Seth Harrison is founder and managing partner of ATP (Apple Tree Partners). Seth began investing in life sciences in 1991 as a venture partner at Sevin Rosen Funds and went on to be a general partner at Oak Investment Partners before starting ATP in 1999. Some of his earlier investments include Aileron Therapeutics, Akero Therapeutics, ArQule, Coelacanth, Corvidia Therapeutics, Cyrano Sciences, Gloucester Pharmaceuticals, HeartWare International, Informed Access, SGX Pharmaceuticals, Stoke Therapeutics, Syntimmune, Tendyne, Ultracision, and ViroPharma.

Seth currently serves on the boards of Akero Therapeutics and Stoke Therapeutics as well as the boards of all portfolio companies created within ATP’s current fund to date. From 2002 to 2010, he was a member of the board of the International Partnership for Microbicides, a nonprofit product development partnership focused on women’s health and HIV prevention. Seth received an AB from Princeton University and an MD and MBA both from Columbia University, and completed a surgery internship at the Presbyterian Hospital in the City of New York.

Marie-Therese Afif is head of operations for ATP. She brings to the role more than 30 years of experience supporting private investment funds with expertise in operations, administration, and human resources, as well as legal and compliance matters. Marie-Therese has worked with ATP for more than 13 years, including at the firm’s inception in 1999. She also worked with the privately owned hedge fund H/2 Capital Partners for nearly a decade.

Marie-Therese earned her undergraduate degree from Kantonsschule Heerbrugg, Lehrerseminar, Switzerland, and she obtained a certificate in financial analysis from New York University.

Jake Bieber-Dishart, an analyst at Apple Tree Partners, assists the firm in conducting due diligence on promising therapeutic targets and investment opportunities. He was first introduced to biotechnology investing at RTW Investments, where he evaluated novel drug targets apt for therapeutic development.

Jake earned his PhD in bioengineering jointly from the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, San Francisco, where he was also awarded the ARCS scholarship. For his PhD, Jake developed a high-throughput gut organoid system to screen drugs for gastrointestinal toxicity.

Jonathan Blanc is a business development associate at ATP with more than 12 years of experience helping companies create value and execute transactions. Before joining ATP, Jon was director of corporate strategy and portfolio analytics at Acceleron Pharma, where he assisted leadership with long-range planning, strategic capital allocation, and asset valuation. Prior to Acceleron, he was a director in PwC’s Deals practice, providing clients in the life sciences industry with valuation and advisory support. 

Jon received his BA in economics and MA in international economics and finance from Brandeis University. He is a CFA charterholder and a member of the Boston Security Analysts Society and the CFA Institute.

Raj Chopra is head of oncology and a venture partner at ATP. At The Institute of Cancer Research in London, as director of the Cancer Research UK Cancer Therapeutics Unit, he led one of the largest academic drug discovery groups in the world and focused on targeted protein degradation and complex 3D cell culture models. Raj also worked at Celgene from 2009 to 2016 as corporate vice president of Translational and Early Drug Development, leading an international team of more than 100 scientists. Before joining Celgene, he held leadership positions in AstraZeneca’s Oncology Therapeutics group in the UK and US. Raj started his academic career as the director of Hematological Oncology at Christie Hospital and was group leader at the Paterson Institute of Cancer Research, both located in Manchester, UK. He was a non-executive director of Artios Pharma, established to develop a next-generation DNA damage response target pipeline of cancer therapeutics, and co-founder of Monté Rosa Therapeutics, a biotech focused on targeted protein degradation.

Raj trained in medicine at University College London, where he earned his PhD in medicine, cell and molecular biology. He is a fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of London, the Royal College of Pathologists, and the Royal Society of Biology.

Paul Eisenberg, chief medical officer and venture partner at ATP, brings more than 30 years of experience in drug development across therapeutic areas. At Eli Lilly, Paul held leadership roles in Cardiovascular Discovery and Translational Medicine, later stage drug development and commercialization, and drug safety. He subsequently joined Amgen, where he led Global Regulatory and Safety and was involved in the development and global registration of all Amgen products from 2006 through 2014. Subsequently, Paul led Amgen’s Global Medical Affairs organization, focusing on the challenges of access to innovative therapies and representing Amgen in PDUFA V negotiations. His academic basic and clinical research focused on mechanisms of thrombosis in ischemic heart disease and in response to fibrinolytic therapy, and his research contributed to the development of novel anti-thrombotic therapies.  He has 80 peer-reviewed publications of original research, as well as more than 40 contributions to reviews and books.

