about Aliada

Keith Canada, Ph.D., is Vice President, Head of Platform Technology at Aliada Therapeutics and is an expert in the discovery and preclinical development of therapeutic modalities with over 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Most recently, Keith worked as a Director at Merck & Co., where he built a protein engineering organization that delivered biocatalysts utilized in the generation of multiple small molecule compounds. Previously, he was VP, Ultravector Division at Intrexon Corp., which followed a role at Boehringer Ingelheim as head of the global lead engineering group that optimized several high-quality biotherapeutics that have been approved (Praxbind, Skyrizi, & Spevigo) or are currently in late-stage clinical trials. He received his Ph.D. in metabolic engineering from Louisiana State University and completed post-doctoral training in directed evolution at the University of Connecticut.

Paige Cochran is the Head of Human Resources at Aliada Therapeutics. She has over 25 years of experience in the development and leadership of strategic, proactive human resource functions for high-growth companies across the biopharmaceutical, medical device, clean-tech, and high-tech industries. Paige has managed through critical phases of rapid growth and organizational change, specifically in start-up and small life sciences companies, most recently with Kymera Therapeutics, Caraway Therapeutics and Microchips Biotech.  Her expertise lies in executive coaching, employee relations, talent acquisition, compensation, and performance management. Paige holds a B.A. in psychology from Emory University.

Kelcie Dillon, CPA, MBA, is Senior Accountant at Aliada Therapeutics and responsible for various company financial functions. She brings 8 years of varied experience including work as an auditor for public accounting firm, RSM, and private accounting work in the software industry. Kelcie received her bachelor’s degree in accounting and Master of Business Administration from Providence College.

Danijela Dukovski, Ph.D., is Director of Cell Biology at Aliada Therapeutics and has twenty years of deep scientific experience in cell biology and biochemistry. Most recently, she worked as Director of Drug Discovery at Vesalius Therapeutics where she led two drug development programs. Before that, she served as Principal Scientist at Lucy Therapeutics where she played a key role in the development of their mitochondrial biology platform. She has also held roles at Proteostasis Therapeutics, spearheading the efforts to characterize the mechanism of action for their novel clinical-stage small molecule CFTR modulator resulting in a first-author publication, and Harvard Medical School, Department of Cell Biology in the laboratory of Thomas Walz where her focus was on the structural characterization of membrane proteins and protein complexes using electron microscopy. Danijela received her bachelor’s degree from Belgrade University, Serbia and earned her Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

John Dunlop, Ph.D, is Chief Scientific Officer at Aliada Therapeutics, bringing extensive neuroscience leadership experience in both the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors. Most recently, John served as Head of Research and Development at Neumora, a company he helped build to pioneer an innovative approach to precision medicines for brain diseases. Prior to Neumora, John was at Amgen, where he led the neuroscience research program responsible for therapeutic discovery activities in neurodegenerative diseases, pain and migraine. He also led neuroscience discovery and early development at AstraZeneca and previously held executive leadership roles in neuroscience at Wyeth and Pfizer. John is a board member of Target-ALS, a non-profit enterprise dedicated to accelerating drug discovery and development in ALS, and is on the scientific advisory boards of Vigil Neuroscience and the Packard Center for ALS Research at Johns Hopkins. He is an industry member of the HEAL (Helping End Addiction Long-term) Partnership Committee, an NIH advisory committee established to support NIH initiatives launched to address the nation’s opioid crisis. John holds a B.Sc. in biochemistry from the University of Glasgow and a Ph.D. in neuroscience from the University of St. Andrews.

Michael Dziegelewski is Associate Director of Antibody Generation at Aliada Therapeutics, with more than 20 years of antibody discovery experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Most recently, Michael served as Biotherapeutics Portfolio and Strategic Alliance Manager in the Biotherapeutics Department at Boehringer Ingelheim where he managed contract research organizations and lead various projects using agile methodologies for portfolio progression. Michael previously held antibody generation scientist positions at Boehringer Ingelheim, and in multiple biotechnology companies. He has also contributed to several publications, including inventorship on patents for therapeutics in early to late phase clinical trials. He received his M.S. in Immunology from the University At Buffalo.

