Advancing human health through evolutionary insights

Ashley Zehnder is a co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fauna Bio. Ashley has been recognized for her work by the SF Business Times Women Who Lead in Life Sciences, an Emerging Woman Founder in Bio by the Wave Summit, as well as representing Fauna Bio for the Fortune AI Minute. She has spoken at numerous events promoting the use of AI and novel genomics in drug discovery and mentors early stage founders through her work with On Deck Longevity Biotech and Nucleate Bio. She is a boarded avian veterinarian and her prior research focused on translational science, earning a PhD in Cancer Biology from Stanford. Her research works span >20 peer-reviewed publications, including Cell, Nature and Nature Medicine.

Linda earned an MPhil in Computational Biology from the University of Cambridge and her Ph.D. in Genetics and Genomics from Harvard University. She previously held positions at the Broad Institute and Stanford University studying comparative mammalian genomics and human disease genetics.

Katie earned her PhD in Human Medical Genetics at the University of Colorado, Anschutz Medical Campus. She next trained as a postdoctoral scholar in computational biology in Dr. Carlos Bustamante’s lab as Stanford. Her research has focused on utilizing proteomic, transcriptomic and genomic approaches to identify the molecular components underlying the highly dynamic phenotype of hibernation.

Bryan F. Burkey Ph.D. is an experienced drug discovery and development professional who has led and contributed to efforts from target discovery through NDA filing. He is a biologist with 23 years at Novartis Research, 5 years at the Boston biotech Zafgen Inc. leading biology and translational pharmacology efforts and most recently was the Head of Systems Biology at Walden Biosciences. Over this time, he developed expertise in metabolic and cardiovascular pharmacology and safety assessment and enjoys integrating information across in vitro target/pathway to in vivo physiology/pharmacology to enable drug development.

Kacey received her undergraduate degree in Evolutionary Biology and Anthropology from the University of Colorado at Boulder and Master's Degree in Evolutionary Medicine at UCLA. She has 8 years of experience in a mix of basic, clinical and translational research spanning cardiology, endocrinology, neurology and wine science. She enjoys using an interdisciplinary approach and looking phylogenetically to solve human diseases.

Ben earned his PhD in the Neuroscience Doctoral Program at the Medical College of Wisconsin, where he developed expertise in translational biomedical imaging of patients and many animal species. He has helped launch innovative cross-disciplinary research divisions at each stage of his academic career. He is passionate about exploring naturally evolved solutions to health problems in model organisms and aspires to unlock similar disease resistance strategies in humans.

Ryan earned his PhD in the Zoology doctoral program at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada where he developed expertise in the maintenance of pulmonary and cardiac function in various conditions in which these systems are stressed. This includes development, environmental extremes such as altitude, and changes in state such as entrance into hibernation. He then expanded into diseases that stress the pulmonary system such as Alzheimer’s disease during his postdoctoral work at the University of Wisconsin. Ryan brings over a decade of experience in hibernation physiology, and nearly a decade of experience in pulmonary and cardiovascular physiology research in a wide variety of species and conditions in which these systems are challenged.