Our team
Leadership
Karim Dabbagh, Ph.D.
President and
Chief Executive Officer
Joseph Dal Porto, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer
Todd DeSantis
Co-founder and Vice President of Informatics
Satish Viswanatham
Technical Advisor
Pete Roddy
CFO Advisor
Laura Brege
Senior Advisor
Karim Dabbagh, Ph.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer
Karim Dabbagh was appointed President and CEO of Second Genome in 2018, which he joined as the Chief Scientific Officer in 2014. Prior to that, he served as Vice President of R&D at Pfizer where he led the Immunoregulation department, an R&D group focused on innovative approaches to elicit homeostatic immune responses for the treatment of immune related disorders. At Pfizer, he also led External R&D Innovation for Immunology, Neurosciences and Cardiovascular/Metabolic Therapy Areas. Before joining Pfizer, Karim was the founder of Modus BioMedicine, a biotechnology company focused on treatments for transplantation and autoimmune disease. Leading to that, Karim spent nine years at Roche in Inflammation Discovery Research. Karim obtained his PhD in Biochemistry from University College, London and his BSc (Hons) in Biotechnology from Imperial College, London. He completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco and at Stanford University where he worked on elucidating the role played by the microbiome in the hygiene hypothesis.
Joseph Dal Porto, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer
Joseph Dal Porto was appointed Chief Scientific Officer of Second Genome in January 2022. Before coming to Second Genome, Joe served as a Vice President in Pfizer’s Emerging Science & Innovation division and Site Head for Pfizer’s Centers for Therapeutic Innovation (CTI) – West Coast, where his research focused on rapid translational drug development through academic-industry collaborations. At CTI, Joe directed the application of biopharmaceutical know-how and technology to bring ground-breaking scientific innovations to the clinic in multiple therapeutic areas. Prior to Pfizer, Joe was cofounder and Director of Preclinical Research and Development at Modus BioMedicine, a biotherapeutics company exploring therapeutic modulation and inhibition of immune cells in disease. This company was a spin-out from his previous position as a Principal Scientist with Roche Palo Alto, where he supervised in vivo pharmacology activities in support of small and large molecule programs and was part of the Translational Clinical Biomarker team for Roche/Genentech’s CD20 franchise (Rituxanâ, Ocrevusâ, and Gazyvaâ). Joe received a BS in Biochemistry from The Johns Hopkins University and has a PhD in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Maryland, School of Medicine. His postdoctoral training, under an Ares Serano Foundation Fellowship, was conducted at the National Jewish Health Institute in Denver, Colorado and investigated aberrant immunoreceptor signaling in autoimmunity and hematological malignancies.
Todd DeSantis
Co-founder and Vice President of Informatics
Todd DeSantis is Second Genome Co-founder and Vice President of Informatics. Todd has 17 years of experience designing and implementing bioinformatics solutions for analyzing microbial community dynamics. At Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory he led the development of novel microbiome assays and analysis pipelines as a Molecular Microbial Ecology Software Developer. He is the chief architect of GreengenesTM, an international effort to catalog global microbial diversity that provides microbial ecologists with reference databases for DNA quality assessment, alignment and classification. Todd also served as an analyst for the NIH Human Microbiome Project and has published over 60 scientific papers. At Second Genome, he manages all informatics work including identifying and recruiting microbiome scientist leaders, integration of multi-omics pipelines, cloud deployment for big-data analytics, and therapeutic pathway discovery.
Satish Viswanatham
Technical Advisor
Satish Viswanatham joined Second Genome in October 2019. Satish is an innovator in data platforms, pioneering the development of complex computational pipelines on next generation clouds, as well as novel machine-learning models designed to address critical challenges in various human diseases. Prior to Second Genome, Satish was part of many unicorn startups that successfully exited or went IPO, where he led the development of the platforms, scaled up technical stacks using modern software architecture and up leveled many teams. Satish mentors other engineering leaders regularly and wants to contribute more to the software community.
