SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY BOARD

Prior to Leal Therapeutics, Asa Abeliovich was Chief Executive Officer and Founder at Prevail Therapeutics, which develops gene therapies for Parkinson’s disease and related disorders, until its acquisition by Eli Lilly in 2021, and was Co-Founder of and consultant to Alector, a biotechnology company which is developing antibodies for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. Asa was previously a tenured Associate Professor of Pathology, Cell Biology, and Neurology at Columbia University, as well as a member of the Taub Institute for Alzheimer’s Disease and the Aging Brain. He has also previously served as an Attending Physician in Neurology at the New York-Presbyterian Hospital and the New York Psychiatric Institute. Asa was awarded the Lamport Award for Excellence in Basic Science Research at Columbia University in 2005. Asa is on the Scientific Advisory Board of The Silverstein Foundation for Parkinson’s with GBA.

Asa holds M.D. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard Medical School and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), respectively, and Bachelor’s degrees in life sciences and humanities from MIT. Asa was awarded a Medical Scholar Training Program Fellowship and completed his residency training in neurology at the University of California, San Francisco.

He was previously president of research and development at Infinity Pharmaceuticals.
Prior to joining Infinity in 2003, Dr. Adams was the senior vice president of drug discovery and development at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where he headed multiple global drug discovery and development programs, including the successful Velcade® (bortezomib) program.

Dr. Adams also held senior positions in research and development at LeukoSite (acquired by Millennium) and at ProScript, as well as in medicinal chemistry at Boehringer Ingelheim, where he is credited with discovering Viramune® (nevirapine) for HIV. Dr. Adams has won many awards, holds 40+ patents and has authored more than 100 papers and book chapters in peer-reviewed journals. He earned a B.S. from McGill University and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also received a Doctor of Science, honoris causa, from McGill University in 2012.

In addition to serving on the advisory board of the Silverstein Foundation for GBA/PD, he also serves on the advisory board of the Parkinson’s Foundation and he is a member of the Michael J. Fox Foundation (MJFF) PPMI steering committee. His work is supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Parkinson’s Foundation and the MJFF.

She also served as the Director of Molecular Neuroscience and the Therapeutic Area Head for Stroke and Neurodegeneration at Merck Research Laboratories, a company she joined in 2002.
Prior to joining Merck, she held a faculty position in the Laboratory of Genetics at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, where she maintained an adjunct appointment. She served as a Scientific Advisor of Bionomics Ltd. until September 22, 2016. At the Salk Institute, her research laboratory focused on developing animal models of human neurological disease.

Dr. Barlow received her M.D. from the University of Utah followed by a residency at The New York Hospital, Cornell Medical Center in Internal Medicine. She obtained a Ph.D. in molecular and developmental biology at the Karolinska Medical Nobel Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. She completed medical subspecialty training in the field of endocrinology at the NIH and a post-doctoral fellowship in neurogenetics at the National Human Genome Research Institute.

Under his leadership Alexion grew to become a global biopharmaceutical company with employees serving patients with severe and life-threatening disorders in 50 countries through fully integrated research, discovery, development, manufacturing, and commercial capabilities.
Prior to founding Alexion, Dr. Bell was an attending physician at Yale-New Haven Hospital and Assistant Professor of Medicine and Pathology at the Yale University School of Medicine, where he also received his M.D. degree. Dr. Bell was a recipient of the numerous awards and honors as an academic scientist prior to founding Alexion.

Dr. Bell received his A.B. from Brown University and M.D. from Yale University School of Medicine. Dr. Bell is currently an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Medicine and Pathology at the Yale University School of Medicine.

Prior to that, Dr. Grabowski spent over 20 years at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, where he was the A. Graeme Mitchell Chair of Human Genetics and Director of Human Genetics at the Children’s Hospital Research Foundation.
He was also a Professor in the Departments of Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, and Pediatrics, at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. Previously, Dr. Grabowski spent 13.5 years at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, where he developed the world’s largest clinic for patients afflicted with Gaucher disease and other lysosomal diseases. He established basic research and diagnostic laboratories for genetic diseases as well as the first treatment center for enzyme therapy in Gaucher disease.

Dr. Grabowski received his M.D. from the University of Minnesota where he also completed his residency in Pediatrics and fellowship training in Human Genetics. During his research career, he has published over 330 scholarly works on the basic and clinical sciences of lysosomal storage and genetic diseases, while maintaining active clinical and treatment programs for genetic diseases.

Previously VP, Head, New Indications Research Unit (NIRU) and Research & Early Development Centers of Excellence (RED-CoEs) at Biogen and VP Global Imaging and VP Discovery Head for Neuroscience in Merck Research Laboratories (MRL).
He has led the teams that have advanced numerous novel PET imaging agents and neuroscience drug candidates to the clinic contributing to the successful development and registration of several NCEs. He is published extensively in peer-reviewed scientific journals (>200 peer reviewed papers and 3 books) on neuroscience drug discovery, translational biomarkers and the use of biomedical imaging in drug discovery and development.

