Jeff Goater is a Venture Partner at The Column Group. He is also interim Chief Executive Officer of Atavistik Bio.  Previously, Jeff served as Chief Executive Officer of Surface Oncology.  During his tenure at Surface, the company fostered an award-winning culture, advanced four programs into clinical development, completed its initial public offering and secured multiple strategic collaborations, including a transformative partnership with GlaxoSmithKline.  Prior to Surface, he served as Chief Financial Officer of Voyager Therapeutics where he was one of the members of the founding management team. While at Voyager, he led its crossover financing, initial public offering and strategic partnership with Sanofi Genzyme.  Previously he spent nearly a decade in investment banking, most recently as a managing director at Evercore Partners, advising on more than $100 billion in strategic transactions in the biopharma industry. He began his career as a research scientist in the field of AAV gene therapy.

Jeff holds master’s degrees in microbiology/immunology (M.S.), pathology (M.S.) and business administration (M.B.A.) from the University of Rochester, New York.

Laurence Barker is a Partner in the Dementia Discovery Fund (DDF) and has supported the funding and formation of numerous DDF companies developing transformational new medicines for dementia. He joined SV Health Investors in 2016 having played an active role in setting up DDF. Prior to joining the DDF, Laurence was Head of Investment Management in Worldwide Business Development at GSK where he was responsible for managing GSK’s venture investment portfolio, covering both direct equity positions as well as a venture fund-of-funds portfolio. In addition, he led licensing transactions for the pharma R&D business. Prior to GSK, Laurence worked in business development at biotech companies Syntaxin and MorphoSys. Laurence received his Masters degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Auckland, New Zealand, his PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Tübingen, Germany, and an MBA from Cambridge.

Tim Funnell is a London Partner of Monograph Capital. Originally trained as a Pharmacologist with a PhD in lysosomal biology, Tim gained commercial experience at the Boston Consulting Group, before moving into Venture Capital. He has investing and operating experience via his roles at Syncona, Third Rock Ventures and Oxford Science Innovations. He has worked across small molecules, antibodies, gene and cell therapies and he has a particular interest in AAVs. 

Fiona is a Senior Director, Venture Investments, Johnson & Johnson Development Corporation (JJDC) and sits on the Boards of Calypso Biotech BV, Pulmocide & Mestag Therapeutics. Prior to joining JJDC, Fiona served as a Director at Inkef Capital. A qualified pharmacist, Fiona is passionate about helping early-stage companies establish a value-building trajectory by engaging and challenging management and creating optimal development plans. Fiona began her career in biotech focusing on the development of non-viral gene therapy and other novel delivery solutions. A fundamental interest in philanthropy led her to the Wellcome Trust and a focus on translational funding, including establishing a fund to support the development of affordable healthcare technologies in India. Fiona’s transition to venture investing began with a move to Advent Life Sciences, where she was involved in helping shape and build a number of early-stage companies including Arrakis Therapeutics.

Matt McAviney joined NEA in 2018 and is currently a Partner on the healthcare team. He focuses on biopharma investments. Prior to NEA, Matt was a Principal at F-Prime Capital Partners. During his five years at F-Prime, he was responsible for closing investments in more than 20 private biopharma companies, and served on the board of more than 10 portfolio companies. Prior to F-Prime, he was a management consultant in the health and life sciences practice at Oliver Wyman, a biotech equity research analyst at Robert W. Baird, and a healthcare investment banker at JP Morgan. He also conducted lipid metabolism research at the National Institute of Diabetes, Digestive and Kidney Disorders. Matt is a board member of AviadoBio and Recludix Pharma, and works closely with Korro Bio.
Matt received a BA with Honors in Biological Sciences from the University of Chicago, an MD from the University of Illinois, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Amber Salzman began her career at GlaxoSmithKline where she served as a member of the R&D Executive team. She was responsible for clinical trials globally with 30,000+ active patients, directing a budget of $1.25B and 1,600 employees worldwide. She then served as CEO of Cardiokine, where she successfully negotiated the sale of the company to Cornerstone Therapeutics (NASDAQ:CRTX). After Cardiokine, Amber launched Annapurna, a gene therapy company with rare disease assets that merged with Avalanche (NASDAQ:AAVL) to create Adverum Biotechnologies (NASDAQ:ADVM). Amber took on the CEO role, and while CEO Adverum’s stock price doubled and a secondary offering brought in additional funding.  Amber returned to the east coast to lead Ohana Biosciences, a Flagship Pioneering company, establishing the industry’s first sperm product platform.  Amber recently took on leadership of epic bio, a stealth company that regulates the epigenome to suppress and activate multiple genes simultaneously. Amber served on the Board of Akcea (NASDAQ:AKCA) until its sale to Ionis (NASDAQ: IONS) and currently serves on the Board of Osler Diagnostics (UK) and AviadoBio (UK).

For a variety of personal and professional reasons, Amber developed depth in the gene therapy space. Concurrent with industry positions, Amber leads a non-profit medical research foundation focused on accelerating the development of therapies for adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD). In that capacity, she was a catalyst to establish a novel gene therapy approach for treating ALD, resulting in the treatment moving towards registration via bluebird bio (NASDAQ: BLUE).

Dominic Schmidt is General Partner at Advent Life Sciences. Dominic has a background in biochemistry, genomics, molecular oncology, strategy consulting and life science venture capital. Prior to joining Advent, he spent eight years as a Partner in the investment team of Syncona, a publicly listed healthcare investment company. During his time there he was involved in the founding, funding and building of several life science businesses and served on the Boards of Anaveon, Orbit Biomedical (merged with Gyroscope), Gyroscope Therapeutics (acquired by Novartis for up to $1.5 billion), Purespring Therapeutics and Forcefield Therapeutics. After gaining a German Diplom Degree in Biochemistry from the Free University of Berlin and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics he received a PhD from the Department of Oncology at the University of Cambridge. Dominic was a Cancer Research UK scholar, and his research has been published in Cell, Nature and Science. His PhD thesis was recognized with the Pontecorvo and Science and SciLife Lab Prizes.

Nihal Sinha is a Partner at F-Prime based in London and focuses primarily on biotech. Nihal has been an early-stage investor in several gene and gene therapy companies including as a founding team member of Orchard Therapeutics. Prior to joining F-Prime in 2013, he worked as a strategy consultant at BCG and as an academic physician at Oxford University and UCL Hospitals. Nihal holds a MB BChir with distinction from the University of Cambridge and is a Member of the Royal College of Physicians.