David Altshuler, M.D., Ph.D, Vertex

David Altshuler, M.D., Ph.D., is Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. In this role, Dr. Altshuler leads internal research and external innovation, corporate data strategy, technology and data sciences, and serves as executive sponsor for Vertex University.  

Dr. Altshuler joined Vertex as Chief Scientific Officer in 2015. Since that time Vertex discovered, developed and launched TRIKAFTA®/KAFTRIO®, the first triple therapy for people with cystic fibrosis; CASGEVY™, the first approved medicine using CRISPR/Cas9 gene editing for the treatment of sickle cell disease and transfusion-dependent beta thalassemia; and JOURNAVXTM, the first and only approved non-opioid oral pain signal inhibitor and the first new class of pain medicine approved in more than 20 years. He developed and implemented Vertex’s research strategy and pipeline of Sandbox diseases, and advanced to clinical trials candidate medicines for cystic fibrosis, sickle cell disease, beta thalassemia, pain, APOL1-mediated kidney disease, type 1 diabetes, alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency and myotonic dystrophy type 1. Before joining Vertex as Chief Scientific Officer, he was a member of the company’s board of directors from 2012 to 2014. 

Prior to Vertex, Dr. Altshuler was a Founding Core Member, Deputy Director and Chief Academic Officer at the Broad Institute of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He was Professor of Genetics and Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Adjunct Professor of Biology at MIT and a physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). He helped to lead three major projects that characterized and cataloged human genetic variation — the SNP Consortium, HapMap and 1,000 Genome Projects — and pioneered methods and practice of genetic analysis of common human diseases. His lab led the discovery of hundreds of genetic variants associated with risk of type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, autoimmune diseases and cancer across multiple populations. His lab also developed population genetic models to evaluate the genetic architecture of human complex disease, and to train those models based on empirical data. He continues to teach students as a senior lecturer in genetics and medicine at MGH and Harvard.  

Dr. Altshuler chairs the Scientific Advisory Board of the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the MGH Research Institute Advisory Council. He serves on the Visiting Committee of the MIT Department of Biology, the Scientific Advisory Board of MGH, the Scientific Review Board of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the board of trustees of the Boston Museum of Science. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Medicine, the Association of American Physicians and the American Society of Clinical Investigation (ASCI). He was the first recipient of the ASCI Bruce F. Scharschmidt & Peggy S. Crawford Translational Medicine Distinguished Lectureship and Award, recognizing his outstanding contributions to developing transformative medicines. His other numerous awards include the Curt Stern Award of the American Society of Human Genetics and the Outstanding Scientific Research Award of the American Diabetes Association. The Obama White House named Dr. Altshuler a Champion of Change for his leadership in creating and leading the Global Alliance for Genomics and Health.  

Dr. Altshuler received his bachelor’s degree in life sciences from MIT and his M.D. and Ph.D. in genetics from Harvard Medical School. He completed his clinical training at MGH in internal medicine and in endocrinology, diabetes and metabolism.

Benjamin Neale, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Benjamin Neale is co-director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He also serves as associate director of flagship disease projects for the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Genomic Mechanisms of Disease at the Broad. He is an associate professor in the Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit (ATGU) at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), where he directs the Genomics of Public Health Initiative. He is also an associate professor in medicine at Harvard Medical School (HMS). Neale is strongly committed to gaining insights into the genetics of common, complex human diseases with a heavy emphasis on severe mental illnesses. 

Neale’s research focuses on the generation and analysis of large-scale genomic datasets and the development of statistical methods to interpret such data. He has led large-scale international genetic studies of patients with ADHD, autism, age-related macular degeneration, type 2 diabetes, and metabolic disorders. His lab leads the analysis of the ongoing rare variant discovery efforts for schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Neale’s lab is also developing Hail, a cloud-native scalable analysis platform that has been used to perform systematic genetic association analyses of all ICD codes in the UK Biobank as well as curate the gnomAD database, one of the world’s largest allele frequency references. Neale has also been instrumental in the development of novel genomic assays including designing the exome chip, psychchip, and blended genome exome product, which have been used to assay millions of human DNA samples. 

