About

Sonja L. Banks

Board Member

Sonja L. Banks brings nearly 25 years of experience in patient advocacy, community outreach and non-profit leadership, and she is deeply respected for her grassroots work in the rare disease and sickle cell disease communities. Ms. Banks is currently the chief executive officer of the International Dyslexia Association. Prior to that, she served in various leadership roles at the Sickle Cell Disease Association of America (SCDAA), including as a senior advisor, president, and chief operating officer. In her time at SCDAA, she played a key role in advocacy efforts to designate sickle cell disease as a national priority, and spearheaded grassroots efforts to secure the reauthorization of the Sickle Cell Treatment Act to continue federally funded programs for the prevention and treatment of sickle cell disease. She also oversaw the National Sickle Cell Newborn Screening Program and helped pioneer programs to improve patient outcomes, including a patient-empowered registry and certification programs for community health workers. Prior to joining the SCDAA, Ms. Banks was a director of community service and outreach at the St. Vincent’s Health System in Alabama and held key leadership roles at the United Negro College Fund and the United Way of Central Alabama. Ms. Banks has previously served on the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s Sickle Cell Disease Advisory Committee, Community Health Charities Board, and the American Society of Hematology’s Sickle Cell Disease Coalition. She is currently the first vice chairman for the 6:52 Aids Project Foundation.

James J. Collins, Ph.D.

Board Member

James J. (Jim) Collins is the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in the Institute for Medical Engineering and Science and the department of biological engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is also affiliated with Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering. He is a renowned expert in synthetic biology and systems biology and their applications in biotechnology and medicine. He has received numerous awards, including a Rhodes Scholarship, a MacArthur Fellowship, and a National Institutes of Health Director’s Pioneer Award. Jim is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Medicine, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a charter fellow of the National Academy of Inventors.

Katina Dorton, JD, MBA

Board Member

Katina Dorton joined the Fulcrum Board of Directors in January 2020 and serves as the Chair of the Audit Committee. She currently serves as Chief Financial Officer of Nodthera, a company developing medicines to inhibit the NLRP3 inflammasome. She also serves on the Board of Directors of TScan Therapeutics and US Ecology (Nasdaq: ECOL) and previously served on the Board of Pandion Therapeutics (Nasdaq: PAND) until its acquisition by Merck in 2021. Katina has held CFO positions at several biotechnology companies, including Repare Therapeutics, a synthetic lethality and DNA repair-focused oncology company, AVROBIO, a lentiviral gene therapy company, and Immatics GmbH. Earlier in her career, Katina served as a managing director in investment banking for Morgan Stanley and Needham & Company and as an attorney at Sullivan & Cromwell. Katina received her J.D. from the University of Virginia School of Law, her M.B.A. from George Washington University, and her B.A. from Duke University.

Alan Ezekowitz, MBChB, D.Phil

Board Member

Alan Ezekowitz was president and CEO of Abide Therapeutics, a company he co-founded in 2011 until its acquisition by H. Lundbeck A/S in May 2019. Formerly, he was the senior vice president and franchise head for disease areas including bone, respiratory, immunology, muscle, urology and dermatology at Merck Research Laboratories. Prior to Merck, Alan was the Charles Wilder Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and served as the chief of pediatric services at the Massachusetts General Hospital for Children and the Partners Healthcare System. Additionally, he directed the Laboratory of Developmental Immunology at Massachusetts General Hospital. Alan is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and has served on multiple National Institutes of Health subcommittees. He was honored by the establishment of the R. Alan Ezekowitz Professorship in Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School.

