Driven to solve medicine’s toughest problems. We are Serinus Bio.
Our values
Patients first, data second.
Biology is complex. We love that.
It didn’t work? Try again!
Rigorous science builds a rigorous company.
Team
Trey Ideker
Scientific Co-Founder
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Trey Ideker is a Professor of Medicine, Bioengineering and Computer Science at the University of California, San Diego. A world leader in systems and network biology, Trey has pioneered the use of machine learning to build mechanistic models of cancer and other human diseases. He directs or co-directs the National Resource for Network Biology, and the Cancer Cell Map and Psychiatric Cell Map Initiatives. His work has appeared in publications such as Nature, Science, and Cell and has been cited >92K times.
Maxwell Sherman
Co-Founder & CTO
Adam Yaari
Co-Founder & CEO
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Prior to founding Serinus, Max spent 15+ years at the intersection of medicine, biology, and mathematics at MIT, Harvard Medical School, University of Cambridge, and Brown University. He has devoted his career to developing novel tools and treatments for underserved patient populations.
Max is the recipient of multiple national and international research awards, and his work has been published in top journals, including Science, Nature Biotechnology, and Nature Neuroscience.
Max received his PhD in computational biology from MIT, masters in mathematics from the University of Cambridge, and BS in applied mathematics & biology from Brown University.
Fun fact: Max began his medical journey by spending 5 years working in the back of an ambulance.
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Prior to founding Serinus, Adam spearheaded AI research for biomedical applications, including at Microsoft and Flagship Pioneering. With 15+ years of leadership and entrepreneurship experience, Adam is passionate about building computation-first therapeutic platforms to expand precision medicine to more patients.
Adam has co-authored multiple peer-reviewed papers with Max and his work has been published in top journals and conferences, including Nature Biotechnology, PNAS, and ICLR.
Adam received his PhD and MS in computer science from MIT, MSc in computer science and mathematics from the Weizmann Institute of Science, and graduated Summa Cuma Laude with dual majors in computer science and neuroscience from the Bar-Ilan University.
Fun fact: before his academic trajectory Adam served as a Navy elite unit team commander.
Eduardo Farias
Senior Director
of Biology
Avya Witenberg
Operations Manager
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Prior to joining Serinus Bio Eduardo served as a Professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and a founding team member at HiberCell. With over 35 years of cancer research experience, Eduardo has seen two compounds from early discovery to Phase 2 clinical trials, published numerous papers in top-tier journals, and participated in several NIH/NCI and DoD review panels and study sections.
Eduardo specializes in cancer metastasis, minimal residual disease, tumor dormancy, stress biology, epigenetic reprogramming, and complex preclinical systems.
He received his PhD from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, where his thesis was selected for the Best Thesis on Basic Sciences Award.
Fun fact: Eduardo began his academic journey as an oceanologist diving with whales.
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Prior to joining Serinus, Avya served as a strategic operations and HR operator for 10+ years. Avya specializes in aligning HR strategies and operation workflows with business objectives. In her previous positions in business operations, she managed complex projects and implemented financial processes to enhance operational efficiency.
Avya holds an MBA in International Management and Leadership from the Lauder Business School University in Vienna, Austria. She also graduated with her BA in Human Services with honors, specializing in Human Resources and customer services from the Yezreel Valley Collage.
Fun fact: Avya was a dedicated ballet dancer for over 10 years.
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Prior to joining Serinus Bio, Oliver spent over five years honing his skills in biology and computation. Starting out in the wet-lab, Oliver contributed to several research projects ranging from optimizing nanoparticle drug delivery vehicles to understanding antibiotic resistance in bacteria. Realizing that he was better with his hands on a keyboard, Oliver transitioned to computational research, working with Max and Adam to uncover novel cancer drivers with deep learning in the Berger Lab at MIT. More recently, Oliver has developed cutting-edge somatic CNV detection algorithms at The Broad Institute in the Getz lab.
Oliver graduated Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Pennsylvania, where he double majored in Biophysics and Computer Science.
