About

William Ringo, MBA, has over 40 years of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology sectors and is chair of the board. Prior to his retirement in 2010, he served as senior vice president of strategy and business development for Pfizer and was appointed to its executive committee. Mr. Ringo also spent nearly 30 years at Eli Lilly and Company in multiple executive roles including product group president for oncology and critical care, president of internal medicine, president of the infectious disease business unit, and vice president of sales and marketing for U.S. pharmaceuticals. Mr. Ringo also held the role of president and chief executive officer of Abgenix, a biotechnology company later acquired by Amgen, and was an advisor at both Barclays Capital and Sofinnova Ventures. Mr. Ringo currently chairs the board of directors of Assembly Biosciences, Inc., and has previously been appointed to the boards of Dermira, Five Prime Therapeutics, Immune Design, Mirati Technologies, Onyx Pharmaceuticals, and Sangamo Biosciences. He earned a B.A. in business administration and later an MBA, both from the University of Dayton.

Samuel Broder, M.D., is the former director of the National Cancer Institute (NCI), the largest and most important agency for cancer research, where he was appointed by President Ronald Reagan in 1989. While at the NCI, he oversaw the development of numerous anti-cancer therapeutic agents, helped launch a number of large-scale clinical trials related to the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of cancer and inaugurated the highly successful SPORE Program. Most recently, he served as senior vice president and health sector head at Intrexon Corporation. Dr. Broder spent his entire career in translational medicine and his laboratory interests have included antiretroviral therapy, the relationship between immunodeficiency disorders and cancer, the human genome, and the proteomics of cancer cells. In the mid-1980s, in response to the AIDS pandemic, he focused his attention on HIV-1/AIDS. His laboratory played a major role in developing the first 3 agents approved by FDA specifically to treat the AIDS virus, Retrovir® (AZT), Videx® (ddI), and HIVID® (ddC). After serving as the director of the NCI from 1989-1995, Dr. Broder served as senior vice president, research and development and chief scientific officer at IVAX Corporation. He then joined the Celera Corporation as the executive vice president for medical affairs and chief medical officer and helped advance the human genome project, the elucidation of the three billion letters of code that make up human DNA. He has received numerous scientific awards related to his research in cancer and AIDS. He was elected to the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences in 1993.

John Celebi, MBA, has over 20 years of experience building innovative entrepreneurial biotechnology companies. Previously, Mr. Celebi served as the chief operating officer of X4 Pharmaceuticals where he established and oversaw the company’s oncology business strategy. He also served as chief business officer of Igenica Biotherapeutics, Inc., an immunotherapy company formed by The Column Group, 5AM Ventures, Orbimed, and Third Rock Ventures, where he established key academic and industry relationships, including with MedImmune. He has extensive transactional and alliance management experience. Previously, he served as vice president of business development, new product planning and Alliance Management at ArQule, Inc., where he played a central role in the formation of alliances with Roche, Daiichi-Sankyo, and Kyowa Hakko Kirin. Mr. Celebi was an early employee at Tularik, Inc., where he conducted drug discovery and basic research for an anti-viral drug program. Mr. Celebi received an MBA from Carnegie Mellon University and a B.S. in biophysics from the University of California, San Diego.

Jessie English, Ph.D., joined Sensei’s board of directors in 2021 and currently serves as chief scientific officer of BAKX Therapeutics, a biotechnology company developing novel cancer therapeutics targeting apoptosis. Dr. English was most recently the chief scientific officer of Tilos Therapeutics, a company focused on developing therapeutic antibodies targeting LAP as a novel approach to targeting TGF-beta and acquired by Merck in 2019. Prior to Tilos, she was vice president and head of discovery research immuno-oncology translational innovation platform at EMD Serono/ Merck KGaA. Her previous positions include head of research at the Belfer Center for Applied Cancer Science at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, vice president of kinase biology at ArQule, oncology site lead for external discovery at Merck and head of Pfizer’s Kinase Center of Emphasis. Dr. English began her industry career in oncology drug discovery at Schering-Plough Research Institute. Her industry experiences include serving on the leadership counsel of AACR Women in Cancer Research and as its Chair from 2014-2015. Dr. English earned her B.S. with honors in biochemistry from Kansas State University and her Ph.D. in neurobiology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was a postdoctoral fellow at UT Southwestern Medical Center, in Dr. Melanie Cobb’s laboratory where she discovered the WNK family of protein kinases and the MEK5 MAPK pathway.