Paul received his MD from New York Medical College and MPH in tropical medicine from the Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. After completing training in internal medicine, cardiology and pulmonary diseases at Washington University, he joined the faculty of the Department of Medicine ultimately as Professor of Medicine and was the Director of the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Barnes-Jewish Hospitals.

William Engels is chief financial officer for ATP. Before joining ATP, Bill was chief financial officer and chief compliance officer of Cohesive Capital Partners, a private equity co-investment firm. He has also held positions as assistant controller at Centerbridge Partners and fund controller at life sciences venture capital firm Clarus Ventures. He began his career as a staff accountant at Ercolini & Company, a public accounting company serving Boston-area clients. Bill received his BS in accounting and finance from Northeastern University and is a certified public accountant in the State of New York.

Daniel Finkelman, general counsel for ATP, has more than 45 years of experience as a corporate and partnership attorney specializing in the representation of private investment funds and has represented funds in raising more than $50 billion of committed capital. Dan has served as ATP’s principal funds counsel for 20 years and joined the firm after retiring as a partner at Proskauer Rose. He earned his JD and MBA from Columbia University.

Sally Jacob is head of communications for ATP, with 25 years of experience in biopharmaceutical industry corporate affairs and life sciences communications. As vice president, Communications, for Pfizer's Medical and Global Product Development divisions, she collaborated with company leaders and research and patient organizations to create and operate initiatives in research transparency, compassionate use, clinical trials awareness, and public health education. She led communications for the Series A raise and launch of SpringWorks Therapeutics, a spinout created to develop and commercialize several Pfizer pipeline programs in rare diseases. Prior to joining Pfizer, Sally led corporate brand communications for Amgen, and before that she held various positions in Corporate Affairs at Bristol-Myers Squibb. She earned an AB in history from Princeton University and an MA in English from Cornell University.

Matthew P. Jacobson is a venture partner at ATP and a co-founder of ATP portfolio company Nine Square Therapeutics. He has co-founded several other successful companies including Global Blood Therapeutics, acquired by Pfizer in 2022 for $5.4 billion; Relay Therapeutics, which currently has four targeted oncology candidates in clinical development; and Circle Pharma, a designer of precision macrocycle therapeutics. A leading authority in computer-aided drug design and computational structural biology and biophysics, he is the author of more than 200 research publications and several patents. Software written by Matt and his collaborators is widely used in the pharmaceutical industry, and he served on the Scientific Advisory Board of Schrödinger, Inc., for two decades.

Matt earned his BS from Stanford, his PhD in physical chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and completed postdoctoral research at Oxford University and Columbia University. He has been a faculty member in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at USCF since 2002 and is currently Professor Emeritus. At UCSF, he received the NSF CAREER Award as well as an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship and several UCSF School of Pharmacy teaching awards. He has served on the editorial boards of eight journals, including Biochemistry, PLoS Computational Biology, and Structure.

Paul Da Silva Jardine is a venture partner at ATP. Paul spent 25 years at Pfizer Research, first as head of Cardiovascular and Metabolic Diseases (CVMD) Chemistry, then as vice president of the CVMD Biology Research Unit. Teams under Paul’s leadership discovered and developed more than 50 clinical candidates, two of which were licensed by the FDA and EMA as human medicines, and two of which were approved as veterinary medicines. In 2015, Paul left Pfizer to found and lead Staten Biotechnology, delivering into clinical development the only known anti-ApoC3 antibody for the treatment of coronary heart disease, which in 2018 Novo Nordisk acquired the option to buy for €430 million. Paul was a venture partner at ATP from 2017 to 2019, during which time he created a program that was incorporated into ATP portfolio company Chinook Therapeutics (NAS: KDNY). He then headed drug discovery efforts for Foresite Labs before returning to ATP.

Paul received a BS in chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin, and at Harvard University he earned a PhD and conducted postdoctoral research in synthetic organic chemistry in the labs of Nobel laureate chemist E.J. Corey.

