Dr. Ryser has held senior management positions of increasing responsibility at F. Hoffmann-La Roche, ending as Chief of Staff for the President of Global Research and Development, Dr. Juergen Drews, operating out of both Nutley, NJ and Basel, Switzerland. While at Roche, he led initiatives to assess the impact of emerging technologies on pharmaceutical research and development, and assisted in establishment and management of strategic research and development alliances. He was a member of the joint steering committee with Millennium Pharmaceuticals and a liaison for new research projects with Genentech. In 1998, he founded International Biomedicine Partners with Juergen Drews, a biotech fund whose IPO successes led to him becoming managing partner in 2000 of Bear Stearns Health Innoventures, a $212 million private equity fund.

Dr. Ryser has served on numerous boards of directors in both public and private biotechnology companies, including Arena Pharmaceuticals, Achillion Pharmaceuticals, Entelos, Raven Biotechnologies, Tolerx, and Telik, as well as in the R. Geigy Foundation, a philanthropic organization that supports the Swiss Tropical Institute in Basel. Prior to joining Trellis Bioscience, Dr. Ryser was CEO at A-Cube (now part of Trellis), a biotech company focused on identifying B-cell epitopes. Prior to A-Cube he was SVP for corporate strategy at Telik, and VP of Business Development at Aridis Pharmaceuticals, a leading infectious disease company. Dr. Ryser earned his undergraduate degree in molecular biology and biochemistry and his Ph.D. in immunology at the University of Basel’s Institute for Immunology.

Mr. Ellsworth has spent his career bringing high technology systems solutions to the life science industry. He joined Trellis in 2003 where he led the reduction to practice of the company's CellSpot platform. He served as the Company’s CEO from 2008 to 2012.

Prior to Trellis, Mr. Ellsworth was the VP R&D and Chief Operating Officer at First Medical, a point-of-care cardiac diagnostic company acquired by Sigma in 2000. This was preceded by a role as Vice President of Engineering at Becton Dickinson where he was responsible for developing through commercial release numerous flow cytometry products, which now dominate that market. He holds a degree in bioscience technology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, a BA from Dartmouth in engineering and mathematics, and an MS in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Dr. Kauvar is an entrepreneur and scientist who founded Trellis and was previously the founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Telik, a small molecule drug company focused on oncology. He holds 60 US patents for methods, tools and drug compounds and is one of the inventors of CellSpot, Trellis's core technology.

Dr. Kauvar holds an undergraduate degree in mathematics from Harvard, and a Ph.D. from Yale in molecular biophysics and biochemistry. He conducted postdoctoral research at Caltech and University of California San Francisco before founding Telik. He is also a co-founder of Promedior, Inc. and of Shimojani, LLC.

Mr. Saxe holds a B.S. degree in Chemical Engineering from Carnegie-Mellon University and a J.D. from George Washington University School of Law. He also received an L.L.M. from New York University School of Law. He worked for Hoffmann-LaRoche Inc. from 1960 to 1989 where he rose to the position of Vice President of Licensing and Corporate Development, Head of Patent Law and Associate General Counsel. He served as the President and Chief Executive Officer of Synergen Inc. from 1989 to 1993 and as President of PDL Biopharma Inc. (formerly Protein Design Labs Inc.), a leader in the field of humanization of antibodies, from 1995 to 1999.

Mr. Saxe has been a Consultant in the fields of pharmaceuticals and biotechnology since 1999, including serving as Chairman of several companies (VistaGen Therapeutics, Iconix Pharmaceuticals, Lumos Pharma, SciClone Pharmaceuticals, Iconix Biosciences, Entelos, POINT Biomedical). He has been a Director of numerous additional companies, notably including: Incyte Genomics, Insite Vision, Questcor, Durect, and Sciele Pharmaceuticals.

Mr. Anthony has spent over 44 years in the healthcare industry. He is currently the Founder/Principal of BioMentorz, a small company bio-consulting firm. He was formerly the CEO of Osprey Pharmaceuticals USA and of Pharmix (now Numerate). He has also served as a member of the Board of Vaxgen, a public US company. Prior to his CEO roles, Mr. Anthony spent over 15 years conducting biotech business development and marketing at a variety of biotech companies. He was Senior Vice President of Business Development at Saegis Pharmaceuticals (now Lundbeck). He was a key player in the buyout of Tularik (by Amgen) where he led the Business and Commercial Group. In the fifteen years prior to Tularik he was the senior executive business development officer at FibroGen, Inc., Cell Therapeutics, Inc., Inhale, Applied Immune Sciences (now at Sanofi-Aventis) and General Manager of ExViT, the AIS subsidiary focused on the delivery of ex-vivo cell therapies.

Mr. Anthony began his life sciences career at Baxter Healthcare Corporation and for 17 years held various sales, marketing and general management positions in the U.S. and internationally. He departed Baxter as Vice President of the Blood Therapy Group. Jack holds a BS in Zoology from Allegheny College and served as a U.S. Navy Officer for five years.

John H. Friedman is the Founding and Managing Partner of Easton Capital Group. Prior to founding Easton Capital, he was the founder and Managing General Partner of Security Pacific Capital Investors, a $200-million private equity fund geared towards recapitalizations and expansion financings. Prior to joining Security Pacific, he was a Managing Director and Partner at E.M. Warburg, Pincus & Co., Inc., where he spent eight and a half years.

Previously, he was an attorney with Sullivan and Cromwell. During his career he has invested in six transactions that generated 100X-to-1 returns (including a company he co-founded). John currently serves on the Boards of several portfolio companies. He holds a JD degree from Yale Law School and a BA degree, magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, from Yale College. He has also served as co-chairman of the President's Council at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory and as a Trustee of The New Museum of Contemporary Art.

Andrew Abrams is a Partner in New Science Ventures, a venture capital firm focused on building companies that address large unmet needs in the Life Sciences and Information Technology sectors.

Prior to joining New Science Ventures, Andrew was an investment banker in JP Morgan’s healthcare practice where he focused on mergers and acquisitions and capital market transactions in Europe and the US. He supported a wide array of clients spanning the biotechnology, pharmaceutical, medical device and diagnostic sub-sectors.

Andrew holds BA and MSci degrees in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge and holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.