Neale studied at the University of Chicago and Virginia Commonwealth University, earning a B.Sc. in genetics. He went on to earn his Ph.D. in human genetics from King’s College in London, UK. Neale completed his postdoctoral training in Mark Daly’s laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Elise Robinson, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Elise Robinson is an Associate Professor at the Center for Genomic Medicine and Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital and an institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. She is also an affiliated faculty member with the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Analytic and Translational Genetics Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Robinson’s research focuses on the genetic influences on behavior and cognition. She is interested in using genetic data to understand the biology of neurodevelopmental variation, and to study differences within and between neuropsychiatric disorders. She co-chairs the Autism Working Group of the Psychiatric Genomics Consortium, the NeuroDevelopmental Variability Initiative (NDV) at the Broad Institute, and the NeuroDev project.

The Robinson lab uses techniques from statistical genetics and epidemiology to study common and rare genetic risk factors for severe neuropsychiatric disorders, and develops quantitative approaches for examining their human behavioral and cellular associations.

Robinson received a Sc.D. in psychiatric epidemiology from the Harvard School of Public Health, and completed postdoctoral training in statistical genetics at MGH and the Broad Institute.

Michael Gandal, University of Pennsylvania

Michael Gandal, MD PhD, is the William & Noreen Hetznecker Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Genetics, and Pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania and the Lifespan Brain Institute at Penn Med and the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP). A psychiatrist, Dr. Gandal is the Clinical Director of the Neurodevelopment Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic at Penn and co-Director of the Autism Spectrum Program of Excellence. Dr. Gandal runs the Developmental Neurogenomics research laboratory, which leverages large-scale genetic and genomic approaches to uncover the biological mechanisms contributing to risk and resilience for neurodevelopmental and psychiatric disorders. He received his B.S. in engineering (biomedical computation) from Stanford University and his M.D./Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania. He competed residency training in adult psychiatry at UCLA, and a postdoctoral fellowship in neurogenetics in the laboratory of Dan Geschwind. Dr. Gandal has published more than 100 manuscripts to date and his work has been cited over 20,000 times

Jason Buenrostro, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Jason Buenrostro is an institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard and an associate professor at Harvard University in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology. Buenrostro looks to understand how cells change and adapt in response to our diverse life styles and experiences. To do this, he studies how cells acquire and reverse epigenetic changes and how these changes lead to disease.

At the Broad Institute, Buenrostro co-leads the Gene Regulation Observatory, which brings together a scientific community to generate foundational data and computational models to predict the regulatory role of each base in the human genome across cellular states. Buenrostro leads the Biology of Adversity Project, which seeks to uncover how adverse experiences during development, in childhood, and later in life can inflict molecular “scars” in the genome and body and lead to negative health outcomes. The project’s long-term goal is to pave the way for new diagnostic tools and treatments for individuals exposed to trauma.

Buenrostro is a 2023 recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship for developing methods and technologies that advance our understanding of the mechanisms regulating gene expression.

Buenrostro earned a B.S. in general engineering and a B.S. in biology at Santa Clara University. He did his doctoral work at Stanford University in the Department of Genetics with William Greenleaf and Howard Chang.

Conor Liston, Cornell University

Conor Liston, MD, PhD is a Professor of Neuroscience and Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medicine. The long-term goals of his research program are to define basic mechanisms by which prefrontal cortical brain circuits support learning, memory, and motivation, and to understand how these functions are disrupted in depression, OCD, and other neuropsychiatric disorders. His team is also developing neuroimaging technologies for informing psychiatric diagnosis in human populations and predicting treatment response to transcranial magnetic stimulation and other forms of therapeutic neuromodulation.

He graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College in 2002, and received his PhD and MD from The Rockefeller University and Weill Cornell Medicine in 2007 and 2008, respectively. He subsequently completed his residency in psychiatry at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital and postdoctoral training at Stanford University. He returned to Weill Cornell as an Assistant Professor in 2014. His research has been recognized with awards from the Klingenstein-Simons Foundation Fund, the Rita Allen Foundation, the Dana Foundation, the One Mind Institute, the Pritzker Neuropsychiatric Disorders Consortium, the Hope for Depression Research Foundation, the Wellcome Leap Foundation, the Jeanne and Herbert Siegel Award for Outstanding Medical Research, the Thomas W. Salmon Award from the New York Academy of Medicine, and the Eva King Killam Award from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. He is also a clinically active psychiatrist specializing in the management of treatment-resistant mood disorders.

