White man with short silver hair wearing glasses looks at the camera and smiles.

Phil Febbo

Phil Febbo, MD, was appointed as Chief Medical Officer in March 2018. In this role, he is responsible for developing and executing the Company’s medical strategy to drive genomic testing into healthcare practice. Febbo has a successful track record of translational research, clinical excellence, and for embedding molecular insights into clinical care. 

Kristian Anderson

Kristian Andersen, PhD is a Professor at Scripps Research and Director of Infectious Disease Genomics. He is the Vice President of the Viral Hemorrhagic Fever Consortium and the Principal Investigator of the Center for Viral Systems Biology and the West African Emerging Infectious Disease Research Center. He is a PEW Biomedical Scholar and received his PhD from the University of Cambridge and performed postdoctoral work in Pardis Sabeti’s group at Harvard University. Investigating several aspects of infectious diseases, over the last decade he has spearheaded several large international collaborations investigating the spread and evolution of severe human pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2, Zika, Ebola, West Nile, and Lassa.

C. Frank Bennett

Dr. Bennett is the chief scientific officer at Ionis Pharmaceuticals and one of the founding members of the company. He is responsible for continuing to advance antisense technology and expanding Ionis drug discovery platform. Dr. Bennett is also the franchise leader for neurological programs at Ionis. He has been involved in the development of antisense oligonucleotides as therapeutic agents, including research on the application of oligonucleotides for inflammatory, neurodegenerative diseases and cancer, oligonucleotide delivery, pharmacokinetics and medicinal chemistry.

Dr. Bennet is a co-recipient of the 2019 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his contributions to the discovery and development of SPINRAZA® (nusinersen) and the 2018 Hereditary Disease Foundation’s (HDF) Leslie Gehry Brenner Prize for Innovation in Science for his leadership and continued commitment to developing antisense therapies for Huntington’s disease (HD).

Dr. Bennett has published more than 230 papers in the field of antisense research and development, and he is an inventor on more than 175 issued patents.

Prior to joining Ionis, Dr. Bennett was associate senior investigator in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology at SmithKline and French Laboratories (currently, GlaxoSmithKline).

He received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Texas and his B.S. degree in Pharmacy from the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, New Mexico. He performed his postdoctoral research in the Department of Molecular Pharmacology at SmithKline and French Laboratories.

Dr. Bennett serves on the Advisory Board for the Hereditary Disease Foundation.

Robert M. Califf

Robert M. Califf, MD, MACC, is the Head of Clinical Policy and Strategy for Verily and Google Health. Prior to this Dr. Califf was the vice chancellor for health data science for the Duke University School of Medicine; director of Duke Forge, Duke’s center for health data science; and the Donald F. Fortin, MD, Professor of Cardiology. He served as Deputy Commissioner for Medical Products and Tobacco in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) from 2015-2016, and as Commissioner of Food and Drugs from 2016-2017. A nationally and internationally recognized leader in cardiovascular medicine, health outcomes research, healthcare quality, and clinical research, Dr. Califf is a graduate of Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Califf was the founding director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute and is one of the most frequently cited authors in biomedical science.

Wendy Chung

Wendy Chung, M.D., Ph.D. is a clinical and molecular geneticist and the Kennedy Family Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Medicine.  She received her B.A. in biochemistry and economics from Cornell University, her M.D. from Cornell University Medical College, and her Ph.D. from The Rockefeller University in genetics.  Dr. Chung directs NIH funded research programs in human genetics of obesity, breast cancer, pulmonary hypertension, and birth defects including congenital diaphragmatic hernia and congenital heart disease.  She leads the Precision Medicine Resource in the Irving Institute At Columbia University.  She has authored over 250 peer reviewed papers and 50 reviews and chapters in medical texts.  She was the recipient of the American Academy of Pediatrics Young Investigator Award, the Medical Achievement Award from Bonei Olam, and a career development award from Doris Duke.  Dr. Chung is renowned for her teaching and mentoring and received Columbia University’s highest teaching award, the Presidential Award for Outstanding Teaching.  She was the original plaintiff in the Supreme Court case that overturned the ability to patent genes and the Institute of Medicine Committee on Genetic Testing.  Dr. Chung enjoys the challenges of genetics as a rapidly changing field of medicine and strives to facilitate the integration of genetic medicine into all areas of health care in a medically, scientifically, and ethically sound, accessible, and cost effective manner.

