CP (Chih Ping) Liu, Ph.D.

Founder/Chairman, Board of Directors

CP Liu received his Ph.D. degree in Genetics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. After working as a research scientist in the biotechnology field, he started his biotechnology entrepreneur career in the mid-1980s. He founded his first startup company, an immunodiagnostic reagent company, General Biologicals, in 1984. Subsequently, he founded Pepgen Corporation, Medeor Therapeutics (aka SERC Therapeutics), Bolt Biotherapeutics, Tranquis Therapeutics, and Angarus Therapeutics, Inc. Dr. Liu considers himself as a “Gaper” who helps academic researchers to advance their research work into commercial product development. Dr. Liu’s contribution to these endeavors by providing the initial funding to jump-start the process, working with the scientific co-founders to transfer their research into commercial entity through a licensing agreement with their institutes, hiring outside intellectual property experts to help manage patents, recruiting company’s executives, raising the first round of funding and initiate preclinical programs.

Peder Jensen, M.D.

Board Member

Dr. Jensen is currently President of Bay Way Consultants, LLC, a consulting firm founded by Dr. Jensen in 2010 that advises pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Dr. Jensen has over 24 years of global drug development experience in both pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and has been responsible for more than 40 new drug approvals in the U.S., Europe and Japan during his career. Dr. Jensen’s experience includes over 20 years with Schering- Plough Corporation, a global pharmaceutical company, and then Merck & Co., Inc. after the merger of Schering- Plough with Merck in 2009. Dr. Jensen most recently served at Schering-Plough as Corporate Senior Vice President, and General Manager, R&D for Japan and Asia/Pacific from 2006 to 2010. Dr. Jensen has also served at British Biotech plc and Chiron Corporation in clinical development executive director positions and earlier in his career at CIBA-GEIGY Limited. Since 2011, Dr. Jensen has been a member of the Board of Directors of Acorda Therapeutics, Inc., a public biotechnology company. Dr. Jensen previously served as a member of the Board of Directors of Five Prime Therapeutics (sold to Amgen in 2021) and BioCryst Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which was a public pharmaceutical company during Jensen’s service as a director. Dr. Jensen received an M.D. degree from the University of Copenhagen, where he also completed his post-graduate medical training in neurology and internal medicine.

Peter Langecker, M.D.

Board Member

Dr. Peter Langecker, MD, PhD is currently Executive Medical Director, Global Oncology at Clinipace. He brings to the Board over 25 years of hands-on experience in establishing and conducting industry-sponsored oncology and hematology clinical research and development. His previous positions included pharmaceutical company experience at Novartis, Merck, SUGEN (acquired by Pfizer) and several biotech companies. Dr. Langecker’s medical training and published research focused on preclinical and clinical oncology and the hormonal regulation of breast cancer. He has had university hospital level clinical experience in solid tumors (including breast, GI, lung cancer), lymphomas and leukemias, and bone marrow transplants. He has authored and co-authored 50+ publications and posters.

Jean Liu

Board Member

Jean Liu is currently Chief Legal Officer for Seagen Inc., a global commercial targeted cancer therapeutic company, and a director of Connect Biopharma, a global, clinical-stage inflammatory disease company. She has more than 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, including serving in senior leadership positions with multiple public biotech companies. Prior to that, she was a practicing attorney in intellectual property litigation and corporate transactions. Ms. Liu has a JD from Columbia University School of Law and a MS in Biology from Stanford University.

Nigel Ray

President and Chief Executive Officer

Nigel Ray is a respected executive leader with a track record of strategic and operational success in specialty pharmaceuticals and biotechnology over more than 30 years. Most recently Mr. Ray was the founding President and CEO of Tolerion, Inc., a clinical stage biotechnology company with a pipeline of autoimmune disease treatments. Previously, Mr. Ray was Chief Business Officer at Atreca (NASDAQ: BCEL), an immuno-oncology company with a novel antibody discovery platform. Prior to that, Mr. Ray led Global Licensing at Aptalis (acquired by Forest Labs in 2014 for $2.4 billion) and Business Development at AcelRx Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ACRX) and DURECT Corporation (NASDAQ: DRRX). Mr. Ray started his career at ALZA Corporation (acquired by J&J in 2001). Mr. Ray holds a BA in Human Biology from Stanford and an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA.

Lingyin Li, Ph.D.

