Leadership Team

Board of Directors

Tim Edwards

Tim joined Karus as Executive Chair in 2018. He has extensive management and advisory experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. As well as his role at Karus, Tim is a Director of AstronauTX Limited, a company developing new medicines to reset the behaviour of astrocytes in the brain, founded by The Dementia Discovery Fund; Ervaxx Limited, a privately-held company discovering Dark Antigens™ for targeted immunotherapies to treat cancer, incubated by SV Health Investors; and Chair of Storm Therapeutics Limited, a pioneer in the field of RNA epigenetics. read more

Ron Hunt

Ron Hunt is a Managing Director at New Leaf Venture Partners, and focuses on early to late stage investments in biopharmaceuticals. Ron was one of the founders of New Leaf in 2005, and today has over 2 decades of experience investing in and building companies focused on developing novel medicines that address important unmet medical needs. read more

Houman Ashrafian

Houman joined SV in 2016 as a Venture Partner, was promoted to Partner in 2017 and became a Managing Partner in 2018. He has founded four SV companies, attracting strategic investment into three within 12 months at valuation uplifts. He is currently a Director of Ervaxx and TRexBio and serves on the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF) Investment Committee. read more

Martin Edwards

Martin joined Novo A/S in 2003 working out of their London office. He is chairman of the board of directors of Vantia Therapeutics Ltd, and a member of the board of directors of Epsilon-3 Bio Ltd, Funxional Therapeutics Ltd, KalVista Pharmaceuticals Ltd, Karus Therapeutics Ltd and Tarsa Therapeutics Inc. He is an adjunct professor at the Scandinavian International Management Institute. read more

Scientific Advisory Board

Dr Stephen Shuttleworth, FRSC, CChem

Stephen is the Chairman of Karus’s Scientific Advisory Board and is the founding scientist of the Company’s PI3K-p110β/δ and HDAC6 programs. He is an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at Samsara BioCapital, California, and a Non-Executive Director at Hox Therapeutics, UK read more

Dr James A. Bristol

Dr Bristol’s career in drug discovery research and development spans over 32 years and includes senior positions at Schering-Plough, Parke-Davis, and Pfizer. Most recently, he held the position of Senior Vice President, Worldwide Drug Discovery Research at Pfizer Global Research & Development in New London (Connecticut, USA); a role in which he was responsible for more than 3,000 scientists and colleagues at seven Pfizer sites. read more

Professor Chris Reilly

Professor Reilly has extensive experience guiding life science projects, portfolios and investment decisions. He advises biotechs, VCs, medical charities, academics, and was on the 2014 REF committee. He is a Professor of Practice at KCL and a Board member of the Medicines Discovery Catapult, Salford Royal NHS Foundation Trust and Pennine Acute Care NHS Trust. read more

Dr Phillip Hawkins

Dr Hawkins is Senior Group Leader at the Babraham Institute, Cambridge, UK. He received a BSc from the University of Bristol and a PhD from the University of Birmingham. After post-doctoral training at SK&F Research Ltd., he joined the MRC Cambridge, and subsequently the Babraham Institute. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society. read more

Dr Len Stephens

Dr Stephens is Senior Group Leader at the Babraham Institute, Cambridge, UK. He received a BSc and a PhD from the University of Birmingham, and joined the Babraham Institute following post-doctoral training at SK&F Research Ltd. He is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society. read more

Professor Bart Vanhaesebroeck

Professor Vanhaesebroeck is Professor of Cell Signaling at the UCL Cancer Institute in London. Following a PhD from Ghent University, Belgium, he carried out postdoctoral studies at the Ludwig Institute at University College London (UCL) where he was involved in the early gene cloning and characterization of PI3K family members. read more

Professor Patrick Matthias

Professor Matthias is a Senior Group Leader at the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel. He studies the biology of Histone Deacetylases, and his laboratory has made major contributions to understanding the function of several HDACs, including HDAC1, HDAC2 and, notably, HDAC6, for which he published a crystal structure (Nature Chem Biol 2016, 12, 748). read more

Dr Paul Rennert

Paul is President & CSO of Aleta Biotherapeutics and Founder & Principal of Sugarcone Biotech LLC. Paul's industry expertise covers bench to clinical trial development of diverse therapeutics for oncology, autoimmunity, inflammation and fibrosis (Repligen and Biogen). read more

Professor Klaus Okkenhaug

Klaus Okkenhaug obtained his BSc from the University of Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, and a PhD in Immunology from the University of Toronto. In 1999, he joined Bart Vanhaesebroeck's group at the Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research as a Postdoctoral Fellow, working on the role of p110δ in immune responses. read more

Professor Jonathan Backer

Professor Backer is the Williams S. Lasdon Professor and Chairman of the Department of Molecular Pharmacology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. His research is focused on the biology of the PI3K enzyme family, including of particular note PI3K-p110β signaling in cancer. read more

Professor Jeff Evans

Professor Evans is Professor of Translational Cancer Research and Director of the Institute of Cancer Sciences, University of Glasgow. He is also Honorary Consultant in Medical Oncology at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, Glasgow, Group Leader (Translational Cancer Therapeutics Laboratory) at the CRUK Beatson Institute, Glasgow, and Lead of the Glasgow Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC). read more

Dr Richard Groves

Dr Groves is a Consultant Dermatologist with a particular interest in complex medical dermatology. He runs a tertiary clinical and diagnostic service for patients with immunologically mediated skin diseases based at the St. John's Institute of Dermatology, Guy's & St. Thomas' Hospitals and King’s College, London. read more

Dr Daniel Hodson

Dr Hodson is a Medical Research Council (MRC) Clinician Scientist Fellow and Principal Investigator in the Cambridge Stem Cell Institute (SCI) and Department of Hematology. read more

Clinical Advisory Board

Dr Kapil Dhingra

Dr Dhingra is a medical oncologist and a physician-scientist. He received his medical training at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi, India, followed by an Internal Medicine Residency at Lincoln Medical Center, New York, NY and a Hematology-Oncology fellowship at Emory University, Atlanta, GA. read more

Professor Jeff Evans

Professor Evans is Professor of Translational Cancer Research and Director of the Institute of Cancer Sciences, University of Glasgow. He is also Honorary Consultant in Medical Oncology at the Beatson West of Scotland Cancer Centre, Glasgow, Group Leader (Translational Cancer Therapeutics Laboratory) at the CRUK Beatson Institute, Glasgow, and Lead of the Glasgow Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC). read more

Professor Asim Khwaja

Professor Khwaja is a Consultant Hematologist at University College London (UCL) Hospitals and Professor of Hematology in the UCL Cancer Institute. He is lead clinician for adult acute leukemias at UCLH and is a member of the National Cancer Research Institute Hematological Oncology Clinical Studies Group and of the Cancer Research UK New Agents Committee. read more

Professor Ruth Plummer

Professor Plummer is Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine at the Northern Institute for Cancer Research, Newcastle University and an honorary consultant medical oncologist in Newcastle Hospitals Foundation Trust. She is Director of the Sir Bobby Robson Cancer Trials Research Centre within the Northern Centre for Cancer Care which is a dedicated clinical trials unit based within the regional cancer center. read more

Professor Paul Richardson

Professor Richardson is the Clinical Program Leader and Director of Clinical Research at the Jerome Lipper Multiple Myeloma Center (Dana Farber Cancer Institute) and the RJ Corman Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School. read more

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