Pete Roddy
CFO Advisor
Pete Roddy currently serves as a finance and accounting consultant to Second Genome and other biopharmaceutical companies. Previously, he served as SVP, Chief Accounting Officer of Cytokinetics, a biopharmaceutical company focused on impaired muscle function, from 2017 to 2019 and as a consultant since 2019. He was also Chief Financial Officer of Pain Therapeutics, which works in the neuroscience space, from 2002 to 2017. Earlier in his career, Mr. Roddy held a variety of senior management positions at a cardiovascular-focused biopharmaceutical company, COR Therapeutics, including SVP, Finance and Chief Financial Officer from 2000 and 2002. He also served as a member of the Board of Directors of Vermilion, from 2010 to 2016. Mr. Roddy received his B.S. in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley.
Laura Brege
Senior Advisor
Laura Brege currently serves as a senior advisor to Second Genome. Ms. Brege also serves as senior advisor to BridgeBio Pharma (BBIO), a biotechnology company focused on creating medicines that target well-characterized genetic diseases. Previously, Ms. Brege was EVP and Chief Operating Officer of Onyx Pharmaceuticals (ONXX), an oncology biotechnology company acquired by Amgen, and Chief Financial Officer of COR Therapeutics (CORR), a biotechnology company specializing in cardiovascular disease, acquired by Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Earlier, Ms. Brege served as Chief Financial Officer of Flextronics, (FLEX) a global technology manufacturer, and as Treasurer of The Cooper Companies (COO).
Ms. Brege currently serves on the Board of Directors of several public life science companies, including Acadia Pharmaceuticals (ACAD), Pacira Pharmaceuticals (PCRX) and Mirum Pharmaceuticals (MIRM). She is also Chair of the international non-profit educational organization, CIEE. Ms. Brege earned a B.A. from Ohio University and an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago.
Advisors
Prof. Reinhard Dummer, M.D.
Professor of the University of Zurich and Vice-Chairman of the Department of Dermatology in the University Hospital of Zürich, Switzerland.
Prof. Jerrold M. Olefsky, M.D.
Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism and the Associate Dean of Scientific Affairs for the UCSD School of Medicine.
Arun Sanyal, M.D.
Executive Director, Education Core, Clinical Center for Translational Research at Virginia Commonwealth University.
R. Balfour Sartor, M.D.
Midgette Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology & Immunology, and Co-Director of the UNC Multidisciplinary Center for IBD Research and Treatment.
Prof. Reinhard Dummer, M.D.
Professor of the University of Zurich and Vice-Chairman of the Department of Dermatology in the University Hospital of Zürich, Switzerland.
Professor Reinhard Dummer is Professor of the University of Zurich and Vice-Chairman of the Department of Dermatology in the University Hospital of Zürich, Switzerland and is a key thought leader in worldwide cutaneous oncology. Currently he is heading of the Skin Cancer Unit and the Clinical Trial Unit of the Department of Dermatology. Professor Dummer began his medical education in hematology and oncology before successfully completing his dermatology residency in Würzburg, Germany, and Zürich in 1992. He is Board Certified in allergology, clinical immunology, dermatology and dermatopathology.
Professor Dummer’s principal research interests are molecular biology, immunology and immunotherapy of cutaneous malignancies, including cutaneous lymphomas and melanomas. He has published more than 741 papers with a cumulative impact factor of more than 6372. He was past-president of the Melanoma Project Group of the Swiss Institute for Applied Cancer Research since 1999 -2016, is a member of German National Academy of Sciences (Leopoldina) and is past board member of the Society for Melanoma Research and past President of the International Society for Cutaneous Lymphomas. He is a founding and board member of the European Association of Dermato-Oncology (EADO), ESMO, URPP and past President of the European Society for Dermatological Research (ESDR).