Scientific Co-Founder

Dr. Lingyin Li is an assistant professor in the Biochemistry Department and ChEM-H Institute at Stanford University since 2015. Her lab works on understanding biochemical mechanisms of innate immunity and harnessing it to treat cancer. She majored in chemistry at University of Science and Technology of China and graduated with a B.En. in 2003. She then trained with Dr. Laura Kiessling, a pioneer in chemical biology, at University of Wisconsin-Madison and graduated with a Ph.D. degree in Chemistry in 2010. She obtained her postdoctoral training with Dr. Timothy Mitchison at Harvard Medical School, who introduced her to the field of chemical immunology.

Edgar G. Engleman, M.D.

Scientific Advisor

Dr. Engleman's research is directed at understanding the role of the cellular immune system in cancer and other life-threatening conditions and in evaluating the potential to manipulate immune cells for the treatment of these diseases. They have been particularly interested in dendritic cells (DC) and their “first generation” methods for isolating and arming human DC with tumor antigens provided the basis for the Sipuleucel-T (aka Provenge) vaccine that was approved by the FDA in 2010 for the treatment of advanced prostate cancer. More recently, the lab has been studying functionally distinct DC populations, including DC that promote tumor formation and metastases, as well as DC that can induce anti-tumor immunity.

Dr. Engleman is a founding member of Vivo Capital. He has co-founded several biopharmaceutical companies, including Cetus Immune, Genelabs, National Medical Audit, and Dendreon. He is the lead inventor of the technology underlying Provenge, Dendreon’s cancer vaccine, which was shown to extend life for patients with metastatic prostate cancer with remarkably few side effects. Provenge is the first active immunotherapeutic agent to be approved by the FDA (in 2010).

Dr. Engleman currently serves on the boards of several private biotechnology companies. He received his B.A. from Harvard University and his M.D. from Columbia University School of Medicine.

Jim Johnston, Ph.D.

Scientific Advisor

Dr. Johnston is CSO and COO of ImmPACT Bio Ltd, a CAR-T cell therapy company based in LA. and former co-founder and CSO of Kalthera LLC, a T cell therapy company based on IP derived from UCLA. Previously, Dr. Johnston served as Vice President of Research at A2 Biotherapeutics, focused on T cell and Treg bioengineering therapy and prior to that was Executive Director of Research, Global Head of Inflammation at Amgen with responsibility for Inflammation and part of Immuno-Oncology (2011-2018), where his team was responsible for ten drug candidates that progressed to FIH, seven of which are advancing through clinical trials. He made several key discoveries – including the identification and characterization of JAK3 and work that outlined its importance in IL-2 family signaling and in autosomal SCID patients, as well as many mechanisms controlling T cell biology and cytokine signaling. He has been awarded the Most Valuable Scientist award at the BRMP, NIH (1996), the Hajime Award at DNAX Research Institute, (1999) and the Irish Society of Immunology RDS Public Lecture Award (2010). He founded and was Chief Scientist at Fusion Antibodies Ltd, a company that develops humanized antibody therapeutics. He has 15 patents and has authored >130 peer reviewed manuscripts.

Susan Knox, M.D., Ph.D.

Scientific Advisor

Dr. Knox is a radiation oncologist and Associate Professor at Stanford University Medical Center. Dr Knox has practiced as a radiation oncologist for more than 25 years, specializing in the treatment of breast cancer and melanoma, and she sees a variety of general radiation oncology patients. A primary area of research in Dr. Knox’s laboratory is the study of novel therapies (targeted therapies, radiosensitizers, radioprotectors, and biological response modifiers) for the treatment of solid tumors, with a particular focus on prostate cancer, breast cancer and melanoma, using small animal tumor models. Her research is interdisciplinary and spans the study of mechanisms of action at the molecular level to translational studies and early clinical trials. Her drug discovery/development work, and research on innovative therapeutic approaches has resulted in 3 new ongoing clinical trials. A major focus of both her laboratory and clinical research is the use of radiation as a component of in situ tumor immunotherapy. She has had a long-standing interest in clinical research and has served as Principle Investigator on numerous clinical trials and as a member of the Clinical Oncology Study Section. As the Faculty Director of the PRMS for the Stanford Cancer Institute for over 10 years, she oversaw the Scientific Review Committee and chaired the Data and Safety Monitoring Committee.