James Geraghty

Board Member

James (Jim) Geraghty is an industry leader with over 30 years of strategic and leadership experience, centered around biotechnology companies developing and commercializing innovative therapies. Jim served as an entrepreneur in residence at Third Rock Ventures from 2013-2016. He was previously senior vice president, North America strategy and business development at Sanofi, which he joined upon its acquisition of Genzyme. Jim spent almost 20 years at Genzyme, where his roles included senior vice president of international development, president of Genzyme Europe, and founder, president and CEO of Genzyme Transgenics. Jim serves as chairman of the boards of Idera Pharma, Pieris Pharma, and Orchard Therapeutics, and on the board of Voyager Therapeutics. He started his career in healthcare strategy consulting at Bain and Company. A graduate of the Yale Law School, he holds a master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s from Georgetown University.

Robert J. Gould, Ph.D.

Board Member

Robert J. Gould was president and chief executive officer of Fulcrum Therapeutics from 2016, the year the company was founded, until his retirement in March 2021, and has over 30 years of industry and management experience. Previously, he served as president and CEO of Epizyme from 2010 to 2015. Prior to joining Epizyme, Robert served as director of novel therapeutics at Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard from 2006 to 2010. He spent 23 years at Merck where he held a variety of leadership positions, culminating in the role of vice president, licensing and external research. During his time at Merck, Robert was instrumental in advancing more than 20 compounds from discovery into clinical development in multiple therapeutic areas. He received a bachelor’s degree from Spring Arbor University and a Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and he completed postdoctoral studies at Johns Hopkins University.

Kate Haviland

Chair

Kate Haviland serves as the chief operating officer at Blueprint Medicines, a publicly traded precision therapy biopharmaceutical company. Kate is a member of the executive leadership team responsible for the business development, alliance management, corporate affairs, commercial strategy and operations, new product planning, program management and information technology functions. Prior to joining Blueprint in 2016, Kate was the vice president of rare diseases and oncology program leadership at Idera Pharmaceuticals. In this role, she oversaw all aspects of the product development and new product planning strategy for the company’s oncology and rare disease pipeline programs.

Previously, Kate worked at Sarepta Therapeutics as the head of commercial development, at PTC Therapeutics in commercial development as the product lead for Translarna, and at Genzyme in corporate development, before moving into program management for two enzyme replacement therapies in the personalized genetic health business unit. Before joining Genzyme, Kate spent five years as a life science strategy consultant. Kate is a member of the Corporate Advisory Council for the National Tay-Sachs and Allied Disease Association, is an advisory board member at Peeled Snacks Inc., a consumer health food company, and is a member of the inaugural class of Women in Bio’s Boardroom Ready Program, the BioPharma Executive Council and the Harvard Business School Healthcare Alumni Association. Kate holds a bachelor’s degree from Wesleyan University with a double major in biochemistry and economics and an MBA from Harvard Business School.

Donald E. Ingber, M.D.,Ph.D.

Founding Director, Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University

Donald E. Ingber, M.D., Ph.D., is a globally recognized pioneer in the field of biologically inspired engineering. His work has led to major advances in diverse areas including mechanobiology, tumor angiogenesis, tissue engineering, systems biology, nanobiotechnology and translational medicine. He is founding director of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University, Judah Folkman Professor of Vascular Biology at Harvard Medical School and the Vascular Biology Program at Boston Children’s Hospital, and Professor of Bioengineering at Harvard’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. He has authored more than 500 journal publications and over 165 issued or pending U.S. patents and has been a guest speaker at more than 550 international meetings. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine, National Academy of Engineering, National Academy of Inventors, American Institute for Medical and Biological Engineering, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received his B.A., M.A., M.Phil., M.D. and Ph.D. from Yale University.

Leslie Leinwand, Ph.D.