Sari Epstein, CPA, is Vice President, Finance at Aliada Therapeutics and is responsible for the company’s financial functions, including accounting, audit and treasury. Her career spans over 25 years of varied experience in financial management, business leadership and corporate strategy. Prior to joining Aliada, Sari served as Vice President of Finance for Sling Therapeutics (now Sionna Therapeutics), a biotechnology company in Boston. Previously, Sari was the Director of Finance at Rodin Therapeutics where she managed the financial functions of the company and facilitated the financial aspects of its acquisition by Alkermes. Earlier in her career, Sari held financial positions in both public and private companies, including Deloitte, Clark’s and KSQ Therapeutics. Sari earned her bachelor’s degree at the University of Vermont.

Danielle Feldman, Ph.D., is Director of Corporate Development at Aliada Therapeutics and has experience in the biotech industry across company creation, investing, technology transfer and IP strategy. Most recently, she served as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at RA Ventures and was Co-Founder and Associate Director of Corporate Development at Athenen Therapeutics (merged into Eliem Therapeutics; ELYM). Previously, Danielle was an Associate at RA Capital Management where she also served as a Steering Committee member for Science2Startup, a forum for top scientists around the world to present their ideas and interact with leading investors and executives in the Boston area. Before joining RA Capital Management, Danielle worked in IP and tech transfer at Seven Bridges Genomics and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Technology Licensing Office, respectively. Danielle received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from MIT.

Mike Feyder, PhD is a Platform Technology Senior Scientist at Aliada Therapeutics with expertise in protein biochemistry and bioconjugation. Previously, he was a Bioconjugation Scientist at Mersana Therapeutics where he worked on developing antibody-drug conjugates for oncological targets. He received his PhD in biochemistry and molecular biotechnology from UMass Medical School, studying the structure of function of membrane trafficking proteins.

Khatuna Gagnidze, Ph.D., is the Principal Scientist of Cell Biology at Aliada Therapeutics, and has over 15 years of research experience in academic labs and biotechnology industry. Before joining Aliada, Khatuna worked as Senior Scientist at Summation Bio where she led efforts for the development of a non-viral gene therapy platform. Prior to that, she spent four years at Bluebird Bio where her work focused on lentiviral gene therapy application for the treatment of lysosomal storage diseases and reduced-toxicity conditioning approaches for ex-vivo HSC gene therapy. Khatuna completed her postdoctoral training at The Rockefeller University where she studied hormonal regulation of behavior and lysosomal dysfunction in age-related neurodegeneration. She earned her bachelor’s degree in biology from Tbilisi State University, Georgia and received her Ph.D. in neuroscience from Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Chloe Ibsen is the Manager of Corporate Development at Aliada Therapeutics. Most recently, she served as a Life Sciences Manager at Iterative Health, a health tech startup in Boston. There she developed and oversaw biopharmaceutical partnerships, in addition to supporting the Office of the CEO through key strategic initiatives. Previously, Chloe was a Senior Associate Consultant at Putnam Associates, a management consulting firm specializing in strategic work for early-stage startups to Fortune 100 life sciences companies. Chloe received her bachelor’s degree in neuroscience and French from Vanderbilt University.

Magnus Ivarsson, Ph.D., is Chief Research Officer at Aliada Therapeutics and is responsible for developing and leading drug discovery and translational strategies. A recognized neuroscience expert, he has more than 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry, including a decade at Pfizer and Merck. Most recently, Magnus served as SVP, Neurobiology at Vesalius Therapeutics, prior to which he was VP, Head of CNS Discovery at Alkermes Plc after its acquisition of Rodin Therapeutics where he was VP, Head of Discovery. Previously, he was VP, Head of Translational Science at Proteostasis Therapeutics and co-led the Translational Science Centre, Karolinska Institute as Director, Head of Neurophysiology for AstraZeneca in Sweden. He completed a fellowship at University College London and earned his Ph.D. from Lund University in Sweden.

Pin Liu, Ph.D., is the Principal Scientist of Cell Biology at Aliada Therapeutics with over six years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Aliada, Pin worked at Sanegene Bio as a senior principal scientist and developed the siRNA-based drug delivery platform to the CNS. Before that, Pin worked at Q-State Biosciences as a principal scientist and led diverse drug development projects including small molecule therapies and antisense oligonucleotide drugs to treat chronic pain. Pin previously worked as a postdoctoral fellow in the Neurobiology Department at Harvard Medical School. She received her Ph.D. in Biology from Utah State University.