Neena Kadaba, an entrepreneur in residence at ATP, is a science-driven investor with 15 years of experience building novel collaborations and partnerships to drive innovation. Most recently, Neena was a Director at Quark Venture, where she served on the board of Eyevensys, IOME BIO, Calcimedica, and EyeYon on behalf of the Global Health Sciences Fund and led diligence for a number of additional investments.  Previously, she was the Director of Strategic Partnerships at QB3, an institute at the University of California, where she created new programs to accelerate startups and worked with QB3's venture fund, Mission Bay Capital. Prior to QB3, Neena was a Kauffman Fellow while she was an Associate in Venture Investment at Itochu Technology, Inc, the California office of Itochu, the Japanese trading company, and she began her career in venture at California Technology Ventures.

Neena received her PhD in chemistry from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where she solved the structure of a novel membrane protein using x-ray crystallography and protein structure modeling. She received her undergraduate and masters’ degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in chemistry and bioengineering, respectively.

Spiros Liras is a venture partner at ATP, building on a career leading scientific innovation and discovery at some of the world’s leading pharmaceutical companies. Before joining ATP, Spiros was with Biogen, where he established and led the External Portfolio Innovation unit within Research and Development. Prior to his employment at Biogen, Spiros was vice president of Medicinal Chemistry at Pfizer, where he led teams to deliver clinical pipelines in disease areas including cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and neuroscience. Under his leadership, his divisions explored cutting edge drug discovery concepts including selective protein translation inhibition, design of macrocycles for drug discovery in tough target space, allosterism, and tissue targeting design strategies for the delivery of small molecule, oligonucleotide therapeutics and other modalities.

Spiros earned a PhD in organic chemistry from Iowa State University in 1990 and completed postdoctoral studies at the University of Texas at Austin. He currently serves as adjunct full professor in the department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco.

Stephanie Maiocco, a scientist in residence at ATP, is focused on innovative protein engineering. She has designed, optimized, and executed laboratory experiments using a wide array of innovative in vitro methodologies and provided novel solutions to protein design and assay development. Prior to joining ATP, Stephanie contributed to innovative protein technology platforms at both Akrevia Therapeutics and Elstar Therapeutics. She is a co-inventor on multiple patents for bi-specific antibodies and protein therapeutics.

Stephanie earned a BS in chemistry from Gettysburg College and a PhD in chemistry from Boston University, where her thesis was focused on the biochemical and biophysical characterization of redox-active enzymes containing multiple metallocofactors from both the radical S-adenosylmethionine and cytochrome c peroxidase enzyme superfamilies.

Mark Mitchnick, MD, a venture partner at ATP, has three decades of experience in drug product development and has founded and successfully exited three companies. At sunSmart, he invented and brought to market nanoparticulate zinc oxide for sunscreens, a technology acquired by BASF in 1999. He then started Particle Sciences, a CDMO focused on complex drug product development and GMP manufacturing that was acquired by Lubrizol, a Berkshire Hathaway company, in 2015. Mark then went on to lead Mind Sciences, a digital health company employing validated mindfulness techniques to address smoking cessation, binge eating and anxiety disorders, which was acquired by Sharecare in 2020. Mark was also the founding CSO and a board member of the International Partnership for Microbicides, a not-for-profit that developed a drug eluting vaginal ring for HIV PrEP that is distributed in various resource-poor areas. He has numerous peer reviewed publications and book contributions and more than 25 patents related to large molecules, vaccines, antibody drug conjugates, drug delivery, surface chemistry, sun blocks, diagnostics, medical devices, apps, and behavior modification.

Mark received a B.Sc. in Animal Sciences from Purdue University and an M.D. from Georgetown University Medical School. He was trained in pediatrics at The New York Hospital, Cornell Medical Center, is a licensed acupuncturist, and has practiced as a private physician in the US and worked on a voluntary basis as a pediatrician in several nations including Thailand, Cambodia, and Nicaragua.

Vern Norviel is a special advisor to ATP. A partner at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati and a senior practitioner in the firm’s patents and innovations counseling practice, he has three decades of experience formulating successful strategies for life science companies and helping them develop IP programs. Before joining Wilson Sonsini in 2003, Vern was the general counsel and corporate secretary of Perlegen Sciences, a biotechnology company that scans the entire human genome for important therapeutic and diagnostic products. Previously, as senior vice president and general counsel, he was an early employee of Affymetrix, the biotechnology company that pioneered and developed DNA chip technology. He also has been a partner at Townsend and Townsend and Crew in Palo Alto. Vern previously served as a member of Wilson Sonsini's board of directors and currently serves on the board of the Wilson Sonsini Foundation. He is a member of the Business Advisory Board at Scripps Research, a lecturer in biotechnology law at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law, and an associated scholar at the University of California, Hastings College of the Law.

