About

Christopher Mirabelli, PhD

Chris Mirabelli has served as the Chairman of Leap’s board of directors since 2016 and as President & CEO from 2011 to March 2020. He has been a managing director of HealthCare Ventures LLC since 2000. From December 1999 to May 2000, Chris served as President of Pharmaceutical Research and Development and as a member of the board of directors of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, following its merger with LeukoSite, where he had been serving as President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the board of directors since 1993.

He was a co-founder of Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IONS), where he held several positions including SVP of Research, from 1989 until 1993. Chris started his career at SmithKline and French Laboratories (now part of GlaxoSmithKline Plc) R&D Division. He currently serves on the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute-Business Development Council, the Scripps Research Board of Overseers, and Longview Ventures Investment Committee. Chris is a member of the Fredonia College Foundation board of Directors.

He received his Ph.D. in molecular pharmacology from Baylor College of Medicine and his BS in biology from the State University of New York at Fredonia.

Douglas Onsi

Doug Onsi has served as Leap’s Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary since 2011 and became the President & CEO in April of 2020. He has been at HealthCare Ventures since 2007, including serving as a managing director since 2009 and the chief executive officer of Tensha Therapeutics, Inc. which was sold to Roche Holdings, Inc. He was previously at Genzyme Corporation, where he served in roles as VP, Campath Product Operations and Portfolio Management, Oncology and as VP, Business Development. 

Doug received his JD from the University of Michigan Law School and his BS in biological sciences from Cornell University.

Gus Lawlor

Gus Lawlor has served as Leap’s Chief Operating Officer since 2011 and has been a managing director of HealthCare Ventures LLC since 2000. He was previously Chief Operating Officer of LeukoSite, a HealthCare Ventures company. Before joining LeukoSite, he was Chief Financial Officer and VP of Corporate Development for Alpha-Beta Technology.  He was also previously Chief Financial Officer and VP, Business Development, at BioSurface Technologies, a biofilm company.

He received his BA from the University of New Hampshire and his MBA from Yale University.

Cyndi Sirard, MD

Cyndi Sirard has served as VP of Clinical Development at Leap Therapeutics since 2011 and became the Chief Medical Officer in April of 2020. She has more than 15 years of global clinical development experience including optimization of strategic development and oversight of scientific, commercial and financial objectives for clinical programs in oncology, hematology and transplantation. Prior to joining Leap, she served in clinical development and team leadership roles with Sanofi Oncology, Genzyme Corporation, and Parexel International.

Cyndi received her MD from Chicago Medical School. She is a board certified Medical Oncologist with internal medicine and hematology/oncology training at Harvard Medical School at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts.

Mark O’Mahony

Mark O’Mahony has been VP of CMC at Leap since 2011 and became the Chief Manufacturing Officer in April of 2020. Before this, he was VP of Process Development, Manufacturing, and Quality Control at Tolerx where he led CMC operations from the company’s inception through partnerships with Genentech and GSK, and to pre-commercialization of the Otelixizumab® anti-CD3 monoclonal antibody. Prior to Tolerx, Mark worked at LeukoSite and Millennium Pharmaceuticals where he played an integral role in the approval and worldwide commercialization of the Campath® anti-CD52 monoclonal antibody.

Mark received his MBA from Boston University and a BSc in Biotechnology from Dublin City University, Ireland.

Walter Newman, PhD

Walter Newman has served as Leap’s lead scientist since 2011. Prior to his role here, he led drug discovery at LeukoSite and Critical Therapeutics where he helped bring multiple antibody and small molecule candidates to the market, including two approved monoclonal therapeutics (alemtuzumab and vedolizumab). He was also the founding CSO at Proteostasis Therapeutics and held senior roles in drug discovery at both Ortho Pharmaceuticals and Otsuka America Pharmaceuticals.

Walter is a graduate of Columbia University’s undergraduate and graduate programs with a degree in Immunology and he has co-authored more than eighty scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Jason Baum, PhD

Jason (Jay) Baum joined Leap in August 2020 as Vice President and Head of Translational Medicine.

Prior to Leap, he served as Executive Director and Precision Medicine Leader at Novartis, where he was accountable for the biomarker and diagnostic efforts across the Lung Cancer and General Medicine portfolios.  This included approval of a companion diagnostic for the ALK inhibitor Zykadia®.  Before Novartis, Jay was Head of Biomarkers and Diagnostics at Merrimack Pharmaceutics, and prior to Merrimack worked at Cell Signaling Technology.