Jonathan Weissman, Whitehead Institute

Jonathan Weissman investigates how proteins fold into their correct shape and how misfolding impacts disease and normal physiology, while building innovative tools for exploring the organizational principles of biological systems. The Weissman lab studies how cells ensure that proteins fold into their correct shape, as well as the role of protein misfolding in disease and normal physiology. The lab also builds innovative tools for broadly exploring organizational principles of biological systems. These include ribosome profiling, which globally monitors protein translation, CRIPSRi/a for controlling the expression of human genes and rewiring the epigenome, and lineage tracing tools, to record the history of cells. 

 

Julie Kauer, Stanford 

For thirty years Julie Kauer has headed a cellular neurophysiology research lab working in the field of synaptic transmission and plasticity. She received her PhD in Pharmacology from Yale University, and then completed postdoctoral work at UCSF and at Stanford. Since starting her own lab, first at Duke University School of Medicine, then Brown University School of Medicine, and now in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University School of Medicine, she has become a leader in the fields of cellular physiology and synaptic plasticity. She was named Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2012 in recognition of her work on synaptic function, and has served on the Board of Scientific Counselors for NINDS. The Kauer lab uses pharmacological tools, optogenetics, mouse genetics, and brain slice recordings to understand synaptic function and neuronal excitability. Hers was one of the first labs to identify synaptic changes in the brain’s reward circuitry as a consequence of exposure to drugs of abuse. Recently the lab has begun exploring neuronal excitability in cells that control sleep in mouse models of bipolar disorder.

Kelsey Martin, SFARI

Kelsey Martin, MD, PhD is Executive Vice President of the Simons Foundation Autism and Neuroscience programs. In this role, she supports large-scale basic, translational, and clinical neuroscience research around the globe. She is also a Professor Emeritus  on Active Recall in the Department of Biological Chemistry at UCLA, where her research lab studies the molecular and cell biology of long-term memory, with a focus on how experience alters connectivity between neurons. Her laboratory has pioneered  studies on the regulation of gene expression within neurons during long-term memory  formation, highlighting a critical role for signaling between the synapse and nucleus and  for local regulation of protein synthesis at the synapse. Deeply committed to academic  medicine, Dr. Martin served as Dean of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA  from 2015-2021. As Dean, she established programs in precision health and computational medicine, founded a master’s program in genetic counseling, and  developed a series of interdepartmental research initiatives spanning basic through  clinical research. After receiving a BA in English from Harvard, Dr. Martin was a public  health Peace Corps volunteer in the Democratic Republic of Congo. She then pursued MD/PhD training at Yale University, receiving her MD and her PhD in Molecular  Biophysics and Biochemistry in 1992. She undertook postdoctoral training in  neurobiology with Nobel Laureate Eric Kandel at Columbia University and joined the UCLA faculty in 1999. Among her service roles, Dr. Martin is President of  the Board of Directors of the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience and is a  member of the Board of Directors of the W. M. Keck Foundation, National Academy of  Medicine Council and HHMI Scientific Review Board. She was elected to the American  Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Medicine in 2016, and to  the National Academy of Sciences in 2024.

 

Toby Ferguson, Voyager

Ferguson has been Chief Medical Officer at Voyager since joining the company in 2024. Ferguson held positions of increasing responsibility at Biogen, most recently serving as Vice President, Head of Neuromuscular Development Unit. During his tenure, he built and developed teams focused on neuromuscular and movement disorders, overseeing strategy for these areas across Biogen R&D. Notably, he led the team that developed QALSODY® (tofersen), the first genetically targeted therapy for SOD1 amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS); this therapeutic received the first accelerated approval based on reduction of neurofilament, a surrogate biomarker pioneered by Ferguson, his team, and the broader ALS community. Overall, his teams at Biogen were responsible for nine successfully executed INDs and three proof-of-concept clinical trials and filings. Prior to joining Biogen, Ferguson was Assistant Professor of Neurology, Shriners Pediatric Research Center and Temple University School of Medicine. He received his M.D. and Ph.D. from University of Florida College of Medicine and his B.S. from University of Florida, Gainesville. He also completed a residency in neurology and a neuromuscular fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania.