Vern earned a BS in chemical engineering from the University of Colorado in Boulder, an MS in electrical engineering from Santa Clara University, and a JD from the University of San Francisco School of Law.

Phil Patten is chief scientific officer of ATP portfolio company Initial Therapeutics and an entrepreneur in residence at ATP, building on a career leading scientific innovation and discovery. Phil was a founder and chief scientific officer of DiCE Therapeutics, a publicly traded biotechnology company that used DNA-encoded libraries to discover and optimize oral inhibitors of challenging protein-protein interface targets. S011806, an oral inhibitor of IL-17A discovered at DiCE, is currently in clinical testing. Before joining DiCE, Phil was at Pioneer Hi-Bred, where he was a DuPont Fellow and managed teams that utilized directed evolution and synthetic biology in agriculture. Prior to that, he was senior vice president of Biology at Achaogen, where he led a team that discovered and brought forward the first clinical stage small molecule inhibitor of LpxC. Phil started his industrial career at Maxygen, where he applied directed evolution to therapeutic proteins and led a team that discovered an evolved type I interferon that was advanced to clinical studies in collaboration with Roche. He is an inventor on more than 90 granted US patents and has served on multiple scientific advisory boards. He served on the Biology and Bioengineering Chair’s Council at the California Institute of Technology from 2018-2020.

Phil earned a BS in biology from the California Institute of Technology, a PhD in biological sciences from Stanford University and completed postdoctoral studies in chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley. 

John F. Reilly is chief scientific officer at ATP portfolio company Nereid Therapeutics and entrepreneur in residence at ATP, building on over 20 years of biopharmaceutical leadership and drug discovery experience across multiple disease areas. Previously, John was senior vice president of Biology at Goldfinch Bio, where he led efforts ranging from target discovery to clinical biomarkers. Prior to joining Goldfinch, John served as executive director of Biology at Catabasis Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for developing and executing a translational strategy for several molecules with potential applications in multiple rare diseases. Previously he was global head of Applied Human Genetics & Genomics at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, where he led a multi-disciplinary department driving advancements in genomic technologies and their application to clinical trials across general medicine indications. At Merck Research Laboratories, he served as director of Molecular Biomarkers, leading the company’s anti-PD-1 biomarker efforts and developing and qualifying biomarker assays for use in discovery and early-stage clinical trials in multiple programs.

John earned a BA in molecular and cell biology from the University of California Berkeley, a PhD in neuroscience from the University of California Davis, and completed postdoctoral training at the Scripps Research Institute.

Victor Rusu, a principal at ATP, is focused on emerging targets and technologies, with specific experience and expertise in cell biology and functional genomics. Victor was a member of the biotech equity research team at Citigroup, and before that, he was one of the first scientists at Jnana Therapeutics, a biotechnology company focused on building a drug discovery platform to systematically target SLC transporters.

Victor earned a PhD from Harvard University and completed his graduate school training at the Broad Institute. During his time at Harvard, Victor identified distinct molecular mechanisms through which coding and noncoding mutations in an uncharacterized transporter increase type 2 diabetes risk.

Ravneesh Sachdev is a partner and head of business development at ATP with more than 20 years of experience inorganically creating value for large and mid-sized biopharma companies. Most recently, Ravneesh was senior vice president and head of business development at Acceleron Pharma, a commercial-stage biopharma company focused on therapeutics treating rare hematologic and pulmonary diseases, where he established Acceleron’s partnering strategy before eventually leading the company’s sale to Merck for $11.5 billion. Prior to Acceleron, Ravneesh was at Sage Therapeutics in a similar leadership role that culminated in a $3.2 billion strategic collaboration with Biogen. Over his career, he has both led and contributed to the execution of more than 30 transactions at Pfizer, Onyx Pharmaceuticals (including the company sale to Amgen for $10.4 billion), UCB Pharma, Acorda Therapeutics and Bioverativ (including the company sale to Sanofi for $11.6 billion).

Ravneesh earned his bachelor’s degree in molecular neuroscience from Claremont McKenna College, his Master of Business and Science degree from the Keck Graduate Institute, and his MBA in healthcare leadership from Yale University School of Management.