Chief Scientific Officer, BioFrontiers Institute, University of Colorado, Boulder

Leslie Leinwand is a renowned muscle physiologist with broad expertise in the genetic underpinnings of heart and skeletal muscle defects. She is the chief scientific officer of the BioFrontiers Institute at the University of Colorado and established and co-directs the University of Colorado’s Cardiovascular Research Institute (CU-CVI), a collaborative group of physicians, molecular biologists and geneticists. The team works to integrate research and clinical applications, as well as initiate effective treatment programs and preventive therapies. Leslie’s research focuses on how cardiac and skeletal muscle adapt to stimuli, particularly the pathways involved in heart enlargement in response to exercise and disease. She is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. Leslie has authored more than 350 scientific publications and founded three biotechnology companies: Myogen Inc., Hiberna, Inc. and MyoKardia, Inc. Myogen, which was a publicly traded company, was acquired by Gilead in 2006. MyoKardia, which is publicly traded, has a small molecule in clinical trials for inherited cardiomyopathy. Leslie received her bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and her Ph.D. at Yale University and completed her postdoctoral training at Rockefeller University.

H. Lee Sweeney, Ph.D.

Director, Myology Institute, University of Florida

H. Lee Sweeney is the director of the Myology Institute at University of Florida (UF), where he is also a professor of pharmacology and therapeutics. Lee is one of the world’s premier neuromuscular disease researchers, with expertise across cardiovascular disease, skeletal muscle disorders and molecular biology – specifically the molecular motors of the myosin superfamily. He is known for creating the first visualization of structural rearrangement of the myosin lever arm, as well as for his use of gene therapy to block the loss of age-related muscle size and strength in mice. Prior to joining the faculty at UF, Lee was the William Maul Measey Professor and chairman of physiology at the University of Pennsylvania, where he is now an emeritus professor of physiology. He was elected as a fellow of the American Heart Association in 2001, a fellow of the Biophysical Society in 2017, and has been the director of a Paul Wellstone Muscular Dystrophy Cooperative Center since 2005. Lee has a bachelor’s degree in biochemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a master’s in physiology from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in physiology and biophysics from Harvard University.

Patrick Trojer, Ph.D.

CEO and Board member, TRIANA Biomedicines

Patrick joined TRIANA Biomedicines in December of 2021 as CEO and Board member after a successful career at Constellation Pharmaceuticals where he served as the company’s CSO. As member of Constellation’s executive team Patrick materially contributed to several successful financing rounds and deals, including a $100M crossover round, a $65M IPO and the ultimate acqusition of Constellation in 2021 for $1.7b. Patrick‘s entrapreneurial mindset resulted in his co-founding of Constellation Pharmaceuticals in 2008. Patrick was instrumental to build Constellation‘s discovery platform, established a portfolio of competitive clinical candidates and drove the maturation of the company‘s development efforts, leading to one PhIII and two PhII assets and three additional clinical candidates. Prior to his industrial career he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at NYU, Medical School in the laboratory of Dr. Danny Reinberg, exploring the functional downstream consequences of changes to the histone posttranslational modification landscape (epigenetics) on processes that require access to DNA, including the regulation of gene expression. Patrick received his Ph.D. in Natural Sciences, specifically Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, from the Leopold-Franzens University, Innsbruck, Austria.

Rabi Tawil, M.D.

University of Rochester Medical Center

Rabi Tawil co-directs the MDA Neuromuscular Disease Clinic at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and is a professor in the department of neurology and the department of pathology and laboratory medicine at URMC. Rabi helped establish a collaborative effort of clinicians and basic researchers that led to a unified understanding of the molecular mechanisms of facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD). He has also conducted translational research on the non-dystrophic myotonias, the periodic paralyses and other neuromuscular disorders. He is the URMC director of the Richard Fields Center for FSHD Research, and in collaboration with Dr. Jeffrey Statland established the FSHD Clinical Trial Research Network. Rabi is board certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology and holds over a dozen patents in methods related to the study of FSHD. Rabi holds an M.D. from the American University of Beirut Faculty of Medicine in Beirut, Lebanon and completed his residency in neurology and fellowship in neuromuscular diseases at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Jeffrey Statland, M.D.