Olli Pietilainen, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Dr. Olli Pietiläinen, PhD is a group leader and a senior scientist at the Neuroscience Center of the Helsinki Institute of Life Science at the University of Helsinki and a visiting researcher at the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard. He is also an affiliate senior scientist at the Institute for Molecular Medicine Finland (FIMM). Olli received his doctorate in molecular Genetics at University of Helsinki in professor Aarno Palotie’s group focusing on the genetics of severe mental disorders. He trained as a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University with Professor Kevin Eggan where he specialized in genomics of iPSC-derived neuronal models.
An expert in complex disease genetics and functional genomics, Olli Pietiläinen is co-leading patient sample collections in Finland including the Northern Finnish Intellectual Disability study and SUPER biomarker study (SUPERB). His research aims to uncover the genetic foundations and biological processes involved in serious psychiatric and neurodevelopmental conditions. To achieve this, he integrates genetic studies with longitudinal health register data and various omics approaches, along with genomic profiling and molecular cell biology techniques in human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived models of disease-relevant cell types.

Carrie Bearden, University of California Los Angeles

Dr. Carrie E. Bearden is a Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Psychology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Dr. Bearden received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania and completed her clinical training at UC San Diego. She joined the UCLA faculty in 2003. Her work aims to understand neurobiological risk factors for the development of severe mental illness in youth, both in clinically defined high-risk cohorts and in highly penetrant genetic conditions. She is particularly known for her research taking a ’genetics first’ approach to studying
brain mechanisms underlying the development of severe mental illness. Dr. Bearden is the Director of the UCLA Center for Assessment and Prevention of Prodromal States (CAPPS), a clinical research program for youth at high risk for psychosis and co-directs UCLA’s
Neurogenetics Training Program. She has over 400 peer-reviewed publications and is among the world’s most highly cited scientists, according to Clarivate, Web of Science. Currently, she serves as Deputy (Reviews) Editor for the journal Biological Psychiatry, as Chair of the DSM-V Serious Mental Disorders Committee and is President of the Society of Biological Psychiatry. She is a Fellow of the Association for Psychological Science and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Dr. Bearden has received numerous awards and honors, both for her research achievements and for teaching and mentorship, including the ACNP Joel Elkes Research Award. the Society of Biological Psychiatry Gold Medal Award, and an NIH Method to Extend Research in Time (MERIT) award.

Lisa Genova

Lisa Genova graduated valedictorian, summa cum laude from Bates College with a degree in Biopsychology and has a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Harvard University. Acclaimed as the Oliver Sacks of fiction and the Michael Crichton of brain science, Lisa has captured a special place in contemporary fiction, writing stories that are equally inspired by neurological conditions and our shared human condition. She is the New York Times bestselling author of the novels STILL ALICE, LEFT NEGLECTED, LOVE ANTHONY, and INSIDE THE O'BRIENS. Her first work of nonfiction, REMEMBER: The Science of Memory and the Art of Forgetting was an instant New York Times bestseller. Her newest novel, MORE OR LESS MADDY, was released January 2025 and became an instant #1 bestseller in Canada.

STILL ALICE spent 59 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into 37 languages. It was adapted into a film starring Julianne Moore, Alec Baldwin, Kristen Stewart, and Kate Bosworth. Julianne Moore won the 2015 Best Actress Oscar for her role as Alice Howland. Film adaptations for INSIDE THE O'BRIENS, EVERY NOTE PLAYED, LEFT NEGLECTED, and MORE OR LESS MADDY are in development. STILL ALICE was adapted for the stage by Christine Mary Dunford and premiered at the Lookingglass Theatre in Chicago in April 2013. It has since toured worldwide.

In 2015, Lisa was named one of the U.S. Top 50 Influencers in Aging by Next Avenue. She has appeared on Live with Kelly &Ryan, the TODAY show, CNN, PBS Newshour, and NPR and has been featured in the PBS specials Build a Better Memory Through Science and Supercharge Your Brain, as well as the documentary films To Not Fade Away and Have You Heard About Greg. Her TED talks on memory and Alzheimer's have been viewed over 11 million times. A sought-after speaker/edutainer, she has headlined in speaker series alongside Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Gloria Steinem, Malala Yousafzai, Bryan Stevenson, and Goldie Hawn.

She received The Pell Center Prize for Story in the Public Square, for "distinguished storytelling that has enriched the public dialogue," The Sargent and Eunice Shriver Profiles in Dignity Award, The Global Genes RARE Champions of Hope Award, and The American College of Neuropsychopharmacology Media Award for "informing the public about treatment and ongoing research in medical illness," and the Southwest Florida Reading Festival Distinguished Author Award. She has received an Honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from Bates College, The Alzheimer's Association's Rita Hayworth Award, The Huntington’s Disease Society of America Community Awareness Award, and the Grubby Award for literary excellence.