In the last 20 years, he has developed a leading skin cancer center. This center offers best medical care, a network of clinical trials reaching from phase I to phase III. His contributions are acknowledge in many publications in outstanding journals such as New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Lancet Oncology, Press etc. Locally he is intensify cooperation with basic research group at the University and the federal University (ETH). This has resulted in translation work improving our understanding of cutaneous malignancies.
Prof. Jerrold M. Olefsky, M.D.
Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism and the Associate Dean of Scientific Affairs for the UCSD School of Medicine.
Jerrold M. Olefsky, MD, is Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism and the Associate Dean of Scientific Affairs for the UCSD School of Medicine. His work has been instrumental in defining the basic genetic and cellular mechanisms responsible for the pathogenesis of Type II Diabetes, metabolic syndrome, and other diseases. Dr. Olefsky is a member of the Institute of Medicine and was the 1998 recipient of the American Diabetes Association’s Banting Medal for Scientific Achievement.
Arun Sanyal, M.D.
Executive Director, Education Core, Clinical Center for Translational Research at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Dr. Arun Sanyal is a specialist in chronic liver disease and its outcomes. He is the Executive Director, Education Core, Clinical Center for Translational Research at Virginia Commonwealth University. He previously served as a Chair of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) NASH Research Network and is the current Chair of the Liver Study Section at NIH. He is also the Academic and Steering Committee Co-Chair of The Liver Forum. His research into liver diseases has led to recommendations related to variceal hemorrhage, ascites, hepatorenal syndrome, hepatic encephalopathy and NASH. Over the past 10 years, his research interests have focused on clinical studies on nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), the role of the microbiome in NAFLD and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) and the development of effective therapies.
R. Balfour Sartor, M.D.
Midgette Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology & Immunology, and Co-Director of the UNC Multidisciplinary Center for IBD Research and Treatment.
R. Balfour Sartor, MD, is the Midgette Distinguished Professor of Medicine, Microbiology & Immunology, and Co-Director of the UNC Multidisciplinary Center for IBD Research and Treatment. He is a nationally and internationally recognized authority on mucosal immunology and inflammatory bowel disease. His research focuses on better defining mechanisms of chronic intestinal inflammation, mucosal homeostasis and identifying new areas for therapeutic intervention for patients with inflammatory bowel disease. His lab investigates the ability of specific components of the intestinal microbiota to induce chronic T-cell mediated inflammation in genetically susceptible hosts as compared to a protective mucosal immune response in normal hosts. Additional studies explore the ability for dietary products to modify the composition and function of intestinal microbiota. Recent work has extended these microbial-host interactions to analysis of human samples, comparing healthy subjects to both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis patients. Dr. Sator is currently the Chief Medical Advisor to the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America (CCFA).
Board of Directors
Corey Goodman, Ph.D.
Co-Founder and Chair of the Board
Corey Goodman is a scientist, educator, and entrepreneur. Dr. Goodman is currently a Managing Partner of venBio Partners LLC, a venture capital firm focused on innovative therapeutics for major unmet medical needs. Dr. Goodman is Chair of the board of two biotechnology companies (Second Genome and Alexo), and a member of the board of two others (Checkmate and NFlection). He chaired another company (Labrys) until its acquisition by Teva.
He spent 25 years as Professor of Biology at Stanford University and then Evan Rauch Chair of Neurobiology at Berkeley, where he was Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, Head of the Neurobiology Division, and co-founder and Director of the Wills Neuroscience Institute. Since moving into the private sector, he is currently Adjunct Professor of Neuroscience in the Wills Neuroscience Institute at U.C. Berkeley. He received his B.S. degree from Stanford University, his Ph.D. from University of California Berkeley, and trained as a Helen Hay Whitney postdoctoral fellow at U.C. San Diego.
Dr. Goodman is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and American Philosophical Society, and recipient of many honors including the Alan T. Waterman Award, Canada Gairdner Biomedical Award, March-of-Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology, Reeve-Irvine Research Medal, and Dawson Prize in Genetics from Trinity College Dublin.
