Experience

Sapir Venture Partners

• Israel
• Venture Capital and Private Equity Principals
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Venture Partner

  • Jul 2022 - Present



Freelance

• Advisor to early stage companies

  • Jan 2022 - Present



Joyn Bio

• United States
• Biotechnology Research
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Co-founder, Head of Strategic Innovation & Microbial Engineering

  • Oct 2017 - Jan 2022

  Innovation and Strategic Planning • Designed strategic vision and cross-functional platform, working across departments, stakeholders, and distinct areas of expertise to achieve buy-in, develop pipelines, and deliver key outcomes. • Collaborated on cross-functional team, leveraging partner inputs, to produce successful proof-of-concept project in advance of all deadlines despite COVID-19 imposed obstacles. Business Development and Partnerships • Engaged internal and external stakeholders to orchestrate strain sourcing business development efforts that introduced new commercial product opportunities. • Influenced senior colleagues and peers to diversify scope of strategic partnerships and align operations for cross-functional program enhancing company success. • Outsourced IT solution that increased operational effectiveness, managing provider relationships to ensure smooth operations for expanding company and competitive advantage for subsidiary personnel. • Established New Leaf Symbiotics collaborative framework, a multi-year, multi-million dollar partnership. Leadership and Management • Guided 14-person team, directly managing 4 senior scientists and formulating technical strategies for projects advancing agricultural success within Microbial Engineering Department. • Coordinated back-to-work initiative across multiple teams, leading inclusive process to establish policies and ensure safe, efficient return to lab during pandemic that received full staff support.



Ginkgo Bioworks, Inc.

• United States
• Biotechnology Research
• 700 & Above Employee

• Program Director & Biological Engineer

  • Jan 2014 - Dec 2018

  Technical Engineering and Strategic Design • Devised and executed technical strategy for engineering projects that leveraged prokaryotic and eukaryotic industrial hosts producing strains for commodity and high valuable chemical production. • Developed site-specific, precision genome engineering tools for industrially relevant fungi, enabling development of an engineered strain deployed in industrial bioprocess for specialty chemical production. • Leveraged innovative approaches to create synthetic biology solutions, enhancing commodity and specialty chemical products that enabled raising 100s of millions of dollars in investor capital. Alliance Development and Management • Created collaboration framework at Ginkgo Bioworks with Fortune 500 partner, serving as alliance manager delivering technical success to customer’s in-house product, resulting in approved patent. • Increased staffing for 15-person enterprise to over 200 employees, managing teams of 1-3 scientists and research associates. • Honed domestic and international network with academia, biotech companies, and venture capital firms, recruiting top talent to actively grow technical teams.



Massachusetts Institute of Technology

• United States
• Higher Education
• 700 & Above Employee

• Postdoctoral Associate

  • Sep 2011 - Dec 2013

  Research and Development • Characterized library of 100 prokaryotic transcription factors, identifying in vitro DNA binding site preferences from library of 2 million unique DNA sequences and constructing synthetic operators in E. coli for transcription factor library. • Translated findings to mammalian tissue culture cell lines to generate transcription factor-operator pairs that functioned as robust mammalian transcriptional activators and repressors. Research and Development • Characterized library of 100 prokaryotic transcription factors, identifying in vitro DNA binding site preferences from library of 2 million unique DNA sequences and constructing synthetic operators in E. coli for transcription factor library. • Translated findings to mammalian tissue culture cell lines to generate transcription factor-operator pairs that functioned as robust mammalian transcriptional activators and repressors.



University of California, San Francisco

• United States
• Higher Education
• 700 & Above Employee

• Postdoctoral Scholar

  • Aug 2010 - Aug 2011