Jay received his Ph.D.in Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Biochemistry from Boston University and his BA from Colgate University.

Christine Granfield

Christine Granfield joined Leap in August 2020 as Vice President, Head of Regulatory Affairs and Quality.  Prior to joining Leap, she served as an independent regulatory consultant with Granfield Associates LLC. Previously, she was Senior Director, Regulatory Affairs with Novartis Corporation supporting oncology and companion diagnostics, where she led the development of regulatory strategy and submissions for companion diagnostics supporting oncology personalized medicine programs. Prior to her position with Novartis, Christine served as Senior Director, Regulatory Affairs with Genzyme Corporation. She also held positions with Boston Scientific Corporation. Christine has a BSE, Biomedical Engineering from The Catholic University of America and is a member of the Regulatory Affairs Professional Society.

Kevin Lloyd

Kevin Lloyd has served as Vice President, Program and Alliance Management at Leap since 2020.  Prior to joining Leap, Kevin was Vice President of Program & Alliance Management at Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, where he played an integral role in the development and approval of XERAVA®, a novel antibiotic used for the treatment of resistant pathogens. Before working at Tetraphase, Kevin was in a senior leadership role at Molecular Insight Pharmaceuticals, serving as Vice President of Development Operations.  He has over 27 years of drug development experience and has held positions of progressive responsibility in Clinical Development and Business Operations at Ziopharm Oncology, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, and Biogen, Inc.

Kevin received his BA from the University of Vermont.

Christopher Mirabelli, PhD

Chris Mirabelli has served as the Chairman of Leap’s board of directors since 2016 and as President & CEO from 2011 to March 2020. He has been a managing director of HealthCare Ventures LLC since 2000. From December 1999 to May 2000, Chris served as President of Pharmaceutical Research and Development and as a member of the board of directors of Millennium Pharmaceuticals, following its merger with LeukoSite, where he had been serving as President, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the board of directors since 1993.

He was a co-founder of Ionis Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: IONS), where he held several positions including SVP of Research, from 1989 until 1993. Chris started his career at SmithKline and French Laboratories (now part of GlaxoSmithKline Plc) R&D Division. He currently serves on the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute-Business Development Council, the Scripps Research Board of Overseers, and Longview Ventures Investment Committee. Chris is a member of the Fredonia College Foundation board of Directors.

He received his Ph.D. in molecular pharmacology from Baylor College of Medicine and his BS in biology from the State University of New York at Fredonia.

James Cavanaugh, PhD

Dr. Cavanaugh has been a managing director of HealthCare Ventures since 1989. He was previously President of SmithKline & French Laboratories-U.S., the domestic pharmaceutical division of SmithKline Beckman Corporation. Dr. Cavanaugh had been president of SmithKline Beckman’s clinical laboratory business and President of Allergan International. He has been a board member of a number of private and public pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and was Chairman of The Shire Pharmaceutical Group, plc. He served as staff assistant to President Nixon for Health Affairs and then deputy director of the president’s Domestic Council.

Under President Ford, he was a deputy assistant to the President for domestic affairs and deputy chief of the White House. He has served as deputy assistant secretary for health and scientific affairs in the United States Department of Health, Education and Welfare, special assistant to the Surgeon General, United States Public Health Services, and director, Office of Comprehensive Health Planning.

He began his career as a member of the faculty of the Graduate College and the College of Medicine at the University of Iowa where he received his Master’s and Doctorate degrees.

Thomas Dietz, PhD

Dr. Dietz is currently chairman and CEO of Waypoint Holdings, LLC, a diversified financial-holdings and services company. Previously, Dr. Dietz was co-CEO and then CEO and a director of Pacific Growth Equities, LLC, a San Francisco-based investment bank and institutional brokerage firm from 2004 to 2009, when the firm was acquired by Wedbush Securities. Dr. Dietz served as head of the investment banking division at Wedbush until November 2010.

Prior to taking the CEO role at Pacific Growth, Dr. Dietz served as the company’s director of equities research and was an award-winning biotechnology and biopharmaceutical analyst. He joined Pacific Growth in 1993. Previously, he was a member of the research faculty in the Department of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco and the VA Medical Center. Dr. Dietz is currently Chairman on the board of directors of Eiger Biopharmaceuticals, Inc. (EIGR:Nasdaq) and as a director of Paratek Pharmaceuticals (PRTK:Nasdaq) in addition to several private companies.