Fun Fact: Oliver was once trapped in Antarctica for 4 extra days on an expedition, nearly running out of supplies.
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Prior to Serinus, Sabine served as the VP of Drug Discovery at Ikena Oncology, managing a cross-functional team of medicinal chemistry, DMPK, biochemistry/biophysics, structural research, and computational chemistry. Prior to Ikena Oncology, Sabine held roles of increasing responsibility in computational and medicinal chemistry across Berlex Biosciences, Boehringer Ingelheim, Forma Therapeutics, H3 Biomedicine, and Foghorn Therapeutics.
With 25+ years of experience, Sabine has contributed to the discovery and early development of multiple clinical candidates, most recently she led a MEK-RAF molecular glue program from discovery to the clinic. She is a co-inventor of over 50 patent filings.
Sabine earned her BA and PhD in Chemistry from the University of California, Davis.
Fun fact: Sabine traveled all the way to Hudson Bay, Canada, just to see polar bears in their natural habitat.
Francisco Guedes
Research Scientist
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Inspired by his father’s battle against cancer (four times over!!!) Francisco joined Serinus Bio as a Columbia-trained Biomedical Engineer to defeat cancer resistance. The personal resilience and leadership skills Francisco is deploying in the lab were seeded and tested many times over on the soccer pitch as an elite athlete in Portugal and the US.
Francisco graduated Summa Cum Laude with his BS in Health Sciences from the University of New Haven and MS in Biomedical Engineering from Columbia University, where he also worked in an immune-oncology lab throughout his two-year training.
Fun Fact: Francisco captained every team he ever played for.
Chandni Khandwala
Senior Research Scientist
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Prior to joining Serinus Bio, Chandni unveiled the mechanism for ionic stress sensing and signaling in mammalian cells. Chandni’s passion for cell biology started as she explored combinatorial therapies for complex genetic vulnerabilities in ovarian cancer.
With 12+ years of experience at the bench, Chandni is an expert at cutting-edge molecular biology tools that she now brings to bear for identifying key molecular targets that drive cancer treatment resistance.
Chandni received her PhD in biochemistry from Stanford University and her BS in biochemistry and cell biology from UCSD.
Sabine Ruppel
SVP of Drug Discovery
Oliver Priebe
Senior Bioinformatics Scientist
Bonnie Berger
Technical Co-Founder
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Bonnie Berger is the Simons Professor of Mathematics at MIT. She is a foundational pioneer of computational molecular biology, having contributed widely to nearly every domain of genomics. She and her students have fundamentally advanced structure-based protein determination, drug-target and target-target interaction prediction, and genome sequence analysis. She is the recipient of the distinguished ISCB Senior Scientist Award and an elected member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Scientific Advisory Board
Eliezer Van Allen
Scientific Advisor
William Hahn
Scientific Advisor
Peter Hammerman
Scientific Advisor
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Peter is the Chief Scientific Officer of MOMA Therapeutics, where he is responsible for overseeing a pipeline of oncology therapeutics from target identification through early clinical development. Peter is a widely recognized leader in oncology therapeutic development, having spent nearly five years as global head of translational research at the Novartis Institutes of Biomedical Research and eight years as a physician-scientist at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Peter has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers on topics such as experimental therapeutics, genomics, and biomarker development.
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William Hahn is the William Rosenberg Professor of Medicine in the Department of Medical Oncology at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, an Institute Member of the Broad Institute, and Executive Vice President and the Chief Operating Officer at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Hahn and his lab have pioneered functional genomic approaches to identify and validate cancer targets. These tools are now used worldwide to discover and validate molecularly targeted cancer therapies.
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Eliezer Van Allen is the Chief of the Division of Population Sciences at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His lab advances precision oncology using new techniques in molecular biology and machine learning to study resistance and metastasis mechanisms. His research fundamentally shaped understanding of resistance to Raf inhibitors and immunotherapy, leading to improved treatment responses in otherwise refractory patients.
CAREERS
Want to help us build a world where every cancer patient has a safe and effective treatment option?
We are looking for passionate scientists, researchers and engineers who want to use technology to revolutionize oncology.