Aileen Salares is principal, New Product Planning for the Apple Tree Partners portfolio. Before joining ATP, Aileen was senior director of Immunology New Product Planning in the global Rare Diseases commercial organization at Sanofi Genzyme, where she provided early strategic input for pipeline program assets from preclinical through to Phase 2 and evaluated business development opportunities. She came to Sanofi from Foundation Medicine, an oncology diagnostics start-up, where she established the company’s business insights function. Aileen spent the early part of her career as a healthcare equity research analyst in multiple investment banks before transitioning to the pharmaceutical industry at EMD Serono and subsequently Shire.

Aileen earned a BS in biochemistry and psychology at Carleton University and an MBA at Queen’s University in Ontario; she holds a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) designation.

Brian Vash is an entrepreneur in residence at ATP focusing on innovative protein engineering. Brian has more than 20 years of hands-on experience designing and producing novel proteins, including 18 years in the pharmaceutical industry contributing to drug discovery pipelines and intellectual property. Before joining ATP, Brian was an early member of the leadership team at Elstar Therapeutics, where as director of protein engineering and technology development, he was responsible for establishing the company’s protein engineering and biologics production functions. Brian played a critical role in the development of Elstar’s novel kappa/lambda bispecific antibody platform, along with other innovative protein designs. Prior to that he spent 12 years at Novartis as a scientist working on structural biology and biologics, contributing to both the small molecule and protein therapeutics pipelines. While at Novartis, Brian was an inventor on patents covering alternative scaffolds, therapeutic proteins, and CAR-T therapy.

Brian earned a BS in biochemistry from the University of Texas at Arlington.

Jonathan Waldstreicher, a partner at ATP, has worked in medical devices as an entrepreneur, investor, and clinician. Jon is the founder of Galvanize Therapeutics and serves as the company's CEO. Prior to joining ATP, Jon was a director, Global Surgery R&D, at Johnson & Johnson. He started at Johnson & Johnson as an associate director in the Corporate Office of Science & Technology. Before medical school, Jon worked in Equity Research at Bear Stearns.

Jon received a BA from Brandeis University in economics and an MD and MBA from Tufts University School of Medicine. He completed a general surgery internship at Tufts Medical Center in Boston.

Joseph Yanchik, a venture partner at ATP, has been founding and funding life science companies for more than 20 years. In 2005, Joe founded ATP portfolio company Tokai Pharmaceuticals, focused on biopharmaceutical treatments for prostate cancer, serving as president and CEO from 2005 to 2008 and then as a director through 2017. Concurrently, Joe founded ATP portfolio company Aileron Therapeutics, focused on developing a novel class of stabilized cell-permeating peptides called stapled peptides, for cancer and other diseases. He established a $1.1 billion partnership between Aileron Therapeutics and Roche Pharmaceuticals and led Aileron from inception to public listing, serving as president, CEO, and director from 2006 to 2018. Previously, Joe served as vice president of corporate development at Mendel Biotechnology, an agricultural biotech company, and founded and served as chief financial officer of Poetic Genetics, a gene therapy company. He began his career practicing corporate and securities law at Cahill Gordon & Reindel, where he specialized in public securities offerings, high-yield debt financings, and M&A. He then moved to Venture Law Group in Menlo Park, where he specialized in financing early-stage life science and technology companies. 

Joe received a BBA from Loyola College in Maryland and a JD from the Villanova University School of Law, where he was managing editor of the Law Review. He is a member of the New York, California, and District of Columbia bars.

Eva Zhou is head of talent for ATP, bringing more than a decade of experience in executive search and in identifying and fostering strong long-term relationships with global talent. As the head of Global Executive Search at Biogen, she was instrumental in creating and building from scratch its in-house executive search capability covering all VP+ roles across functions and geographies. She also built and led the company’s leadership succession planning and executive onboarding program. Prior to Biogen, she handled retained searches at Korn Ferry and before that at J. Robert Scott, a boutique executive search firm fully owned by Fidelity Investments. In both places, she worked with clients across a broad range of industries, including biopharma, medical devices, healthcare, industrial, technology, higher education, and nonprofit. For six years of her career, she specialized in recruiting C-level leaders into VC-backed companies.

Eva earned a BA in English and literature from Fudan University in Shanghai, China, and holds an MA in organizational psychology from Columbia University.