Dr. Dietz holds a Ph.D. in molecular biology and biochemistry from Washington University, St. Louis, and was a National Science Foundation Post-Doctoral Fellow.

William Li, MD

In December 2003, Dr. Li joined the DOBI Medical Systems board of directors and was also a member of DOBI Medical System’s Scientific Advisory Board. Dr. Li is a co-founder of the Angiogenesis Foundation in Cambridge, Massachusetts, of which he has been the President since April 2000 and Medical Director since December 1994. Dr. Li has extensive expertise in the field of angiogenesis and its therapeutic development and clinical applications. He trained with Dr. Judah Folkman, who pioneered the field of angiogenesis research.

Through the Angiogenesis Foundation, Dr. Li has worked in association with the National Institutes of Health, and other major governmental and academic institutions, and industry leaders on angiogenesis-related programs.

Dr. Li received his M.D. degree from University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. He completed his clinical training in internal medicine at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. Dr. Li has also served on the faculties of Harvard Medical School, Tufts University School of Veterinary Medicine and Dartmouth Medical School.

Douglas Onsi

Doug Onsi has served as Leap’s Chief Financial Officer, Treasurer and Secretary since 2011 and became the President & CEO in April of 2020. He has been at HealthCare Ventures since 2007, including serving as a managing director since 2009 and the chief executive officer of Tensha Therapeutics, Inc. which was sold to Roche Holdings, Inc. He was previously at Genzyme Corporation, where he served in roles as VP, Campath Product Operations and Portfolio Management, Oncology and as VP, Business Development. 

Doug received his JD from the University of Michigan Law School and his BS in biological sciences from Cornell University.

Joseph Loscalzo, MD, PhD, MA

Dr. Joseph Loscalzo is currently is Hersey Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Chairman of the Department of Medicine, and Physician-in-Chief at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. In 1994, Dr. Loscalso joined the faculty of Boston University in 1994, first as Chief of Cardiology and, in 1997, Wade Professor and Chair of Medicine, Professor of Biochemistry, and Director of the Whitaker Cardiovascular Institute. In 2005, he returned to work at Harvard and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, where he had previously worked.

He has served on several NIH study sections and editorial boards, and has chaired the Gordon Conference on Thrombolysis. He served as an associate editor of the New England Journal of Medicine for nine years, Chair of the Cardiovascular Board of the American Board of Internal Medicine, Chair of the Research Committee of the American Heart Association, Chair of the Scientific Board of the Stanley J. Sarnoff Society of Fellows for Research in the Cardiovascular Sciences, and Chair of the Board of Scientific Counselors of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute of the National Institutes of Health. He is currently Editor-in-Chief of Circulation, a senior editor of Harrison’s Principles of Internal Medicine, a member of the Advisory Council of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, and a member of the Council of Councils of the National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Loscalzo has been a visiting professor at many institutions, holds two honorary degrees, has authored or co-authored more than 500 scientific publications, has authored or edited 23 books, and holds 27 patents for his work in the field of nitric oxide. He is also the recipient of many grants from the NIH and industry for his work in the areas of vascular biology, thrombosis, and atherosclerosis over the past twenty-five years and has won numerous awards.

Dr. Loscalzo received his A.B. degree, summa cum laude, his Ph.D. in biochemistry, and his M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and completed his clinical training at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, where he served as Resident and Chief Resident in medicine and Fellow in cardiovascular medicine. Dr. Loscalzo is currently a consultant for both Boston Consulting Group and Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Inc., is a scientific advisory board member at Broadview Ventures, Inc., Sanofi S.A., DZZOM—The Network Medicine Company and Applied Biomath, LLC, and is a member of the board of directors of Ionis Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Nissim Mashiach

Mr. Mashiach is the co-founder of NuBiyota, a privately-held company developing an innovative microbiome therapeutics platform. Prior to his role at NuBiyota, he served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Macrocure, Ltd. He is also currently a member of the board of directors at Chemomab Ltd. He also previously served as General Manager at Ethicon, a Johnson & Johnson company, from 2009 to 2012.

Prior to then, he served as President and Chief Operating Officer at Omrix Biopharmaceuticals, Inc., a public company acquired by Johnson & Johnson in 2008. Prior to Omrix, Mr. Mashiach held leadership positions at several pharmaceutical companies.

