As an Investigator at Novartis (NIBR), he managed preclinical R&D to develop and characterize novel GEMMs using CRISPR/Cas9 technology.
Johnny earned a PhD in Cell and Developmental Biology from SUNY Upstate Medical University. He completed a postgraduate fellowship at the John’s Hopkins University School of Medicine in Cellular and Molecular Biology.
Drug Discovery
Molly directs early-stage discovery by applying data science and computational biology to establish Gatehouse Bio's hit-to-lead funnel.
Prior to joining Gatehouse Bio, Molly was a Senior Data Scientist at Aetna, a CVS Health Company, where she led analytic development for a variety of clinical programs for patients with chronic conditions. Molly created innovative analytic solutions to test pilots of marketing campaigns promoting healthy behavior changes and healthcare products intended to provide personalized care plans for patients with chronic conditions, leveraging supervised and unsupervised predictive modeling and utilizing advanced statistical techniques to credibly measure product performance and ensure performance guarantees are met.
Molly earned an MS in Analytics from Northwestern University, and a BS in Mathematics from Saint Olaf College.
Drug Discovery
Christian is responsible for designing and implementing the bioinformatics analysis pipeline at Gatehouse Bio, as well as in silico lead validation and modeling.
Prior to joining Gatehouse Bio, Christian was a Research Scientist at the Harvard Medical School where he established and optimized an integrated wet-lab and dry-lab pipeline for NET-seq for RNA Polymerase II footprinting.
Christian earned a PhD in Genetics from Montpellier SupAgro. He completed a postgraduate fellowship at the University of Minnesota and University of Strasbourg designing and implementing multi-omics bioinformatics tools for early-stage discovery and R&D of mRNA and protein expression.
Drug Discovery
Matt is responsible for the development and integration of Gatehouse Bio's AI-discovery and reporting platform.
Prior to Gatehouse Bio, Matt was a database engineer at Epic Hosting, where he developed automated systems and pipelines for SQL management and analytics workflows at multiple hospital systems.
Matt holds a PhD in chemical engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His dissertation work was on the development and application of methods for incorporating multi-omics data into genome-scale constraint-based metabolic models. He also holds an MS and BS in chemical engineering from the Pennsylvania State University.
Drug Development
Jessie works on Gatehouse Bio's discovery validation and therapeutic oligonucleotide screening platform to establish and identify lead drugs for pre-clinical and clinical research.
Prior to Gatehouse Bio, Jessie was a research technician at the Hanna Lab at Brigham and Women's Hospital. She worked on elucidating cross-talks between the UPR pathway and other pathways in S. Cerevisiae, which involved experimental design and expertise in many molecular biology techniques.
Jessie holds a BS in Biology from Brandeis University. Her senior thesis with the Haber Lab contributed to the discovery of the Genotoxin-induced Targeted Autophagy pathway.
Drug Discovery
Sara is responsible for Gatehouse Bio’s data pipeline and optimization of the company’s data and analytics platform.
Prior to Gatehouse Bio, Sara worked as a senior data engineer at Iora Health (acquired by One Medical), where she built key features of the company's electronic health record, managed clinical data products, and developed ETL to support financial, clinical, and operational data science and analytics.
Sara earned a BS from Dartmouth College in Quantitative Social Science with honors. Sara also completed the Harvard Extension School Premedical Program.
Drug Development
Anastasia is a Scientist in Molecular Biology and Genetics. She is responsible for biomarker assay development and validation of small RNA disease models in support of Gatehouse Bio’s R&D therapeutic discovery pipeline. The scope of her work includes design and optimization of high-throughput RT-qPCR assays and R&D activities establishing the transition from biomarker discovery via NGS sequencing to RT-qPCR verification.
Prior to joining Gatehouse Bio, Anastasia was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Baylor College of Medicine, where she studied molecular pathways regulating host-microbiome interactions using C. elegans as a model organism.
She earned her PhD in Forensic Genetics from Flinders University, South Australia. Her dissertation was focused on developing metagenomic sequencing approaches for reliable discrimination of forensically relevant soil samples.
Drug Development
Aishwarya is a Scientist in Cellular and Molecular Biology. She is responsible for assay development, hit-to-lead screening and early development.
Prior to joining the Early Discovery Team at Gatehouse Bio, Aishwarya was a Postdoctoral Research Scientist at UMASS Medical School studying the functions and mechanisms of DNA demethylation in red blood cell development.
Aishwarya earned her PhD in Biology from Wayne State University. Her dissertation work was focused on understanding the role of Sin3A, a histone deacetylase in Drosophila development. She holds an MS in Biochemistry and a BSc degree in Botany, both from Maharaja Sayajorao University, Baroda, India.
Drug Development
Zheng Zhu is a Scientist in Molecular Biology. He is responsible for overseeing Gatehouse Bio's RNA sequencing pipeline, novel protocol development and protocol optimization. Zheng is also responsible for automated technology assessment and integration to facilitate next generation sequencing data generation.
Prior to joining Gatehouse Bio, Zheng was a postdoctoral research fellow at Boston University on the mosquito viral small RNA survey project, where he discovered novel, insect-specific viral small RNAs in mosquitos. Zheng earned a PhD in virology from the University of Hong Kong; his dissertation work was on the antiviral drug development and emerging virus genomics.
Our scientific advisors
