About Us

Giulio Draetta, M.D., Ph.D., Chairman

Dr. Draetta is currently Director, Institute for Applied Cancer Science, and Professor of Genomic Medicine, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. He was the former Chief Research Business Development Officer, Dana Farber Cancer Institute; Former Deputy Director, Belfer Institute for Applied Cancer Science at DFCI. Former head of oncology drug discovery at Pharmacia and Merck. Scientific Advisor: Epitherapeutics, Forma Therapeutics, Blueprint Medicines, Taiho Pharmaceutical Co.. While at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, at EMBL Heidelberg and the European Institute of Oncology, Dr. Draetta spearheaded fundamental research in the biology of the eukaryotic cell division cycle and of DNA damage induced checkpoints. He was co-founder and head of research of Mitotix, Inc. At Pharmacia and Merck where he focused on the discovery and development of inhibitors of receptor tyrosine kinase signaling, cell division cycle inhibitors, novel cytotoxics, developmental pathway inhibitors, epigenetics and cancer metabolism drugs.
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Sharon Shacham Ph.D., MBA., SAB Co-Chairman

Dr. Shacham founded Karyopharm at the end of 2008 and has lead its scientific progress since inception. She was former Senior VP of Drug Development, Epix Pharmaceuticals Inc. and was the founding scientist of Predix Pharmaceuticals, a private GPCR company that merged into EPIX in 2006. At Epix/Predix, she led efforts in GPCR modeling, computational chemistry, lead optimization and development of clinical trials. Her Ph.D. thesis on the in silico modeling of GPCRs and other proteins for computer-aided drug discovery at Tel Aviv University served as the basis for Predix Pharmaceuticals. Her software has lead to the rapid identification and optimization of four new chemical entities which entered human clinical trials including Phases I to III.
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Lynda Chin, MD

Dr. Chin is a Professor of Dermatology at the Harvard Medical School. Dr. Chin is the Scientific Director of Dana-Farber’s Belfer Institute for Applied Cancer Science and co-leads the DF/HCC Melanoma Program and the Harvard Skin SPORE. At the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, Dr. Chin is PI of a TCGA Genome Data Analysis Center. Dr. Chin received her M.D. from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in 1993. She is a board-certified dermatologist and conducted her clinical and scientific training at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and the Albert Einstein College of Medicine where she served as Chief Resident of Dermatology. In addition to her many contributions in the area of melanoma genetics and modeling, Dr. Chin focuses on comparative oncogenomics of mouse and human cancers, and integration of functional genetic approaches to accelerate the translation of genomic insights into clinical endpoints. Dr. Chin is actively involved in The Cancer Genes Atlas (TCGA) Project, a member of its Executive Subcommittee, and chairs the GBM and Melanoma Disease Working Groups that interface the genomic science within TCGA with basic and translational biology in the broader community. She is also a member of the Scientific Steering Committee of the International Cancer Genome Consortium. Dr. Chin is the scientific founder of Metamark Genetics Inc., and co-founded AVEO Pharmaceuticals in 2002, a cancer biotechnology company that emphasizes cancer biology.
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Christopher Kirk, Ph.D.

Dr. Kirk has held numerous positions in target and drug discovery as well as preclinical development in the biotechnology industry. He is currently the Vice President of Research at Onyx Pharmaceuticals, Inc. in South San Francisco, CA, which acquired Proteolix, Inc. in 2009. At Proteolix, Dr. Kirk played a key role in the discovery and early development of carfilzomib, a proteasome inhibitor currently in Phase 3 clinical trials, ONX 0912 (formerly PR-047), an orally bioavailable proteasome inhibitor currently in Phase 1 testing, and ONX 0914 (formerly PR-957), a first-in-class selective inhibitor of the immunoproteasome. Prior to joining Proteolix, Dr. Kirk held positions in drug discovery in inflammation at Affymax, Inc. and in target discovery in inflammation and oncology at Deltagen, Inc. Dr. Kirk is listed as an inventor on over 40 patents and has authored publications in several select journals including Nature Medicine and Nature Reviews. Dr. Kirk received his Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1999.
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Ben Munoz, Ph.D.

Dr. Munoz is the Director of Molecular Libraries Probe Centers Network (MLPCN) and Infectious Disease Initiative at the Broad Institute, Cambridge, MA. Dr. Munoz received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto, and his postdoctoral training from the Scripps Institute in La Jolla, CA. Dr. Munoz is highly regarded medicinal chemist with over 15 years of drug discovery experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry; proven track record of leading drug discovery project teams, delivering preclinical, clinical candidates and targets for central nervous system (CNS) diseases, oncology and infectious disease. He also serves as the medicinal chemistry consultant to the Cancer Target Discovery and Development (CTD2) Network at the Broad Institute.
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Pamela Silver, Ph.D.

Dr. Silver is Professor of Systems Biology at Harvard Medical School. Previously she held academic appoints at Princeton University and The Dana Farber Cancer Institute. She has made important contributions in the areas of cell biology, cancer and genome organization. Dr. Silver has published seminal papers on the biology of nuclear transport, and has discovered novel nuclear export inhibitors directed at Crm1 and other pathways.
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Ed Roberts. Ph.D.

Dr. Roberts is currently Professor of Translational Chemistry and Medicine, The Scripps Research Institute. He was formerly the head of discovery chemistry at F. Hoffmann-La Roche, Basel, where he was responsible for drug discovery chemistry in all therapeutic areas. Dr. Roberts is a world-renowned chemist who has authored more than 50 articles in major science journals and holds over 20 issued patents on discoveries.
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