He holds an MBA from the University of Manchester, England, an MPharmSc from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel, and a BSc, Chemical Engineering from the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel.

Richard L. Schilsky, M.D., FACP, FSCT, FASCO

Dr. Schilsky previously served as the Chief of Hematology/Oncology in the Department of Medicine and Deputy Director of the University of Chicago Comprehensive Cancer Center. He is also the former President, Chief Medical Officer and Executive Vice President of American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). He presently serves on the boards of directors of the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA and of Friends of Cancer Research and is a member of the editorial board of the New England Journal of Medicine.

He spent the majority of his career at the University of Chicago, where he joined the faculty in 1984, subsequently rising to the rank of Professor of Medicine and serving in many roles, including Associate Dean for Clinical Research in the Biological Sciences Division and Director of the University of Chicago Cancer Research Center. Early in his career, he worked in the Clinical Pharmacology Branch of the Division of Cancer Treatment at the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and as an Assistant Professor, Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology, University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine.

He is a Past President of ASCO, having served in the role during 2008-2009, and is also a Past Chair of one of the NCI’s Cooperative Groups, Cancer and Leukemia Group B (CALGB), a national cooperative clinical research group funded by the NCI. From 1996-2000, Dr. Schilsky was a member of the FDA’s Oncologic Drugs Advisory Committee, serving as Chair from 1999-2000. He has served as a member and chair of the NCI Board of Scientific Advisors.

Dr. Schilsky received his B.A. cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania and his M.D. with honors from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine. He completed his internship and residence at University of Texas-Southwestern Medical School. He is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, a Fellow of the Society for Clinical Trials, and a Fellow of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

David Tuveson, MD, PhD

Chair of Leap SAB, Director of Research, the Lustgarten Foundation, Roy J. Zuckerberg Professor of Cancer Research at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory

David Tuveson is professor and deputy director of the cancer center at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. Dr. Tuveson obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Chemistry at M.I.T. and Medical and Doctoral Degrees at Johns Hopkins. Dr. Tuveson was a medical resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a medical oncology fellow at Dana-Farber/Partners Cancer Care.

During his postdoctoral years in Boston, Dr. Tuveson co-developed KIT inhibitors for gastrointestinal stromal tumors with George Demetri, and created several Kras dependent mouse cancer models with Tyler Jacks. His lab generated the first mouse models of ductal pancreatic cancer at the University of Pennsylvania, and subsequently moved to the University of Cambridge to develop preclinical and clinical therapeutic strategies for pancreatic cancer.

In Cambridge, his lab identified a variety of parameters that limit therapeutic efficacy in pancreatic cancer, including poor drug delivery and survival factors in the microenvironment. These findings are currently undergoing clinical evaluation. Dr. Tuveson now directs the Cancer Therapeutics Initiative at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and to serve as director of research for the Lustgarten Foundation. He will continue to practice medical oncology with an adjunct appointment at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. His honors include an award from the Rita Allen Foundation.

Carl F. Nathan, MD

Professor and Chairman of Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College

Carl Nathan, M.D., is R.A. Rees Pritchett Professor and chairman of the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College and co-chair of the Program in Immunology and Microbial Pathogenesis at Weill Graduate School of Medical Sciences of Cornell University.

A graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Medical School, he trained in internal medicine and oncology at Massachusetts General Hospital, the National Cancer Institute, and Yale before joining the faculty of The Rockefeller University. At Weill Cornell Medical College, he has served as founding director of the Tri-Institutional MD-PhD Program, senior associate dean for research, and acting dean and presently directs the Milstein Program in Chemical Biology of Infectious Disease.

A member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology, a former Ellison Medical Foundation senior scholar in global infectious diseases and a Trustee of the Hospital for Special Surgery, he also serves as an adviser to the Cambridge University Institute for Medical Research, associate scientific director of the Cancer Research Institute and an editor of the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

Xi He, PhD

Endowed Research Chair, Professor of Neurology, American Cancer Society Research Professor, Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School

Xi He received his PhD in 1992 from the University of California, San Diego, where he worked in the laboratory of Michael G. Rosenfeld. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship in 1996 at the National Institutes of Health, under the supervision of Harold E. Varmus.

He was a Pew Scholar in Biomedical Sciences, a Klingenstein Fellow in Neuroscience, a Keck Foundation Distinguished Young Scholar in Medical Research and a Leukemia and Lymphoma Society Scholar. He is a Chang Jiang Guest Professor at the School of Life Science and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, inducted by the Ministry of Education of China. 