Dr. Goodman co-founded seven biotechnology companies (including Exelixis, Renovis, Second Genome, Labrys, and Alexo) and led one of them (Renovis) as CEO from a private to public company until its acquisition. He was recruited as President and founder of Pfizer’s Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center and a member of Pfizer’s executive leadership team.
Amongst his many public policy roles, Dr. Goodman is a member of the University of California Innovation Council, a member of the board of the Pacific Institute, former Chair of the National Research Council’s Board on Life Sciences, former Chair of the California Council on Science and Technology, and past President of the McKnight Endowment Fund for Neuroscience.
Karim Dabbagh, Ph.D.
President and Chief Executive Officer
Karim Dabbagh was appointed President and CEO of Second Genome in 2018, which he joined as the Chief Scientific Officer in 2014. Prior to that, he served as Vice President of R&D at Pfizer where he led the Immunoregulation department, an R&D group focused on innovative approaches to elicit homeostatic immune responses for the treatment of immune related disorders. At Pfizer, he also led External R&D Innovation for Immunology, Neurosciences and Cardiovascular/Metabolic Therapy Areas. Before joining Pfizer, Karim was the founder of Modus BioMedicine, a biotechnology company focused on treatments for transplantation and autoimmune disease. Leading to that, Karim spent nine years at Roche in Inflammation Discovery Research. Karim obtained his PhD in Biochemistry from University College, London and his BSc (Hons) in Biotechnology from Imperial College, London. He completed postdoctoral fellowships at the Cardiovascular Research Institute at the University of California, San Francisco and at Stanford University where he worked on elucidating the role played by the microbiome in the hygiene hypothesis.
Mike Carusi
Board Member
Mike is a General Partner and Team Leader of Lightstone Ventures (LSV) and focuses on investments in the biopharmaceutical and medical device sectors. He is based in the firm’s Menlo Park, CA office, where he also serves as a General Partner at Advanced Technology Ventures (ATV). His representative investments include Altura Medical (acquired by Lombard), Ardian (acquired by Medtronic), EndoGastric Solutions, GI Dynamics (ASX: GID), Holaira, MicroVention (acquired by Terumo), Plexxikon (acquired by Daiichi Sankyo), PowerVision, Second Genome and TranS1 (NASDAQ: TSON).
Featured on the Forbes Midas List of top technology and life science investors, Mike is a recognized thought leader in the industry and a frequent speaker at healthcare conferences. He serves as a Lecturer at the Amos Tuck School of Business Administration at Dartmouth College where he also sits on the Tuck MBA Advisory Board. In addition, Mike is a Director on the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) Board of Directors where he is active in helping to shape policy affecting both innovation and healthcare. Lastly, Mike has been heavily involved with several programs at Stanford University including the Stanford Biodesign Program and, more recently, the Stanford Center for Clinical and Translational Research and Education (Spectrum) where he currently serves as a Member of the Oversight Committee.
Earlier in his career, Mike served as the Director of Business Development for Inhale Therapeutic Systems (now Nektar Therapeutics, NASDAQ: NKTR), a venture-backed pulmonary drug delivery company that went public in 1994. At Inhale, Mike led partnering activities with a number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies in the U.S., Europe, and Japan. Mike also was a Principal at The Wilkerson Group, a leading management consulting firm focused exclusively on healthcare. At The Wilkerson Group, Mike helped establish the firm’s offices in London and San Francisco.
Barbara J. Dalton, Ph.D.