Emmanouil Dermitzakis

Emmanouil (Manolis) Dermitzakis is Professor of Genetics in the Department of Genetic Medicine and Development, University of Geneva Medical School, Director of the Health2030 Genome Center and President of the National Council for Research, Technology and Innovation in Greece. He is member of the executive boards of the Institute of Genetics and Genomics in Geneva (iGE3) and the Swiss Personalized Health Network, and also a member of the Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics. He obtained his B.Sc. (1995) and M.Sc. (1997) from the University of Crete (Greece) and his PhD in 2001 from the Pennsylvania State University in the USA. His post-doctoral work was at the University of Geneva Medical School. He previously was a Senior Investigator at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in Cambridge. He was elected EMBO member in 2014, recipient of the 2017 Bodossakis science award and has been named Highly Cited Researcher by ISI every year from 2014 onwards. He also served as president of the World Hellenic Biomedical Association (2014-2015). His research focuses on the genetic causes of human disease. He has had leading roles in the ENCODE, Mouse Genome Sequencing, the International HapMap, the 1000 genomes and GTEx projects. He has served in the Board of scientific journals such as Science, eLIFE, PLoS Genetics and he is currently the Chief Editor of Frontiers in Genetics.

Geoffrey S. Ginsburg

Dr. Ginsburg is the founding director for the Center for Applied Genomics & Precision Medicine at the Duke University Medical Center and for MEDx, a partnership between the Schools of Medicine and Engineering to spark and translate innovation.  His research addresses the challenges for translating genomic information into medical practice and the integration of precision medicine into healthcare.

He is a member of the Advisory Council to the Director of NIH and is co-chair of the National Academies Roundtable on Genomic and Precision Health and is co-chair of the Global Genomic Medicine Collaborative.  He has recently served as a member of the Board of External Experts for the NHLBI, the advisory council for the National Center for Accelerating Translational Science, and the World Economics Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of the Health Sector.

Joseph G. Gleeson

Dr. Gleeson received his M.D. from the University of Chicago, residency in pediatrics and neurology at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston and then postdoctoral research fellowship in neurobiology and genetics at Harvard Medical School. He has appointments at the University of California San Diego, Rady Children’s Hospital San Diego, and The Rockefeller University. He is an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, an Investigator with the Simons Foundation for Autism Research, and a member of the US National Academy of Science Institute of Medicine.

His research is focused on genetic brain diseases, with the goal of discovering genetic causes of disease, uncovering mechanisms and developing new treatments.  The lab has leveraged the largest cohort of families with autism due to recessive neurodevelopmental and neurodegenerative disease using next-generation sequencing. With over 6000 patients sequenced to date, the lab has uncovered causes for over 100 genetic diseases along a spectrum of epilepsy, autism, intellectual disability, neurodegenerative conditions.  Mutations are modeled using biochemistry, cell culture, IPSCs, as well as mouse and zebrafish models.

The work has uncovered several pediatric brain diseases that were previously considered untreatable to have obvious points of treatment. Gleeson identified the Doublecortin gene mutated in lissencephaly. He described mutations in the BCKDK gene in patients with autism and epilepsy that predict that should respond to simple nutritional supplementation of branched chain amino acids, and recent trials have been successful. They described mutations in the MTOR, AKT3, PIK3CA genes in patients with hemimegalencephaly that predict they should respond to medications inhibiting the mTOR pathway. He described mutations in the AMPD2 gene in patients with a form of neurodegeneration that predict that they should respond to simple nutritional supplementation.

Eric D. Green

Dr. Eric Green is the Director of the National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) at the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is the third NHGRI Director, having been appointed by NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins in 2009.

Dr. Green has been at the Institute for more than 25 years, during which he has had multiple key leadership roles. He served as the Institute’s Scientific Director for 7 years, Chief of the NHGRI Genome Technology Branch for 13 years, and Founding Director of the NIH Intramural Sequencing Center for 12 years.

For just over two decades, Dr. Green directed an independent research program that included integral start-to-finish roles in the Human Genome Project and groundbreaking work on mapping, sequencing, and characterizing mammalian genomes.

Dr. Green earned his M.D. and Ph.D. degrees in 1987 from Washington University in St. Louis; coincidentally, the word “genomics” was coined in that same year. During his career, Dr. Green has authored and co-authored over 375 scientific publications.

Professor Dame Sue Hill

Professor Dame Sue Hill Professor Sue Hill DBE FMedSci FRSB FRCP(Hon) FRCPath (Hon) FHCS is the Chief Scientific Officer for England and the head of profession for the healthcare science workforce in the NHS and associated bodies, providing professional leadership and expert clinical advice across the health and care system.  She is a respiratory scientist by background with an international academic and clinical research reputation.

Professor Hill has a broad portfolio of policy responsibilities and has led a variety of major system and workforce transformation initiatives for the Government to improve patient outcomes and service effectiveness in the NHS and beyond.

Sue is the Senior Responsible Officer for Genomics in NHS England, driving the programme to introduce a nationwide Genomic Medicine Service transforming care pathways across a wide range of clinical conditions. This builds on her work in leading the NHS contribution to the 100,000 Genomes Project.  She also provides strategic leadership for the Health Education England Genomics Education Programme.

Sue was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honours in recognition of the scale of her contribution to British genomics.