Xi He is a member of the executive board of the Stem Cell Program at Boston Children’s Hospital and a member of the editorial boards of Journal of Biological Chemistry, Journal of Genetics and Genomics and Protein & Cell. He has served and is serving on the Scientific Advisory Boards of institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and of biotechnology companies in the United States, China and Europe.

Andrew B Nixon, PhD, MBA

Professor of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center, Director of the Phase I Biomarker Laboratory and Associate Director of the Duke Center for Cancer Immunotherapy

Dr. Nixon received his PhD in biochemistry in 1997 from Wake Forest University and later completed his postdoctoral fellowship at Duke University in the laboratory of Dr. Patrick Casey.  He joined the Department of Medicine at Duke as an Assistant Professor in 2004 and established the Phase I Biomarker Laboratory. His research focuses on the interrogation of circulating markers found in the blood, pursuing the development of novel biomarkers for immuno-oncology and anti-angiogenic agents.

He is a nationally recognized expert regarding the development of biomarkers and serves as a scientific reviewer for the NCI/NCTN Core Correlative Sciences Committee (CCSC).  Within the Alliance cooperative group, he serves as an executive member of the Translational Research Program, vice-chair for GI correlative research, and now serves as co-chair for the newly established Immuno-Oncology Committee.  He also serves on the GYN translational science committee for the NRG cooperative group.  In addition, he is on the Board of Directors for the Academic and Community Cancer Research United (ACCRU) group and an Advisory Board member for Powering Precision Health.

Richard Gaynor, MD

President and Chief, Research and Development, at BioNTech US; Scientific Advisory Committee for Stand up to Cancer; Board of Directors of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, Alkermes plc. and Infinity Therapeutics

Dr. Richard Gaynor is currently President and Chief, Research and Development, at BioNTech US.  Dr. Gaynor joined Neon Therapeutics in 2016 as President of Research and Development and continued his career there following their merger with BioNTech US. Prior to joining Neon, Dr. Gaynor was Senior Vice President of Global Product Development and Medical Affairs at Lilly Oncology. In total, he spent 15 years in senior roles at Lilly Oncology where he led preclinical and early clinical oncology research and served on key company portfolio review committees.  Prior to that he served on the faculty at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, where he served as the Chief of the Division of Hematology-Oncology and Director of the Simmons Cancer Center. Dr. Gaynor holds an M.D. from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School and, following his residency in internal medicine there, he completed fellowship training in hematology-oncology at the UCLA School of Medicine where he served on the hematology- oncology faculty. He is the author of nearly 150 publications and serves on the Scientific Advisory Committee for Stand up to Cancer and the Board of Directors of the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, Alkermes plc. and Infinity Therapeutics.

Eileen M. O’Reilly, MD

Dr. Eileen M. O’Reilly holds the Winthrop Rockefeller Endowed Chair in Medical Oncology at Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK). She serves as the Section Head for Hepatopancreaticobiliary/ Neuroendocrine Cancers, Gastrointestinal Oncology Service, Co-Director for Medical Initiatives at the David M. Rubenstein Center for Pancreatic Cancer and is an Attending Physician and Member at MSK and Professor of Medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College.
Dr. O’Reilly received her medical degree at Trinity College (Dublin University) in Ireland. She completed her residency training in Ireland and Fellowship training at MSK. Her research focuses on pancreatic and hepatobiliary malignancies, the integration of molecular and genetic-based therapies, development of adjuvant and neoadjuvant therapies, and the identification of biomarkers for therapy selection. Dr. O’Reilly is the Principal Investigator of multiple phase I, II, III trials in pancreas cancer and has authored/co-authored > 350 articles, editorials, and book chapters
Dr. O’Reilly’s other responsibilities include: Associate Editor for the Journal of Clinical Oncology, Senior Editor for several journals, Chair of the Human Research Protection Program/IRB, Chair of the Continuing Medical Education (CME) committee at MSK, Co-Chair of the NCI Alliance Co-Operative Group Gastrointestinal Cancers Committee, She is a member of the NCI Gastrointestinal Cancers Steering Committee (GISC), Medical and Scientific Advisory Board of Pancreatic Cancer Action Network, American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Guidelines Committee, and the Board of the National Pancreas Foundation.