Rebecca Lucas is Executive Assistant to the Chief Executive Officer at Aliada Therapeutics, bringing nine years of professional experience as a manager and entrepreneur to the company. Rebecca joined Aliada after working as a business manager at Life Time, a health, wellness and fitness service, where she excelled in process development and optimization. In 2022, Rebecca and her team of 45 employees were ranked third out of 161 teams nationwide, assessed and ranked by financial performance, customer loyalty and level of engagement. Prior to Life Time, she founded a 15-employee health and fitness business in Greater Boston, overseeing finances, staffing, operations and more.

Berkley Lynch, Ph.D., is Vice President of Biology (Emeritus) at Aliada Therapeutics. He directed discovery biology efforts focused on integrating neurobiological and mechanistic studies in support of the Aliada platform and related assets. Berkley has more than 25 years of experience in biotech and pharmaceutical preclinical research and has worked in neuroscience discovery research for most of his career in the industry, including at UCB, Link Medicine and Rodin Therapeutics. While at UCB, his research on presynaptic drug discovery identified SV2A as the binding site of the anti-epileptic drug levetiracetam. Most recently at Vigil Neuroscience, he was Co-Founder and Vice President of Biology and built a research team targeting microglia drug discovery. Berkley was a Jane Coffin Childs postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley and received his Ph.D. in biochemistry from The Rockefeller University.

Monica Markham is Associate Director of Corporate Operations at Aliada Therapeutics and is responsible for the company’s legal contracts and IT management in addition to other corporate functions. Her career spans more than 10 years of varied experience in legal and corporate operations. Prior to joining Aliada, Monica served as Manager of Business Operations for Kymera Therapeutics where she played a critical role in supporting the company through the IPO process. Prior to that, Monica was the Manager of Operations and Administration at Rodin Therapeutics where she worked closely with the executive team in legal and operations functions and facilitated operational aspects of Rodin’s acquisition by Alkermes. She holds additional operations experience from roles at GI Dynamics and CRE Management, LLC. Monica received her bachelor’s degree from the University of New Hampshire and earned her J.D. from Suffolk University Law School.

Jessica McDonald, Ph.D., is Director of Program Management at Aliada Therapeutics and has over ten years of experience in the biotech industry from discovery to commercialization. Most recently, Jessica served as Director of Program Management and Translational Sciences at Bial Biotech Investments, Inc. Prior to that, Jessica was Associate Director of Program Leadership and Regulatory at Rhythm Pharmaceuticals where she ran multiple program teams to ensure alignment with corporate goals and strategy and played a key role in program management of regulatory filings, which resulted in product approval in US and EU (Imcivree). As a Senior Scientist at Lysosomal Therapeutics, Inc. she managed in vitro and in vivo preclinical efforts to drive their lead compound to clinic. Jessica received her Ph.D in biochemistry from University College Dublin with post-doctoral training in Harvard University/Brigham and Women’s Hospital in addition to Northwestern University.

Antonella Pirone, Ph.D., is Director of Neuroscience Research at Aliada Therapeutics, leading drug discovery and translational efforts. She has more than 20 years of experience in neuroscience research across international academic labs and the biotech and pharmaceutical industry. Recently, she was Director of Translational Pharmacology at Caesura Therapeutics, responsible for developing novel therapeutics targeting epilepsy. Previously, she was Principal Scientist at Alkermes Plc after its acquisition of Rodin Therapeutics where she was Senior Scientist in Translational Sciences. Before joining the industry, Antonella was a Research Associate at Tufts University and a post-doc fellow at Tuebingen University, Germany; her work has been summarized in several peer-reviewed articles. Her passion for entrepreneurship led her to join the Startup and Leadership program in Boston in 2017. She earned her Ph.D. in genetics and molecular medicine from the University of Naples, Italy.