He received the Gary Neil Award for “Innovation in Drug Development” from the American Society of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics for work on imaging in drug discovery and development and the first Sir James Black Award for Drug Discovery from the British Pharmacological Society. Richard holds a BSc and Ph.D. from Kings College London University UK and is an Honorary Fellow of the British Pharmacological Society.

Prior to Prevail, he was Chief Executive Officer of Acumen Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company developing novel therapies for Alzheimer’s disease (ABOS), Chief Scientific Officer at Avid Radiopharmaceuticals (acquired by Eli Lilly and Company), a company that developed Amyvid® for Alzheimer’s disease brain imaging and was Executive Vice President of Drug Development at Rinat Neuroscience (acquired by Pfizer), which was responsible for early development of tanezumab and fremanezumab (Ajovy®) for pain and migraines. Earlier in his career, Dr. Hefti held senior management positions in neuroscience at Merck and Genentech. He also held positions in academia as a Professor at the University of Southern California and Associate Professor at the University of Miami, where he carried out discovery research on therapeutic approaches to neurodegenerative diseases. He has published more than 250 papers on neurotrophic factors and topics in neuropharmacology. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Zurich and completed his postdoctoral research at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr Kieburtz’s primary research interest is novel therapeutics for neurodegenerative diseases. He led the NINDS sponsored trials of neuroprotective agents for PD (NET-PD), and
served as the Chair of the Executive Committee of the Parkinson Study Group. He previously served on and chaired the FDA Advisory Committee on Peripheral and
Central Nervous System Disorders. In 2009, he was one of the co-founders of Clintrex Research Corporation which has collaborated with over 150 organizations
developing products for brain and neurological disorders.

He received his BA in Neuroscience from Amherst College. He completed his MD and MPH degrees at the University of Rochester, as well as his Neurology training and Fellowship in Experimental Therapeutics.

Previously, he spent over two decades at Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School where he completed his research and clinical training and served on the neurology faculty. Dr. Krainc founded two biotech companies that develop targeted therapies for neurodegenerative disorders. He in an elected member of the American Neurological Association, The Association of American Physicians, and the National Academy of Medicine.

His postdoctoral fellowship was spent at the Rockefeller University, working with the late Tom Kaiser.  In 1988, he accepted a position as assistant professor of chemistry at MIT, and was promoted to associate professor in 1993.  He moved to his current position at the Center of Neurologic Diseases in 1996, and was promoted to Professor of Neurology at Harvard Medical School in 2004.  During this time, he founded to Laboratory for Drug Discovery in Neurodegeneration and the Morris K. Udall NIH Parkinson’s Disease Research Center of Excellence at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, which he directed for ten years.   He was the founder of Link Medicine, and served as its Chief Scientific Officer from 2005 until its sale to AstraZeneca in 2012.  At Link, he and his team advanced a small molecule through phase 1b study in Alzheimer’s disease.  He served as Chief Scientific Officer of Lysosomal Therapeutics, Inc. from it’s founding in 2013 until its sale in 2021 to Bial Pharma.  During this time, he and his team developed a brain-penetrant, safe, and well-tolerated glucocerebrosidase allosteric activator for the treatment of GBA1-PD, a genetic subtype of Parkinson’s disease.  This compound is currently in clinical trials for modification of GBA-PD progression. Peter currently serves on the Scientific Advisory boards of Aliada Therapeutics, Lucy Therapeutics,  and Vincere.

Previously, Dr. Krainc spent 21 years at Harvard Medical School where he completed his research training followed by a neurology residency and fellowship in movement disorders at Massachusetts General Hospital.
He then served on the neurology faculty at MGH and Harvard Medical School until 2013 when he relocated to Chicago.

Dr.Krainc is the founder of Lysosomal Therapeutics, Inc (LTI), a biotech company in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he also serves as the chair of Scientific Advisory Board. He also serves as an Advisor of Intellia Therapeutics Inc. Dr. Krainc recently received the Javits Award for his achievements in the field of neurological science.

Prior to 2013, he was Alexion’s Global Head of Research and Development. From 1988 to 1992, Dr. Squinto held various positions at Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
Prior to Regeneron, he held a joint academic position at both the Tulane University and LSU Medical Schools. He is a recipient of numerous honors and awards from academic and professional organizations for his scientific work.

Dr. Squinto received his B.A. in Chemistry and Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Biophysics from Loyola University of Chicago.

Jim is an adjunct faculty member at Northwestern University and serves on the board of a number of companies and foundations including Regis Technologies, Hibercell, MATTER Healthcare Incubator, Chicago Biotechnology Accelerator and the Pistoia Alliance. He earned his bachelor's degree and Ph.D. in biochemistry from Trinity College Dublin and conducted post-doctoral research in neurobiology at Northwestern University.

He held executive positions at Becton-Dickinson and Chiron, co-founded and was CEO of Trubion Pharmaceuticals, co-founded Corvus Pharmaceuticals, Cleave Biosciences, Silverback Therapeutics, Edgewise Therapeutics, Terremoto Biosciences and serves as a Director on several public and private company boards. Dr. Thompson is an Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year awardee, an Affiliate Professor of Neurosurgery at the University of Washington, an inventor on numerous patents and a board-certified internist and oncologist.

He was on staff at the National Cancer Institute following his internal medicine training at Yale University.