Matthew Breyer and Benjamin Humphreys have joined our Scientific Advisory Board
We’ve recently launched our third therapeutic program focused on restoring youthful function in endothelial cells of the Vascular system. Our Vascular program will focus initially on restoring function in aging kidneys through the endothelium, and we imagine subsequent applications to restore cardiovascular and cognitive health.
To support the program, we’re excited to welcome Matthew Breyer and Benjamin Humphreys to our Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). As we navigated through the intellectual inception of our program, advice from both Matt & Ben was invaluable. We’re excited to work with each of them to develop the first reprogramming medicines for vascular diseases.
About Matthew Breyer
Matt has a unique background spanning both academic medicine and pharmaceutical development. Matt began his career as a Professor of Medicine at Vanderbilt, followed by his transition into industry as the CSO of Biotherapeutics Discovery at Eli Lilly and later as a Distinguished Scientist at Janssen. In our first conversations with Matt, it became clear that he not only could work with us to imagine future therapies unlike those of today, but help us remain grounded in the pragmatic realities of pre-clinical development and eventual patient care.
See Matt’s public bio, borrowed below.
Dr. Breyer received his MD from Harvard in 1979. Following residency and nephrology training he served as Professor of Medicine in the division of Nephrology at Vanderbilt University Medical School from 1985-2007, where his work focused on causes of diabetic kidney disease and hypertension focusing on transgenic mouse models. As a result of his interest in developing treatments for diabetic nephropathy he moved to Eli Lilly in 2007 to oversee a program to develop bio-therapeutics for diabetic kidney disease. In 2009 he was appointed to the position of Chief Scientific Officer Lead Generation Biotechnology Discovery Research at Eli Lilly where he oversaw preclinical target identification and validation of biologics for chronic kidney, metabolic, neurologic, and oncologic diseases, and served until 2018. In April 2018 Dr. Breyer joined the Janssen Cardiovascular and Metabolism group in Boston where he guides discovery and development of new drugs for kidney disease.
About Benjamin Humphreys
Ben is not only a leading physician in nephrology at Washington University, but a successful biotech company-builder through his work cofounding Chinook Therapeutics (acquired by Novartis in 2023). We’ve long admired Ben’s work dissecting the basis of renal diseases with modern genomics methods, pushing forward the cellular and molecular understanding of the entire field. Our early conversations with Ben have helped guide our decisions for early discovery experiments all the way through eventual clinical plans.
See Ben’s public bio, borrowed below.
Dr. Benjamin Humphreys received his AB from Harvard college and his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Case Western Reserve University as part of the Medical Scientist Training Program. He trained in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and in nephrology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Massachusetts General Hospital. He was a member of the faculty at Harvard Medical School from 2005 – 2015, rising to the rank of Associate Professor. In 2015, Dr. Humphreys moved to Washington University in St. Louis, where he is Chief of the Division of Nephrology and is the Joseph Friedman Professor of Renal Diseases.