David Row, Ph.D., is Associate Director of Platform Technology at Aliada Therapeutics, with 5 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Aliada, David worked as a project lead for protein engineering at Merck & Co. and directed evolution projects within the Enabling Technologies department in process research and development. David was a postdoctoral fellow in the Chemical Biology department at Merck & Co. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Irvine.

Michael Ryan, M.D. brings a 25-year background in clinical care and neuroscience clinical development to his role as Chief Medical Officer at Aliada Therapeutics. Before joining Aliada, he was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at RA Ventures, focusing on the evaluation of early-stage CNS therapeutics. He has held significant leadership positions including CMO at Rodin Therapeutics and Asceneuron SA, as well as Vice President and Neurodegeneration Therapeutic Area Head at Novartis. Michael earned his bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University and his medical degree from the Medical University of South Carolina. He completed his internship in Internal Medicine and residency in Psychiatry at the University of Utah Health Sciences Center, followed by fellowships in Geriatric Psychiatry and Neuropsychiatry at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. Earlier in his career, he served as a faculty member at the University of Rochester School of Medicine before joining Merck Research Laboratories in 2004.

Alycia Shoultz is Associate Director of Platform Technology at Aliada Therapeutics, responsible for the molecular design, characterization and validation of constructs using platform technology. She holds over 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Aliada, Alycia worked at Merck as a protein engineer project lead within small molecule process and development, following years of increasing responsibility after entering the company as a scientist. She then transitioned to the biologics downstream development group to contribute to Merck’s first ADC molecule. Alycia previously worked at Boehringer Ingelheim leading the protein expression group before joining the global biotherapeutics lead engineering group. Prior to this experience, she was an Associate Scientist and Project Manager at Protein Sciences Corporation, which followed time as a contracted scientist at Pfizer. She received her M.S. in Molecular Biology from Quinnipiac University.

Kailene Simon, PhD., is the Director of Oligonucleotide Biology at Aliada, tasked with overseeing the preclinical development of RNA-targeting therapeutics for the treatment of CNS disorders. Kai has worked in drug discovery for more than 20 years, most recently as Director of Discovery Biology at PepGen. Prior to that, she led the in vitro biology efforts at Atalanta Therapeutics, a startup company focused on oligo drug development for neurological disorders, where her team was primarily responsible for compound screening, target validation, lead candidate selection, ex vivo tissue analysis for compound efficacy and DMPK analysis. Before that, Kai spent a very diverse 18 years in rare disease research at Sanofi-Genzyme. During that time, her work has primarily focused on the biochemistry of pulmonary fibrosis, solid tumor and hematologic oncology, hemoglobinopathies, and cystic fibrosis. Kailene received her M.S. in Biology from Tufts University and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Massachusetts Medical School.

Steven Sweeney is Chief Operating Officer at Aliada Therapeutics and is responsible for Development Operations, Program Management, Information Technology and Facilities. He began his career in clinical research over 20 years ago and held leadership positions in clinical operations and clinical technology at both Pfizer and Infinity Pharmaceuticals before making the transition to biotech start-ups. Since 2012, Steve has led Development Operations at several successful start-up companies including Arteaus Therapeutics (migraine), Annovation BioPharma (sedation and general anesthesia), Rodin Therapeutics (synaptopathies) and Third Harmonic (inflammatory diseases). His development experience spans Phase 1 first-in-human studies through Phase 3b global registration studies and includes the design and implementation of technology to improve trial analytics and processes. Steve earned his bachelor’s degree in toxicology from Northeastern University.

John Weidenbruch is General Counsel at Aliada Therapeutics, and brings more than 25 years of legal, health policy and commercial experience in the biopharmaceutical industry. He recently served as Senior Vice President and General Counsel with Epizyme, Inc., prior to its acquisition by Ipsen. He has also served as a trusted legal and business advisor for some of the world’s leading pharmaceutical and biotech organizations, including Visterra, Biogen, Inc., Idenix Pharmaceuticals, Abraxis BioScience, Amgen, and Syntex Laboratories. John began his career in healthcare policy as a lobbyist for the Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA), formerly known as the Non-Prescription Drug Manufacturers Association. John received his bachelor’s degree in Sociology from Loyola University in Maryland and earned his J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center. An alumnus of the board of trustees, John served as a board member of the American Kidney Fund for seven years.