Bob Holmen, J.D., has over 25 years of experience working in and advising technology, healthcare, and financial services companies. He has engaged at every phase of corporate development, from formation to financing to operations to exiting, and has served in diverse roles from electrical engineer (Hughes Aircraft) to an associate at major law firms (Latham & Watkins, Morrison & Foerster), to general counsel for a series of technology and financial services companies, to co-founder and managing director for a family of venture funds (Miramar Venture Partners). Currently, Mr. Holmen provides legal services to investors through his boutique law firm Investor Counsel, focused on the venture capital and private equity markets. His work encompasses fund formation, financing and operations, structuring, and negotiating investments, mergers and acquisition, and purchaser representation. In addition, he continues to serve as a Managing Director for the legacy (fully invested) Miramar Venture Partners funds. Mr. Holmen also has served as an adjunct professor, teaching “Venture Capital Law” at the UC Irvine Law School and “Investing in New Ventures” at USC’s Marshall School of Business, in addition to writing about venture and M&A matters. He received his B.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University and his J.D. from UC Berkeley School of Law.

Kristian Humer, MBA, was appointed to Sensei’s board of directors in August 2021. Mr. Humer spent 20 years on Wall Street, including 14 years as a life science-focused investment banker. He joined Viridian Therapeutics (NASDAQ: VRDN) in July 2021 where he serves as chief financial officer and chief business officer. Previously, he spent 11 years with Citigroup, Inc., most recently as managing director, where he helped lead the firm’s investment banking engagements for small and mid-sized biopharma and select large cap pharmaceutical companies. Prior to joining Citigroup, Inc., Mr. Humer served as vice president of the Investment Banking Division for the Global Healthcare Group team at Lehman Brothers, Inc. Mr. Humer started his career serving positions of increasing responsibility in the investment banking and private banking divisions of UBS AG and Merrill Lynch (a Bank of America company). He received an MBA from the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a B.A. with honors in accounting and economics from the University of Reading, United Kingdom.

James Peyer, Ph.D., joined Sensei’s board of directors in 2020. He is the chief executive officer and founder of Cambrian Biopharma, a distributed drug discovery company developing therapeutics targeting the biology of aging, known as ‘geroscience’. The New York-based company builds, finances, and manages biotech companies. Dr. Peyer founded Cambrian to translate laboratory breakthroughs in the extension of healthy lifespan into the clinic, predicting that the world is entering a revolution in biomedical research by targeting the root causes of aging and age-related disease. Dr. Peyer has spoken on the topic of longevity biotech and investing for The Economist, TEDx, Longevity Leaders, ETH Zurich, and the Max Planck Institute on the Biology of Aging to advance the mission of achieving widespread availability of longevity therapeutics this decade. Before his current role, Dr. Peyer was founder and managing partner at Apollo Ventures, one of the major longevity-focused venture capital firms. Apollo has deployed over $20M and raised over $50M in the first three years of operations. He led investments in Cleara Biotech, Aeovian Pharmaceuticals, and Samsara Therapeutics and served on the board and/or in executive roles for all three companies. Prior to Apollo, James was a consultant at McKinsey & Company, earned his Ph.D. in stem cell biology at UTSW as a National Science Foundation fellow, and received his B.A. with special honors from the University of Chicago.

Tom Ricks, MBA, has been a member of the Board of Directors since 2015. Mr. Ricks is the former chief investment officer of H&S Ventures LLC, a private investment firm. Prior to taking this position with H&S Ventures, he was chief executive officer of The University of Texas Investment Management Company. Mr. Ricks also served as vice chancellor for asset management for The University of Texas System and as executive director of finance and private investments. He has been a director of Newfield Exploration Company (NYSE:NFX) since 1992 and is chairman of its Audit Committee. He is a former director of BDM International, DTM Corporation, LifeCell Corporation, and Argus Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Ricks also previously served on the Investment Committee of the University of California Foundation, Irvine, and previously served on the board of the Ocean Institute. Mr. Ricks holds a B.A. in economics from Trinity College, and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Deneen Vojta, M.D., brings over 25 years of experience as an entrepreneur and strategic leadership in the healthcare industry. She has a successful track record of accelerating the design, execution, and scaling of disruptive programs, products and services and has built multiple businesses with successful exits. Dr. Vojta joined UnitedHealth Group in 2006 after the company acquired MYnetico, a digital disease management company that she founded and served as chief executive officer. Dr. Vojta began her career at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) where she was a resident in pediatrics and a fellow in hematology & oncology. Subsequently, she launched CHOP’s pediatric hospitalist program. Currently, Dr. Vojta serves on the governance board of Children’s Minnesota and the advisory board of The Center for Health Incentives & Behavioral Economics at Penn Medicine. In 2014, she was an Emmy® Award winner and in 2013, a CES® Innovation Design, and Engineering Innovation Honoree. Dr. Vojta holds a M.D. from Temple University School of Medicine and a B.S. in behavioral neuroscience from University of Pittsburgh.