University of Kansas Medical Center

Jeffrey Statland is an associate professor of neurology at the University of Kansas Medical Center (KUMC), where he coordinates the facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) Clinical Trial Research Network. Jeffrey is a renowned FSHD researcher and is a current investigator on studies of FSHD, Duchenne muscular dystrophy, spinal muscular dystrophy and myotonic atrophy. He is particularly interested in developing new disease-relevant outcome measures to assess patient-reported disease burden. Jeffrey is a member of the American Academy of Neurology as well as an ad-hoc reviewer of Neurology and several other academic journals. He received his M.D. from KUMC, where he completed residency in the department of neurology. Jeffrey also completed a fellowship in experimental therapeutics in the department of neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) and was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute research scholar.

Baziel van Engelen, M.D., Ph.D.

Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre

Baziel van Engelen is a professor of neuromuscular disorders at the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre (RUNMC), where he co-coordinates the facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD) Clinical Trial Research Network. He has coauthored numerous studies of myotonic dystrophies, FSHD and inflammatory myopathies. Baziel is a member of the scientific advisory board of the European Neuromuscular Center and serves on the research committee of Euro-NMD, a European reference network for the thematic grouping of rare neuromuscular diseases. He received his M.D. from RUNMC and his Ph.D. from the University of Amsterdam and completed his neurology residency at Radboud University and the University of Berlin. He later completed a research fellowship in the department of neurology at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.

Silvere van der Maarel, Ph.D.

Universiteit Leiden

Silvere van der Maarel is a professor of medical epigenetics at Universiteit Leiden, where he is also chair of the department of human genetics. He studies the role of epigenetic changes in rare diseases, with a particular focus on facioscapulohumeral muscular dystrophy (FSHD). Silvere is a leading authority on the genomics of FSHD and has also made research contributions to other muscular dystrophies, including oculopharyngeal muscular dystrophy and limb-girdle muscular dystrophy. He is a co-founder of the Richard Fields Center for FSHD Research, an international collaboration to accelerate research on and treatment of FSHD. In 2016, he received the FSH Society Pioneer Award. Silvere has a Ph.D. in human genetics from the Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre. He conducted postdoctoral research at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Genetics in Berlin, Germany.

Bradley E. Bernstein, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor of Pathology, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School

Bradley E. (Brad) Bernstein is a professor of pathology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, and director of the Epigenomics Program at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. His research focuses on epigenetic gene regulation. His lab studies show how gene activity is controlled by noncoding regulatory elements called ‘enhancers’, and by the way the genes are packaged into chromatin. He is a leader of the National Institutes of Health (NIH)’s ENCODE project, which is mapping the locations and functions of all noncoding elements in the human genome. His work is notable for the identification of specialized chromatin structures that underlie stem cell pluripotency, enhancers associated with autoimmunity and other diseases, and specific epigenetic aberrations that lead to cancer. Brad received his bachelor’s from Yale University and his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Washington, before completing a residency in clinical pathology and postdoctoral research at Harvard University. Honors include an Early Career Scientist Award from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a Career Award in the Biomedical Sciences from the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, the NIH Director’s Pioneer Award, an American Cancer Society Professorship and the Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research.

Michael R. Green, M.D., Ph.D.

Co-Director, The Li Weibo Institute for Rare Diseases Research, University of Massachusetts Medical School

In 1990, Michael R. Green joined the Program in Molecular Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and served as the director of the Program of Gene Function and Expression from 1999 to 2014. He is also the vice provost for strategic research initiatives, chair and professor in the department of molecular, cell and cancer biology and the director of the Cancer Center. He has made pioneering contributions to the understanding of the mechanisms that regulate gene expression in eukaryotes and how alterations in gene expression contribute to cancer and other human diseases. Recently he has used transcription-based approaches and functional screens to identify new genes and regulatory pathways involved in epigenetic regulation and cancer, which have important therapeutic implications. As a young investigator he was the recipient of the Presidential Young Investigators Award (1985), the Searle Scholar Award (1986), the McKnight Neuroscience Award (1991), and was a Harvey Lecturer (1993). He is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Medicine, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the European Molecular Biology Organization. Michael received his M.D. and Ph.D. from Washington University School of Medicine in 1981, and carried out postdoctoral work at Harvard University, where he joined as a faculty member in 1984.