She serves on the Advisory Boards for The Women's Alzheimer's Movement, HFC (Hilarity for Charity), and Compassionate Care ALS.

Panos Roussos, Icahn School of Medicine

Panos Roussos, MD, PhD, is the Endowed Professor of Translational Psychiatry and Professor of Psychiatry, Genetics and Genomic Sciences at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, where he directs the Center for Disease Neurogenomics. He also leads the Center for Precision Medicine and Translational Therapeutics at the James J. Peters VA Medical Center. Dr. Roussos’s research integrates genetics, single-cell and spatial genomics, and network biology to decode cell-type-specific mechanisms in the human brain, to guide therapeutic discovery for neuropsychiatric and neurodegenerative diseases. He is a principal investigator in multiple large-scale consortia, including PsychENCODE, GENESIS, and PsychAD, and has pioneered multi-ancestry genomic approaches to improve target discovery and therapeutic translation.

Morgan Sheng, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard

Morgan Sheng is Core Institute Member, and Co-Director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; and Professor of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT. Previously, Sheng was head of Neuroscience at Genentech, a leading biotech company (2008-2019); and Professor of Neuroscience and Biology at MIT (2001-2008), as well as Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Sheng holds a BA from Oxford University (UK), a medical degree from London University (UK), and a PhD from Harvard University (US). Dr. Sheng is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society (UK), Member of the National Academy of Medicine (USA), Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (UK), and Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (USA). A past recipient of several major awards (including Julius Axelrod Prize from the Society for Neuroscience, IPSEN Prize for Neuronal Plasticity), Dr. Sheng is author of more than 200 publications focused on brain synapses and the mechanisms of nervous system diseases.

James Cronican, Boehringer Ingelheim

Vice President, Head of Experimental Medicine Neuroscience & Mental Health at Boehringer Ingelheim

Fiona Elwood, Janssen

Fiona Elwood is a Neurodegeneration Disease Area Stronghold (DAS) Leader at Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and is located in Cambridge, MA. Fiona has extensive experience in neuroscience and neurodegenerative research and development, a passion for bringing relief to patients and their caregivers, and dedication to scientific excellence and exceptional teamwork. She brings deep expertise in molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration, drug discovery and development.

In her current role as the neurodegeneration disease area stronghold leader at Janssen, the pharmaceutical companies of J&J, she is responsible for the scientific strategy of the neurodegeneration portfolio from target selection through PIII clinical development. Previously, she was the Interim Global Head of Neuroscience and Head of Neurodegeneration at Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research. Before Novartis, she spent nearly 10 years at Merck Research Laboratories in positions of increasing responsibility in both neuroscience and immunology therapeutic areas.

Fiona received her doctorate in Neuroscience from the University of London, UK and completed her postdoctoral work in Neuroscience at Stanford University.

Steve Paul, Seaport Therapeutics 

Steven M. Paul, M.D. is the Founder and Chair of the Board of both Seaport Therapeutics and Rapport Therapeutics and a Venture Partner at Third Rock Ventures. Dr. Paul is the former President and CEO of  Karuna Therapeutics (now Bristol Myers Squibb), a biotechnology company developing medicines for  schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease and pain. He is also a co-founder and former board member of Sage  Therapeutics and Voyager Therapeutics. Dr. Paul was the Founding Director of the Appel Alzheimer’s  Disease Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medical College, as well as professor of neuroscience,  psychiatry and pharmacology. He is currently a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Washington  University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Dr. Paul spent 17 years at Eli Lilly and Company, during which  time he served in several key leadership roles, including Executive Vice President of Science and  Technology and President of the Lilly Research Laboratories. Prior to Lilly, Dr. Paul served as a  Laboratory/Branch Chief and the Scientific Director of the National Institute of Mental Health. Dr. Paul  has authored or co-authored more than 600 papers and book chapters. He is an elected fellow of the  American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the National Academy of  Medicine. Dr. Paul is the chairman of the board of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Paul received his bachelor’s degree in biology and psychology from Tulane University, and his M.S.  and M.D. degrees from Tulane University School of Medicine.