Team

Dr. Claudia A. Penafuerte Diaz, PhD
Co-Founder & CEO

Dr. Claudia A. Penafuerte Diaz is an immunologist with 20 years of experience in cancer immunology and immunotherapy. In 2010, she obtained her Ph.D. degree at McGill University (Experimental Medicine Department). During this period, she worked under the supervision of Dr. Jacques Galipeau conducting several research projects aiming to potentiate the immune system response against tumor progression and metastases. Specifically, she developed several chimeric proteins with anti-cancer properties and published important studies as the first author in journals specialized in cancer immunology as well as obtained a US patent for Cura Therapeutics fusion protein technology.

In 2016, she concluded her post-doctoral studies at the Goodman Cancer Research Centre, in the laboratory of Dr. Michel L. Tremblay, an internationally recognized expert in the field of protein tyrosine phosphatases (PTP) and signaling. During this period, she conducted two significant projects: the first one was to identify early blood biomarkers of cancer cachexia. This work provides the first indication in human that cachexia can be detected early and could potentially rapidly be treated with existing pharmacological means. In the second project, she developed a new approach to potentiate dendritic cell (DC) maturation and activation by modulating the activity of PTP1B and TC-PTP. Her findings led to a new generation of dendritic cell-based vaccines that is complementary to existing immunotherapies. This technology is so promising that it led to the establishment of a novel biotech company named Kanyr Pharma.

During her career, she has obtained a number of research grants, research awards, and fellowships including US Army Award, CIHR fellowship; High fatality cancer grant, PSVT University and Industry grant in Immunotherapy among others.

Collin Horner 
Co-Founder & Chief Business Officer

Collin Horner has over 20 years in the field of business development, marketing & communication. After working for 20 years in the industry developing projects for healthcare, real estate development, and product branding has launched numerous successful marketing and advertising campaigns for global brands as well as early-stage startups. Now focusing on the business development side of projects is working with Cura Therapeutics to raise their first seed round and series A to advance our technology towards clinical trials.

Advisory Board

Dr. Alan Ashworth PhD, FRS
President of the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center, Sr. Vice President for Cancer Services with UCSF Health & Co-Founder of Tango Therapeutics
Scientific Advisor

Prior to joining UCSF in January 2015, he served as Chief Executive of the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR) and the Director of the Breakthrough Breast Cancer Research Centre in London, United Kingdom. A translational biologist and laboratory researcher, Ashworth's research focuses on understanding breast cancer genetics to improve the treatment and care of patients. He was a key part of the team that identified the BRCA2 breast cancer susceptibility gene that is linked to an increased risk for some types of cancer. Ten years later, he discovered how to kill BRCA1- and 2-related tumor cells by treating them with PARP inhibitors which are drugs that increase the damage caused by the broken DNA repair machinery in those cells. This exemplifies the principle of synthetic lethality as cancer therapy. Three different PARP inhibitors are now approved by the FDA. 

In 2016, Ashworth and UCSF's Pamela Munster, MD, established the Center for BRCA Research, one of only two such centers in the US. The mission of the Center is to provide a place for families with BRCA and other mutations to receive personalized care and planning for their long-term health and well-being. He also started the San Francisco Cancer Initiative (SF CAN) that launched in 2016. SF CAN is the first comprehensive cancer plan for a major city and its partners include the City of San Francisco and numerous health and community organizations. Ashworth also chairs the UC Cancer Consortium, an alliance of the five UC cancer centers holding comprehensive cancer center status, the highest designation possible from the National Institutes of Health's National Cancer Institute. The Consortium's projects include precision medicine, clinical trials, population health science, best practices in harnessing big data to improve health, and political engagement for public benefit. Ashworth is an elected member of EMBO, the Academy of Medical Sciences, and a Fellow of the Royal Society. He has received a number of scientific prizes and awards, including The European Society of Medical Oncology Lifetime Achievement Award, the David T. Workman Memorial Award of the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation, the Meyenburg Foundation's Cancer Research Award, the Basser Global Prize, the Genetics Society Medal, and the 2017 Brinker Award for Scientific Distinction in Basic Science from the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Dr. Deborah Charych, PhD
Scientific and Technical Founder at RayzeBio
Scientific Advisor  

Dr. Deborah Charych has held scientific leadership positions in both academia and biotech. Background in protein and small molecule medicines from concept, to early clinical development. Expertise in cancer biology, immunology, and chemistry. At Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, she assumed an academic leadership role as tenured Principal Investigator, focusing on new materials. Deborah’s formal education is in Chemistry, earning a PhD from University of California at Berkeley and a B.S. in Chemistry from Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA.

Dr. Jacques Galipeau, MD
Associate Dean for Therapeutics Development at University of Wisconsin-Madison
Scientific Advisor

Jacques Galipeau, M.D. FRCP(C) obtained his Medical Degree from the University of Montreal and completed specialty training in internal medicine at McGill University. He went on to the New England Medical Center in Boston for subspecialty training in Hematology & Medical Oncology followed by a two-year scientific fellowship in gene Therapy at St-Jude Children’s research hospital in Memphis Tennessee. 

Starting in 1997, Dr. Galipeau served as faculty at McGill University before joining Emory University in 2009 as a Professor of Hematology & Oncology and Director of the Emory Personalized Immunotherapy Center. Since September 2016, he has been the Don and Marilyn Anderson Professor of Oncology within the Department of Medicine and UW Carbone Comprehensive Cancer Center at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, and is the inaugural Associate Dean for Therapeutics Development at the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health.

Dr. Galipeau has an NIH-funded research program in the study and use of mesenchymal stromal cells and B-regulatory cells. He is an internationally recognized expert in translational development of cell therapies and was the sponsor of a series of FDA-sanctioned clinical trials examining the use of autologous marrow-derived mesenchymal stromal cells for Crohn's disease and GvHD. At UW, he has sponsored two new clinical trials examining the use of allogeneic CMV-specific T-cells for drug resistant viral reactivation in the setting of BMT and kidney transplantation. He has also developed the field of fusion engineered cytokines known as fusokines, as a novel pharmaceutical means of treating immune disorders and cancer. 

He is the director of the University of Wisconsin Advanced Cell Therapy Program whose mission is to develop personalized cell therapies for immune and malignant disorders and to promote and deploy first-in-human clinical trials of UW cell therapy innovations to improve outcomes for children and adults.

Dr. Mamta Gautam-Basak, PhD
Senior Technical Advisor at US Pharmacopeia & Previously a Senior Regulatory Advisor at FDA
Regulatory Advisor

For the past 25+ years at FDA, Mamta Gautam-Basak dedicated her career to bring safe, effective drugs and therapies to market that improve the quality of life for people around the world. 

As a Senior Regulatory Advisor and Scientist, she brings technical insight to regulation, policy, and compliance challenges for global pharmaceutical manufacturers specifically focused on product development and regulatory submission processes for INDs and NDAs. Provide CMC guidance for pre-IND, end-of -phase 2 (EOP2), pre-NDA, market approval and post-approval life cycle management of drug products.  Mamta Gautam-Basak understands how to make the operational process of drug development more intelligent and cost-effective from the early investigational stages, to market approval, and post-market challenges such as drug recalls and shortages.

Her approach is both proactive and strategic. As a scientist and researcher, Mamta Gautam-Basak has served on multidisciplinary teams that include chemists, toxicologists, physicians, and biostatisticians, Regulatory Counsels (FDA attorneys) where decisions need to be made across varying concentrations.