Board Member
Barbara Dalton, Ph.D., is Senior Managing Partner and Vice President of Worldwide Business Development at Pfizer Ventures. Barbara has led Pfizer Ventures since joining Pfizer in 2007. The venture team has invested in over 100 companies and approximately 20 funds pursuing products, technologies and services, relevant to all aspects of Pfizer’s business, since inception in 2004. The team has been successful in fulfilling their goal of providing financial and strategic returns to Pfizer. Barbara has overall responsibility for Pfizer Ventures and directly manages investments in all funds and the portfolio companies: AMRA, Artios, Cydan, Imara, Ixchelsis, Levicept, Ravenna, Second Genome and Simcha. She also chairs the Healthcare Advisory Board of the Partnership Fund for NYC.
Barbara’s pharmaceutical career started in the Immunology Division of Smith Kline & French Research Laboratories. She moved to venture investing in 1993 when she joined their venture capital group, S.R. One, Limited. In 2000 Barbara became a General Partner in the private venture fund, EuclidSR Partners, that was supported by GSK (then SB) as a sister fund to S.R. One, Limited.
Barbara received her undergraduate degree from Penn State and her Ph.D. from the Medical College of Pennsylvania (now Drexel University School of Medicine).
Jason Lettmann
Board Member
Jason Lettmann is a Partner of Lightstone Ventures as well as a Partner on the Life Science team at Morgenthaler Ventures. Jason invests in biopharmaceutical and medical device companies and brings over 15 years of operating and venture experience in the life science sector. Jason currently serves on the Board of Directors of Alexo Therapeutics, FIRE1, Promedior, Ra Pharmaceuticals, Relievant Medsystems, Second Genome, and Vapotherm. Jason also recently established Lightstone’s Europe office in Dublin, Ireland, to expand the firm’s investment activities to Europe and currently serves as Director of Lightstone Capital Management Ireland Ltd.
Before joining Morgenthaler in 2009, Jason was a Vice President at Split Rock Partners where he focused on early-stage venture investments in medical devices and the life sciences. During his time at Split Rock, Jason was involved with the firm’s investments in Ardian (acquired by Medtronic), Cabochon Aesthetics (acquired by Ulthera), Atritech (acquired by Boston Scientific), EBR Systems, Entellus Medical (NASDAQ: ENTL), Evalve (acquired by Abbott Labs), and Miramar Labs. Jason was also previously a co-founder and on the Board of Tarsus Medical before its acquisition by Integra Life Sciences in 2013 as well as involved with the founding of Zyga Technologies.
Prior to Split Rock, Jason’s experience includes tenure with Guidant Corporation’s Compass Group which focused on corporate venture investing and business development, as well as a consultant with Accenture’s Health and Life Science practice, where he advised clients across the medical device, pharmaceutical, and healthcare payer sectors. Jason also previously worked as a Genetic Research Analyst at the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics.
Carol Nuechterlein, J.D.
Board Member
Carol Nuechterlein has headed the Roche Venture Fund since 2001. Prior to her current position, she worked in the pharmaceutical/biotech industry as an attorney for ten years. She joined Roche from SangStat in Fremont California where she was General Counsel.
She currently serves as a director at AveXis, Inc. and Lysosomal Therapeutics, Inc. and Second Genome and a board observer on Allakos and 23andMe. Carole also led the investments on Alios, Ambit, Ambrx, Conatus, Envoy, Nereus & Pharmasset and served as a board observer for all of these except Pharmasset.
She has a BA from Valparaiso University and a JD from University of Michigan.
More information on the Roche Venture Fund can be found at www.venturefund.roche.com.
Heather Berger, Ph.D.
Board Member
Heather is a Principal at SR One; she joined in the Spring of 2019, and has been involved in investments in Dren Bio, MiroBio and Design Therapeutics. Before joining SR One, Heather worked as a Principal at Sofinnova Ventures, and prior to that, as an Equity Research Analyst at two boutique Investment Banks. Heather was formally a chemist at the Astellas Research Institute focused on early stage hit-to-lead discovery, and served as Adjunct Faculty at Northwestern University.
Heather received her Ph.D. in Chemistry at Northwestern University, MSc. in Organic Chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science, and B.S. from Tufts University.