MEET THE TEAM
Founded at UCSF, our mission is to rewind diseases of aging with novel transcription factor medicines.
LeadershiP Team
JANINE SENGSTACK
PHD, CO-FOUNDER & CEO
Dr. Janine Sengstack is a cell biologist and entrepreneur advancing therapeutics for age-related disease. During her PhD at UC San Francisco (UCSF), Janine created a discovery platform to find transcription factor targets for age-related disease. Janine was a finalist in the Nucleate Activator Program, receiving the Scientific Excellence Award. Janine was a Hillblom Graduate Fellow and received support from Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and the Illumina/UCSF Sequencing Partnership Grant. Before UCSF, Janine worked in microbiology at Genentech. She graduated from Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo with her BS in Biology, summa cum laude, and was high school valedictorian out of 400 students.
John Hoekman
PHD, CO-FOUNDER, PRESIDENT & CHIEF SCIENTIFIC OFFICER
Dr. John Hoekman is a proven biotech entrepreneur. Previously, he was Co-founder, Chief Scientific Officer, and Chief Technology and Development Officer of Impel Pharmaceuticals. He invented the core technology for Impel during his PhD at University for Washington, spun out the company, built the team to 190 people, raised over $250MM, successfully IPO’d, and earned an FDA approval for Trudhesa. He is a co-inventor on over 100 patents. He holds a BS in Physics from the University of Minnesota and a PhD in Pharmaceutics from the University of Washington.
ROB CAHILL
CO-FOUNDER & COO
Rob Cahill is an entrepreneur passionate about human longevity. Previously, he was a bioinformatics/ML researcher at Abbasi Lab at UCSF Neurology. Before that, he was Co-founder/CEO at Jhana, a VC-backed edtech company acquired by FranklinCovey (NYSE: FC). At FranklinCovey, he became EVP of Innovations, Product Development, and Customer Success. Previously, he was Chief of Staff to the Co-founder/CEO at Sunrun (Nasdaq: RUN), and a Management Consultant at McKinsey & Co. He has an MS in Bioinformatics from Johns Hopkins, and an MS in Management Science and BA with Honors in Economics from Stanford.
HAO LI
PHD, CO-FOUNDER & HEAD OF SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD
Dr. Hao Li is a pioneering computational and aging biology scientist. During his 20+ years as a professor at UCSF, Hao developed new technologies in genomics and aging biology. He is Director of the Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging at UCSF and an executive board member of the Bakar Aging Research Institute. He and his team invented new microfluidics devices to study aging at a single yeast cell level. Dr. Li is a tenured professor in the Biochemistry and Biophysics Department at UCSF and he earned his PhD at MIT.
Scientific &
Strategic Advisors
PHD, CO-FOUNDER, HEAD OF SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD; UCSF PROFESSOR
MD, PHD, UCSF PROFESSOR IN NEUROLOGY, MEMORY & AGING CENTER
CEO, BAUSCH + LOMB; FORMER CEO AT ALLERGAN
MD, PROFESSOR, LIVER DISEASES CHIEF AT ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE, MOUNT SINAI
LEAD INVESTORS
CO-FOUNDER AND MANAGING PARTNER,
GOLDCREST CAPITAL
FOUNDER & CEO,
GODFREY CAPITAL
CO-FOUNDER AND MANAGING PARTNER,
GOLDCREST CAPITAL
