David Kirn, M.D., is our co-founder and has served as our Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of our board of directors since our inception in 2013. Dr. Kirn is an Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering at U.C. Berkeley. He currently serves as Executive Chairman of the board of the following privately held company: Ignite Immunotherapy Inc., where he is a co-founder.

Dr. Kirn held senior development positions at Onyx Pharmaceuticals and Celgene, and he was a senior advisor on viral vector gene therapeutics and cancer immunotherapy for over 10 years with numerous companies, including Biogen Idec, Novartis, Cell Genesys, Pfizer and Bayer. Dr. Kirn received a B.A. in Physiology (Departmental Citation; Phi Beta Kappa) from U.C. Berkeley in 1985, an M.D. (Alpha Omega Alpha) from U.C. San Francisco Medical School in 1989 and completed internal medicine residency training at Harvard Medical School, Brigham and Women’s Hospital (including a term as Chief Medical Resident at affiliated VA hospital). He has also completed hematology-oncology and clinical research fellowships at U.C. San Francisco and completed a certificate of business excellence from the Haas Business School at U.C. Berkeley. In 2013, he was awarded the Johnson & Johnson Entrepreneur Innovator award from the J&J Innovation Center.