Micha Breakstone, Ph.D.

CEO and Co-Founder

Repeat entrepreneur who was previously Co-Founder and President of Chorus.ai (acquired for $575m by ZoomInfo) and Founder and CEO of NeuraLight.ai (raised over $30M within 12 months). Before that he sold his NLP business unit to Intel in 2014, and helped build several Israeli unicorns “from the outside”. He has broad experience designing Machine Learning systems, and holds a Masters in Math, and a Ph.D. in Cognitive Science.

Olivier Pourquie, Ph.D.

Scientific Co-Founder

Olivier Pourquié is the Frank Burr Mallory Professor of Pathology and Professor in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School, and in the department of Pathology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Previously, he was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. His work on the segmentation clock was recognized as one of the milestones in developmental biology of the 20th century by Nature Magazine. Elected President of the Society for Developmental Biology, and a member of the US National Academy of Sciences.

Cliff Tabin, Ph.D.

Scientific Co-Founder

Cliff Tabin serves as Chair of the Department of Genetics, Harvard Medical School. Cliff is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, and of the Royal Society of London, and the George Jacob and Jacqueline Hazel Leder Professor. Cliff has conducted groundbreaking research on the molecular mechanisms that govern embryonic development, and is renowned for his studies on limb development. Cliff has made major contributions to the field of developmental biology and genetics, establishing himself as a leading authority in his field.

Allon Klein, Ph.D.

Scientific Co-Founder

Allon Klein, a Professor at Harvard Medical School, is recognized as a pioneer in high-throughput approaches to single-cell biology. His work includes multiple technical and computational innovations, and the discovery of new cell types. He is a co-recipient of the inaugural James Prize for Science and Technology Integration from the US National Academy of Sciences, among other awards. Klein's development of high-throughput technologies has revolutionized our understanding of cellular diversity in tissue biology. He earned his Ph.D. in Physics from Cambridge University.

Carl Morris, Ph.D.

Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Carl Morris, Ph.D. is an experienced drug developer and muscle physiologist who has led programs from inception into the clinic. Before joining Somite, Dr. Morris was the Chief Scientific Officer at Solid Biosciences, a gene therapy company focused on Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, where he was a member of the senior management team and responsible for the company’s drug discovery and preclinical development efforts to IND. Prior to joining Solid, Dr. Morris was a Senior Director for Pfizer’s Rare Disease Research Unit, leading its biologics and neuromuscular disease area programs. He was an Assistant Professor at the Boston University School of Medicine in the Muscle and Aging Research Unit before moving to industry. Dr. Morris holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Biology from Franklin Pierce College (NH) and a Ph.D. in Physiology from UCLA.

Jonathan Rosenfeld, Ph.D.

CTO and Co-Founder

Dr. Rosenfeld leads the Fundamental AI group at MIT FutureTech and is an accomplished AI executive and entrepreneur with over 20 years of experience. He has directed large-scale teams, including hundreds of engineers, and has been at the forefront of research, product development, and strategy in areas such as AI, genomics, physics, and information theory. Recognized for driving industry-defining breakthroughs, particularly in large-scale AI, his foundational work at MIT has significantly advanced the field. His work in the IDF twice received the Israeli Defense Prize, akin to the USA's Medal of Freedom. He holds five degrees: a Ph.D. in AI and an MSc in CS from MIT, and a BA in Physics, a BSc in EE, and an MBA from the Technion. Dr. Rosenfeld was also the Valedictorian of the IDF's elite Psagot program.

Kristy J. Brown, Ph.D.

SVP Translational Development

Kristy is a translational drug developer with expertise in driving programs from candidate selection to IND. Prior to Somite, Kristy served as VP of Preclinical Development and Translational Science at Rejuvenate Bio and VP, Head of Translational Development at Solid Biosciences.Kristy holds a BS in Chemistry from Loyola University Maryland, and a Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Maryland College Park.

Jay Shendure, M.D., Ph.D.

Scientific Co-Founder

Jay Shendure, M.D., Ph.D. is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, a Professor of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington, and Scientific Director of the Seattle Hub for Synthetic Biology (Allen-CZI-UW), the Allen Discovery Center for Cell Lineage Tracing, and the Brotman Baty Institute for Precision Medicine. His lab is known for the development and application of genomic technologies to outstanding challenges in genetics, molecular biology and developmental biology. Dr. Shendure is the recipient of the Curt Stern Award from the American Society of Human Genetics, the Richard Lounsbery Award from the National Academy of Sciences and the Mendel Award from the European Society of Human Genetics. He is also an elected member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences. He received his MD and PhD degrees from Harvard Medical School.

Shai Kivity

VP Operations & Strategy

Shai Kivity is an accomplished tech executive with a strong track record in building successful startups from the ground up. His experience includes launching products, creating partnerships, and successfully scaling up multiple GTM and finance organizations. Before joining Somite, he was the first US hire and Chief of Staff at 4M Analytics and served as a turnaround and restructuring manager at Alvarez & Marsal. Shai is an alumnus of Talpiot, the Israeli Defense Forces' elite technology unit. His work in the IDF received multiple awards including the Israeli Defense Award, the Nation’s highest security award, akin to the USA's Medal of Freedom. He holds 4 degrees: an MBA from Wharton (Summa Cum Laude), an MPA from the Harvard Kennedy School, an MA in International Relations with a dissertation in International Political Economy (IPE), and a BSc in Physics and Computer Science from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

David R. Walt, Ph.D.

