Sabrina Heman-Ackah, M.D., DPhil

Alumni Director
Resident Physician, Neurosurgery
University of Pennsylvania

Dr. Sabrina M. Heman-Ackah, MD, DPhil, MSE is a 2016 graduate of the NIH Oxford-Cambridge
Scholars Program (NIH OxCam). While in NIH OxCam, she utilized the CRISPR/Cas9 genome
editing system, applied to patient-derived induced pluripotent stem cells to discover novel
insights about the role of alpha-synuclein overexpression in Parkinson’s disease pathogenesis.
After graduating NIH OxCam and completing her MD via the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill MD-PhD Program, she joined the University of Pennsylvania Neurosurgery Residency
Program, where she is now in her sixth year of training. During her junior residency, her
interests developed towards skull base neurosurgery, where the most intricate parts of the
brain that influence our interactions with the external world may be ravaged both by pathology
and available approaches to treatment. She concurrently completed a Master of Science in
Bioengineering at the University of Pennsylvania, aligned with her goal of applying machine
learning and artificial intelligence to better understand and improve outcomes for patients
undergoing surgery for lesions of the skull base.

Sabrina recognizes the tremendous benefit that her experience in the NIH Oxford-Cambridge
Scholars Program and concurrent opportunities afforded by the IBRA during her time in the
program have had on her career trajectory. As such, she has maintained an active connection to
both and has demonstrated a fervent desire to ensure such opportunities continue for future
NIH OxCam Scholars. Sabrina currently serves as the Alumni Lead of the NIH OxCam-IBRA
Professional Development Program, a longitudinal professional mentorship program intended
to provide Scholars focused career mentorship in addition to the already profound mentorship
in the biomedical sciences afforded by the NIH OxCam Program. She is honored and humbled
by the opportunity to join the International Biomedical Research Alliance Board of Directors as
an Alumni Director.

Jeremy Goldberg

President, JPG Healthcare LLC
Operating Partner, Arsenal Capital Partners

Jeremy P. Goldberg is an Advisor to Torreya Partners (www.torreya.com), a leading boutique advisory firm based in New York and London that provides strategic advice and assistance with Mergers & Acquisitions, Partnering and, as well as Advises several $1 billion + private equity funds, including Riverside Partners, DRI Capital, and serves as an Operating Partner for Arsenal Capital Partners, and on several private company board of directors. He has over 25 years of experience, mainly focused on investing and business development in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. He has been an operating executive in a $1 billion + sales pharmaceutical company, a partner in a venture capital fund, and an entrepreneurial founder of several companies that were later acquired.

Mr. Goldberg served as Managing Director, Corporate Development for Endo Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ENDP), a leading pain therapeutics company, from 2003-2008. In this position, Mr. Goldberg was responsible for Endo’s overall corporate development activities, including structuring, negotiating and closing transactions such as the acquisitions of companies, products and product lines. Prior to Endo, he was a founding partner of ProQuest Investments from 1997-2002, the first cancer-focused venture capital fund, where he and partners raised over $250 MM in Funds I, II to acquire positions in biotechnology, specialty pharmaceutical, and medical device companies. Representative investments or deals sourced include Conforma Therapeutics (acquired by Biogen IDEC), Threshold Pharmaceuticals, and Pharmion (acquired by Celgene). Prior operating experience includes roles as founding CEO or founder of three biotechnology companies that were acquired or taken public, including Versicor (Vicuron), a Sepracor spin-out later acquired by Pfizer for $1.9 billion, as well as operating positions at SmithKline (now Glaxo SmithKline) and Becton Dickinson.

Mr. Goldberg is magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Business School. He serves on the Visiting Committee for the Lank Center at Dana Farber Cancer Institute and has been a member of the board of the International Biomedical Research Alliance since 2007 as well as on the board of private companies Cell Signaling Technology, Dominion Diagnostics. He has been an invited speaker at the University of Pennsylvania Wharton/Windhover program for Pharmaceutical executives, Harvard Business School, and served as moderator for over 10 years for Communitech’s Cancer Progress conference.

Brian Brille

Vice Chairman
Caris Life Sciences

Welcomed to the International Biomedical Research Alliance Board of Directors in 2022, Brian J. Brille is Vice Chairman of Caris Life Sciences and a member of their Board of Directors. Caris is a leader in the rapidly evolving field of precision oncology and molecular diagnostics. In his role, Brian is responsible for several divisions at Caris: Precision Oncology Alliance (POA), Corporate Development, and Capital Strategy. In May 2021, he led the Caris Series D financing which raised $830 million and valued the company at $7.8 billion.

Mr. Brille is a senior financial services executive with more than 27 years experience in investment banking including global leadership positions. In 2003, he was named Investment Dealer’s Digest Banker of the Year.

Prior to joining Caris Life Sciences, Mr. Brille worked in various capacities for Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Most recently, he was based in Hong Kong and served as Chairman/President Asia Pacific for Bank of America Merrill Lynch, with responsibility for the combined Asia Pacific platform across 12 countries and 4 business lines. Prior to this, he served as Global Head of Corporate & Investment Banking at Bank of America from 2005-2009, with responsibility for several thousand employees across all industry groups, capital markets, and M&A. He joined Bank of America in 1999 as Head of Healthcare Investment Banking, and within three years that business was ranked in the Top 3 globally. He started his investment banking career in 1987 in Morgan Stanley’s M&A Department and subsequently founded Morgan Stanley’s Healthcare Services Investment Banking Group.
Mr. Brille holds a JD from Stanford Law School, a Masters of Public Policy from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and a BS in Accounting from the University of Illinois.

He is a Trustee of the Cancer Research Institute (CRI). He is also on the Board of Overseers of the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) in Boston and is a collector of Egyptian antiquities and Italian Old Masters. He is passionate about sports, including kiteboarding, tennis, and kickboxing. Brian has four young children and is based in New York City.

Brian Atwood

Managing Director
Versant Ventures

Brian Atwood has more than 20 years of operating experience in the biotechnology industry, and in addition over 15 years as both an investor in biotech venture capital as well as a co-founder of a health sciences venture capital firm. Mr. Atwood was most recently President and CEO as well as a co-founder of Cell Design Labs, Inc., a biotechnology company focused on developing human cell engineering technology from the UC San Francisco lab of Wendell Lim, for the treatment of multiple diseases including cancer. Cell Design Labs was founded in 2015 and under Mr. Atwood’s leadership grew to a staff of 50 scientists and support employees, and signed a collaboration agreement with Kite Pharmaceuticals. In December 2017 the company was acquired by Gilead Sciences.

In 1999, Mr. Atwood co-founded and currently serves as a Managing Director for Versant Ventures, a healthcare-focused venture capital firm. Prior to founding Versant Ventures, Mr. Atwood served as a general partner of Brentwood Associates, a venture capital firm he joined in 1997. Mr. Atwood also serves on the boards of two pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, including Atreca, Inc., where he is Chairman, and Clovis Oncology (CLVS). Mr. Atwood earlier served on the boards of Five Prime Therapeutics (NASDAQ: FPRX), Cadence Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: CADX) acquired in 2014, Veracyte, Inc, (NASDAQ: VCYT), and Pharmion Corporation (acquired in 2008), and Trius Therapeutics, Inc. (NASDAQ: TSRX) acquired in 2013.

Prior to launching his career in venture capital, Mr. Atwood was Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Glycomed, a publicly traded biotechnology company he started in 1987 and sold to Ligand Pharmaceuticals in 1995.

Mr. Atwood received a BS in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Irvine, a MS in Ecology from the University of California, Davis, and a MBA from Harvard Business School.