Meet the team
Core Investigators
Arc Core Investigators are fully funded with complete freedom to pursue curiosity-driven research agendas. They may also hold faculty positions at our partner institutions - Stanford, UC Berkeley and UCSF.
Executive Director and Core Investigator
Silvana Konermann
Silvana is an Assistant Professor of Biochemistry at Stanford. Her research laboratory aims to understand the molecular pathways that drive the development of Alzheimer’s disease using next-generation functional genomics, with the long-term goal of developing rationally targeted therapeutics for neurodegenerative disorders. She received her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from MIT. Silvana’s pioneering work on tools to directly perturb the transcriptomic landscape of the cell using CRISPR has been recognized by her faculty appointment as a Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Investigator and Hanna Gray Fellow of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Cofounder and Core Investigator
Patrick Hsu
Patrick Hsu is an Assistant Professor of Bioengineering and Deb Faculty Fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. His lab develops molecular technologies to improve human health through next-generation diagnostics and therapeutics. Patrick received A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University and the Broad Institute, where he helped to pioneer CRISPR-Cas9 technologies for genome editing. His research has been recognized in Forbes' 30 Under 30, the NIH Early Independence Award, the MIT Technology Review's Innovators Under 35, the Rainwater Prize for Innovative Early Career Scientist, and the Amgen Young Investigator Award.
Core Investigator
Lingyin Li
Lingyin Li is an Associate Professor in the Biochemistry Department and the ChEM-H institute at Stanford. She received her Ph.D at the University of Wisconsin-Madison with Dr. Laura Kiessling and performed postdoctoral studies with Dr. Timothy Mitchison at Harvard Medical School. The Li Laboratory has pioneered the development of chemical tools to define and manipulate new modulators of the innate immune STING pathway. Dr. Li is the recipient of the NIH New Innovator Award in 2017, the Ono Pharma Foundation Breakthrough Science Initiative Award in 2017, and the 2022 Eli Lilly Award in Biological Chemistry.
Core Investigator
Luke Gilbert
Luke Gilbert is an Assistant Professor of Urology and of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology at the University of California, San Francisco, and is affiliated with the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Innovative Genomics Institute. He received his Ph.D. from MIT and completed his postdoctoral training at UCSF. Dr. Gilbert was an early pioneer in applying CRISPR technology to edit the epigenome (CRISPRi and CRISPRa), and continues to develop new strategies for editing and understanding human genetics and epigenetics at large scale, with a particular focus on cancer. Dr. Gilbert’s research has been recognized by a NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, a Pew-Stewart scholar for cancer research award, and the AAAS Martin and Rose Wachtel Cancer research award.
Technology Centers
Arc Technology Centers are biotech-like R&D hubs that focus on technology invention, refinement, and benchmarking in five technological areas: Multi-Omics, Genome Engineering, Cellular Models, Mammalian Models and Computation. In parallel, they partner with our Core Investigators and their labs to unlock new discoveries across human complex diseases. You can learn more about our Technology Centers here.
MULTI-OMICS
Nianzhen Li
Nianzhen leads Arc’s Multi-Omic Technology Center. She received her Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular, and Developmental Biology from Iowa State University followed by post-doctoral research in Bioengineering at University of Washington. She started her career at Fluxion Biosciences and has held various leadership positions at Fluidigm, Mission Bio, and Deepcell.
GENOME ENGINEERING
Ben Mijts
Ben leads Arc’s Genome Engineering Technology Center. He received his Ph.D. from Griffith University in Australia and completed his Post-doctoral research at the University of Minnesota. He started his industry career as a scientist at Codexis, developing enzymes for pharmaceutical and biofuels applications. He was an early employee at Zymergen, transitioning to a technical leadership role as Director of Projects. Most recently he was Senior Director of Protein Engineering at Inscripta, developing genome editing tools including novel CRISPR nucleases.
Operations
The Arc Operations team provides the necessary infrastructure and support so that our scientists have the space to focus on tackling their most important ideas.
Board member
Nat Friedman
Nat was the CEO of GitHub and the cofounder and CEO of Xamarin (acquired by Microsoft). Nat also cofounded the GNOME Foundation, an organization to support the GNOME project goals of an open source computing platform.
COO
Alden Woodrow
Alden leads operations at Arc. He has built teams and technologies in various industries including energy, aerospace, and transportation. Previously Alden held product management roles at Nuro, Uber, Google, Makani, and was the co-founder and CEO of Ike.
General Counsel
Julia Kazaks
Julia leads the legal team at Arc. She brings leadership experience from public company executive roles and two decades of work at Skadden.
University Relations & Academic Affairs
Lynn Hendrickson
Lynn leads university partnerships for the Institute. Previous to Arc, Lynn held roles at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Mount Sinai Medical Center, Addgene, and Massachusetts General Hospital.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Bill Kim
Bill leads the intellectual property function at Arc. He brings over twenty years of legal experience in life science IP matters, most recently at 10x Genomics and before that at WilmerHale, where Bill was a partner. Before law, Bill was a postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Molecular Genetics & Immunology at The Rockefeller University and he obtained his Ph.D. in Cellular, Molecular, & Biophysical Studies from Columbia University.
BRAND & COMMUNICATIONS
Jessica Adkins
Jessica leads brand, as well as external and internal communicatons at Arc. She brings extensive experience from the consumer products and health industries, including AB InBev and Amy's Kitchen.
Systems
Nicolle Seuss
Nicolle leads operations projects across operational systems at the Institute. She comes from Director roles at two Fortune 100 Insurance carriers.
Finance
Rose Harris
Rose leads finance operations for the Institute. Formerly, Rose worked in the healthcare sector, most recently as a Vice President at Aetna.
Scientific Publications
April Pawluk
April provides scientific writing and editing support for the Institute. She brings scientific publications expertise from her time as a Cell editor and as a scientific program manager at Harvard University.
IT
Greg Tinker
Greg leads IT at Arc working closely with multiple technology partners and vendors. Previous to Arc, Greg managed IT services at CZ Biohub and Ascendis Pharma. He also held senior roles in systems engineering, consulting, and academia.