Wyss Institute at Harvard

David is a Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute at Harvard University, is the Hansjörg Wyss Professor of Bioinspired Engineering at Harvard Medical School, Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Associate Member at the Broad Institute, and is a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor. David pioneered the use of microwell arrays for single-molecule detection and genetic measurements, which has revolutionized the process of genetic and proteomic analysis, enabling the cost of DNA sequencing and genotyping to plummet nearly a millionfold in the last decade. His lab is developing new diagnostics tools and new biomarker assay technologies based on single molecule detection that can address unmet clinical needs in diagnostics. He is a member of both the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine.

Brenda Wong, M.D.

University of Massachusetts

Brenda Wong, M.D., is a Professor of Neurology and Pediatrics at the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. Dr. Wong directs the U Mass Chan DMD program that delivers team based, collaborative, coordinated, patient and family centered care for her patients with a team of care providers from various specialties focused on the multi-systemic problems of her patients. She is also active in clinical research in Duchenne and Becker Muscular Dystrophy.

Agnete Kirkeby, Ph.D.

University of Copenhagen

Agnete Kirkeby is an associate professor at University of Copenhagen in Denmark, where she leads a research group with unique expertise in generating subtype-specific human neurons from stem cells for regenerative therapy and disease modelling. Dr. Kirkeby has been leading the preclinical development of a stem cell-derived dopamine progenitor cell product for treatment of Parkinson’s Disease (STEM-PD), which is currently in clinical trial in Sweden, and which is the first pluripotent-derived neural cell product to achieve regulatory ATMP trial approval in Europe.

Paul Cohen, M.D., Ph.D.

Rockefeller University

Paul Cohen, M.D., Ph.D. is the Albert Resnick, M.D. Associate Professor, Head of the Laboratory of Molecular Metabolism, and Senior Attending Physician at the Rockefeller University and a cardiologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. His work investigates the molecular links between obesity and associated diseases with a particular focus on the biology of thermogenic brown and beige fat. His group has contributed to a fundamental understanding of molecular and tissue-level regulation of thermogenic fat and has shown that brown fat is associated with significant metabolic and cardiovascular health benefits in humans.

Jacques P. Tremblay, Ph.D.

Université Laval

Jacques P. Tremblay is a professor in the department of Molecular Medicine of Laval university. He has been working on cell and gene therapies for hereditary diseases since 1987. He has worked mainly on the transplantation of myoblasts derived from a heathy donor as a treatment of Duchenne Muscular dystrophy. He is currently using the Prime editing technology (derived from the CRISPR/Cas9 technology) to correct mutations responsible for various hereditary diseases.

Louis M. Kunkel, Ph.D.

Harvard Medical School

Dr. Kunkel is an internationally recognized geneticist with years of experience and scientific success in the understanding of the basis for muscular dystrophies. He received a B.A. from Gettysburg College and his Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University. Over the past four decades Dr. Kunkel has devoted his career to understanding the molecular basis, and developing therapy, for neuromuscular disorders. Dr. Kunkel is universally recognized for the discovery of the genes responsible for muscular dystrophy and other neuromuscular disorders. He has been involved in the identification and study of genes altered to cause muscular dystrophy since his 1986 identification of dystrophin as the causative gene in Duchenne muscular dystrophy. His current work centers on developing dystrophin independent therapies for Duchenne muscular dystrophy to complement existing therapies currently in development. Dr Kunkel has received numerous awards for his work including the 2009 March of Dimes Prize in Developmental Biology for this pioneering work on muscular dystrophy. Dr Kunkel is a past Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Kunkel currently is a member of the Division of Genetics and Genomics at Boston Children’s Hospital; and Professor of Pediatrics and Genetics, Harvard Medical School, Boston.

Peter Zandstra, Ph.D.

University of British Columbia

Dr. Peter Zandstra is the Director of the University of British Columbia's (UBC) School of Biomedical Engineering. His work integrates engineering design principles, computational modeling, and stem cell biology to enhance our fundamental understanding of cell fate control mechanisms. His research focuses on developing new and accessible therapeutic approaches for disease treatment, particularly using cells from the blood-forming system to treat cancer and autoimmunity. His education includes a BEng in Chemical Engineering from McGill University, a PhD in Chemical Engineering and Biotechnology from UBC, and a Post-Doctoral Fellowship in Bioengineering from MIT. Key discoveries from his lab include scalable suspension manufacturing of pluripotent stem cells and their derivatives, engineering an artificial thymic niche for clinically relevant ex vivo T-cell development, and elucidating fundamental mechanisms in human multicellular tissue pattern formation. Dr. Zandstra has received broad recognition for his work, including being named a Member of the Order of Canada and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in Engineering.

Kendra Harris, M.D.

Kendra Harris, MD, MSc is radiation oncologist with a special interest in expediting theranostic agent deployment in clinic. As Tulane Chair of Radiation Oncology, her contributions focused on the ‘real world’ considerations relevant when bringing new therapeutic classes through FDA approval, most recently, Lutetium (177Lu) vipivotide tetraxetan. She is currently System Director for LCMC Health, a health system that now includes both Tulane School of Medicine and LSU Medical School. Graduate work at Oxford (Rhodes Scholar) was health policy focused, with all medical training including a Patient Safety Fellowship, thereafter taking place at John Hopkins Hospital.