Rudolf Jaenisch, M.D.

Professor of Biology, MIT; Founding Member, Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research

Rudolf Jaenisch joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1984. His central research interest is to understand epigenetic regulation of gene expression in mammalian development and disease. He is a pioneer in the understanding of how to transdifferentiate cells from one type to another. Rudolf’s work with embryonic stem cells is providing fundamental discoveries for the field of regenerative medicine. His numerous awards and honors include the Genetics Prize from the Gruber Foundation (2001), election to the National Academy of Sciences (2003), the Max Delbruck Medal (2006), the National Medal of Science (2010), the Wolf Prize in Medicine (2011) and the Otto Warburg Medal (2014). Earlier in his career, Rudolf held research positions at Princeton University, the Fox Chase Institute for Cancer Research and the Salk Institute. From 1977 to 1984, he was the head of the department of tumor biology at the Heinrich Pette Institute at the University of Hamburg. Rudolf earned his M.D. from the University of Munich in 1967 and conducted postdoctoral work in bacteriophages at the Max Planck Institute.

Jeannie T. Lee, M.D., Ph.D.

Professor of Genetics and Pathology, Harvard Medical School

Jeannie T. Lee is a professor of genetics (pathology) at Harvard Medical School, the Blavatnik Institute, and the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). Jeannie specializes in the study of epigenetic regulation by long noncoding RNAs and uses X-chromosome inactivation as a model system. In the Lee Lab, growing knowledge of X-inactivation mechanisms and RNA biology is being translated to treat various human diseases, including Rett, Fragile X, and CDKL5 Syndromes. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the 2016 recipient of the Lurie Prize from the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, a 2016 awardee of the Centennial Prize from the Genetics Society of America, the 2010 recipient of the Molecular Biology Prize from the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Jeannie was also named a Distinguished Graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in 2013 and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. From 2013-2018, she co-launched the Epigenetics Initiative at Harvard Medical School and served as its co-director. Serving on the board of directors of the Genetics Society of America (GSA), Jeannie spearheaded The All-Genetics Conference (TAGC) in 2016. As GSA’s president, Jeannie established a strategic plan and a development strategy for the society in 2018. She received her bachelor’s in biochemistry and molecular biology from Harvard University and obtained M.D.-Ph.D degrees from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Jeannie then carried out postdoctoral work at the Whitehead Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and became chief resident of clinical pathology at MGH prior to joining the faculty at Harvard Medical School. As a new investigator, she received the Basil O’Connor Scholar Award from the March of Dimes and the Pew Scholars Award.

Danny Reinberg, Ph.D.

Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology, New York University School of Medicine

Danny Reinberg is the Terry and Mel Karmazin Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology in the department of biochemistry and molecular pharmacology at New York University School of Medicine. He is also an investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Danny is a world-recognized leader in the fields of mammalian transcriptional regulation, chromatin dynamics and epigenetic regulation. His numerous advances are detailed in over 180 publications and his key contributions include identifying the structural and functional characterization of critical components of the human gene expression machinery; discovering several chromatin remodeling factors and key insights into the mechanisms by which genes are activated and repressed in the context of chromatin; and purifying and characterizing several histone methyltransferases and chromatin modifying complexes that have shed great insight into the regulatory interplay between histone modification and gene expression. He is an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2012), the National Academy of Medicine (2013) and the National Academy of Sciences (2015). He has served as an American Association for the Advancement of Science Fellow (2015) and the International Blaise Pascal Chair at the Curie Institute in Paris, France (2017). He is a recipient of the Albert Einstein Distinguished Ph.D. Alumnus Award (2014). Danny received his bachelor’s in biochemistry from Catholic University in Valparaiso, Chile and a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine.