Team | Absci

Meet
the Team

Leadership
Team
Board
of Directors
Scientific
Advisory Board
Dog
Pack

Leadership
Team

Sean McClain

Founder, CEO & Director

Sean McClain

Founder, CEO & Director

Sean McClain is the Founder and CEO of Absci, a leading generative AI Drug Creation company with a mission to create better biologics for patients, faster.

Sean embodies entrepreneurial spirit, having built Absci from basement lab to a publicly traded company and continuing to strive towards his vision to create therapeutics at the click of a button. Under his leadership, Absci scaled to over 200 employees, raised over $530M in capital, established a growing number of industry-leading partnerships, developed an internal portfolio of AI discovered drug assets, and built an Integrated Drug Creation Platform that merges bleeding-edge generative AI models with proprietary high-throughput wet-lab data.

Sean is a graduate of the University of Arizona and has been the recipient of numerous recognitions for his entrepreneurship and innovation. He serves as a board member for the Oregon Translational Research and Development Institute, and Life Science Washington.

Did you know?:

Sean loves chess and perfecting his weekend BBQ with the dream of opening a pop-up restaurant with his favorite chef, Gregory Gourdet.

Zach Jonasson, PhD

Chief Financial Officer & Chief Business Officer

Zach Jonasson,
PhD

Chief Financial Officer & Chief Business Officer

Zach Jonasson, PhD is the CFO and CBO of Absci. Prior to these roles, Dr. Jonasson served as an independent member of Absci’s board of directors and as chairman of the board from April 2016 to October 2020.

Previously, Dr. Jonasson was a co-founder and Managing General Partner of two venture capital firms, Phoenix Venture Partners LLC (PVP) and Convergent Ventures, where he led both firm's venture capital investment strategies in the biotechnology sector. In those roles, he led investments in companies such as Absci, Valence Therapeutics (acquired by Recursion Pharmaceuticals), Sentinel Monitoring Systems (acquired by SUEZ), Totient (acquired by Absci), and ProFluent Bio, and he established fund investment partnerships with multinational corporations such as Pfizer, Corning, and L'Oreal. Earlier in his career, Dr. Jonasson was a General Partner at Seaflower Ventures, where he led multiple investments in companies including Serenex (acquired by Pfizer) and Metaworks (acquired by United Biosource Corporation) and was a co-founder of several companies, including Risk Capital Management and Corp Enhancement.

Dr Jonasson earned his PhD in Behavioral Neuroscience from Harvard University, where he was a Sackler Scholar, an AM in Statistics from Harvard University, and a BS in Economics from the Honors Program at Georgetown University.

Did You Know?:

As a Sackler Scholar at Harvard, Zach studied the neurobiology underlying learning and memory.

Andreas Busch, PhD

Chief Innovation Officer

Andreas Busch, PhD

Chief Innovation Officer

Andreas Busch, PhD, Chief Innovation Officer is responsible for leading R&D, technical operations, and driving both Absci's internal and partner programs. Dr. Busch brings substantial R&D expertise to Absci's leadership team as a world-renowned leader in drug discovery and has led R&D efforts for some of the globe's top pharma companies including Sanofi, Bayer, and Shire. His leadership has resulted in over 10 commercial drugs starting from bench to FDA approval with several more in late stage clinical development. He holds the title of Extraordinary Professor of Pharmacology at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University in Frankfurt, Germany, where he also received his PhD in Pharmacology.

Did you know?:

Andreas loves (real) football and even played in the minor league in Germany, enjoys riding his motorbike thru Alps and, of course, playing with his beloved dog Zorro (Number 1 in Penelope's succession list).

Karin Wierinck

Chief People Officer

Karin Wierinck

Chief People Officer

Karin Wierinck, Chief People Officer, brings deep experience from her leadership roles at top biotech and pharma companies such as Takeda, Novo Nordisk, and Pfizer. Karin has partnered with diverse executive leadership teams to create business value within dynamic, high-growth environments, all while ensuring strong HR service delivery. Her experience working in the US, Switzerland, and throughout Europe will help Absci develop its global talent base. Karin is passionate about building positive cultures based on trust and transparency. She holds Masters degrees in German Philology and Plurilingual Business Communication from Ghent University, and a Masters Degree in HR Leadership from Rutgers University.

Did you know?:

Karin's joy is spending time with family and friends, preferably by the sea or in the mountains. She loves food and travel, and her Pomeranian, Bono, is a regular travel companion. Karin is thrilled that Bono can come with her to work and collaborate with other Unlimiter canines!

Shelby Walker, JD

Chief Legal Officer

Shelby Walker, JD

Chief Legal Officer

Shelby Walker, JD, Chief Legal Officer, leads Absci’s legal team and oversees the company’s legal affairs, business transactions, intellectual property, risk management, and compliance. Shelby joined Absci from Korro Bio, Inc. where she served as General Counsel & Corporate Secretary. Previously, she held senior leadership roles as Senior Vice President, Intellectual Property at CRISPR Therapeutics and General Counsel at Ginkgo Bioworks.

Shelby holds a JD and LLM from UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law, dual MS degrees in Bioscience Regulatory Affairs and Biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University, and a BS degree in Biotechnology from Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Did you know?

Shelby and her husband ride Icelandic horses and enjoy endurance riding both in the US and Iceland.

Penelope

Chief Morale Officer

Amaro Taylor-Weiner, Ph.D.

Chief AI Officer

Dr. Taylor-Weiner leads Absci’s AI teams and technology, developing Absci’s first-in-class ability to design and validate de novo therapeutic antibodies with zero-shot generative AI. He brings more than a decade of experience scaling solutions in artificial intelligence, healthcare, and computational medicine, with more than 100 highly-cited peer-reviewed publications to his name.

Prior to Absci, Dr. Taylor-Weiner was Vice President of Machine Learning at PathAI, where he led a team of 80 AI experts, programmers and data scientists in commercializing AI-powered pathology products to advance drug and diagnostic development. Before PathAI, Amaro was head of data science at Nabla Bio, where he developed novel machine-learning methods for computational antibody design. At the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, he was a computational biologist focused on cancer biology before earning his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Biomedical Informatics.

Did you know?:

Amaro has his own Chief Morale Officer, Alfie, whose picture has accompanied Amaro’s social media profile for years.

Amaro Taylor-Weiner, Ph.D.

Chief AI Officer

Amaro Taylor-Weiner, Ph.D.

Chief AI Officer

Did you know?:

Amaro has his own Chief Morale Officer, Alfie, whose picture has accompanied Amaro’s social media profile for years.

Wen Sha

Chief of Staff

Wen Sha

Chief of Staff

Wen Sha, Chief of Staff supports Absci's Founder & CEO and partners with the Executive Leadership Team (ELT) in managing strategic internal and external initiatives. Prior to joining Absci, Wen led the Business Operations & Portfolio Management team at Seagen. Wen brings experience across large biopharmaceuticals, high-growth start-ups, and consulting, where his responsibilities included corporate strategy, business operations, R&D portfolio management, and serving as Chief of Staff. He holds degrees in Economics and Management from the University of Alberta and Yale University respectively.

Did you know?:

Outside of work Wen enjoys exploring new foods, collecting vinyl records, and spending time in the Canadian Rockies where he is originally from.

Christine Lemke, PhD, DVM, MBA

SVP, Portfolio and Growth Strategy

Jens Plassmeier, PhD

SVP, Synthetic Biology R&D

Jens Plassmeier, PhD, Senior Vice President of Synthetic Biology is responsible for developing and advancing our synthetic biology platform facilitating for example our Absci Antibody Drug Conjugate generation technology. Before joining Absci, Jens was VP of Biomaterials and Director of Innovations at Conagen, Sr. Team leader for Biobased Chemicals at BASF, and Research Scientist at MIT. He holds a PhD in Molecular Genetics from Bielefeld University and did his Postdoc studies at MIT.

Did you know?:

Jens loves board games, hiking, has a dog called "Mary Poppins", and has done a lot of obstacle course races for fun.

Christian Stegmann, PhD, MBA

SVP, Drug Creation

Christine Lemke, PhD, DVM, MBA

SVP, Portfolio and Growth Strategy

Christine Lemke, DVM, MBA, Senior Vice President, Portfolio and Growth Strategy, is responsible for implementing and driving a rigorous strategic planning and portfolio management process. As a seasoned international executive, she brings substantial corporate development and operations expertise to Absci. For global bio-pharmaceutical companies, including Bayer, Shire and Takeda, Christine delivered multiple global, cross-functional strategic projects sponsored by executive board members. She holds a DVM from FU Berlin, a PhD from School of Veterinary Medicine Hannover as well as an MBA from University of Denver and is based in Zurich, Switzerland.

Did you know?:

In the nineties, Christine bred warmblood sport horses from her home state, Schleswig-Holstein called "Holsteiner". She loves eating out with friends, hiking in the Alps with her partner Joerg and gardening in her second home in France.

Todd Bedrick, CPA

SVP, Chief Accounting Officer

Christian Stegmann, PhD, MBA

SVP, Drug Creation

Christian Stegmann, PhD, MBA, Senior Vice President, Drug Creation, is responsible for research and preclinical development. Christian joined Absci from CSL Vifor, where he was VP Head of Research and Non-clinical Development. Prior to that, Christian held various leadership roles at Bayer, most recently as Senior Director Head of Precision Cardiology Laboratory. Christian has a track record of leading teams that successfully bring new molecular entities into clinical development. Christian holds a PhD in Molecular Biology from University of Goettingen, Germany as well as an MBA from MIT Sloan School of Management.

Did you know?:

Christian is a foodie, sourdough bread baker and enjoys skiing and hiking in the Swiss alps and the West Coast mountains with his family.

Tom Cordaro

VP, Business Development

Todd Bedrick, CPA

SVP, Chief Accounting Officer

Todd Bedrick, Chief Accounting Officer, oversees the accounting and reporting, corporate tax, financial planning and analysis, acquisition integration and has managed multiple company-wide system implementations. Todd played a crucial role through the company's IPO. His prior experience includes being a senior audit manager at Ernst & Young and the Director of Technical Accounting at The Greenbrier Companies. Todd earned his BSBA in Accounting from the University of Arizona - Eller College of Management, he also holds an MS in Financial Analysis, received from Portland State University - School of Business.

Did you know?:

Todd loves iced coffee, traveling to new places, and paddleboarding lakes and rivers with his wife and two children. He is also a long-time Portland Trailblazers fan!

Alexander Khan, CPA

VP, Finance & Investor Relations

Imad Ajjawi, PhD, MBA

VP, Business Development

Imad Ajjawi, PhD, MBA, Vice President of Business Development, is responsible for business growth, executing Absci's sales and marketing plans, and seeking new strategic partnerships. Prior to joining Absci, he was the Co-Founder and Chief Business Officer of Denovium, where he forged numerous AI biopharma commercial partnerships and was later acquired by Absci. Prior to Denovium, Imad was an R&D lead at Synthetic Genomics and transitioned into the Business team after receiving his MBA from UC San Diego. He has authored more than 25 peer-reviewed manuscripts and patents, and received his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of Nevada, Reno.

Anders Kassow

Head of Intellectual Property

Daniele Biasci, PhD

Senior Consultant

Daniele Biasci, PhD, Vice President of Immunology, is responsible for developing and advancing our reverse immunology based drug generation technology. Prior to joining Absci, he was co-founder and VP of Immunology at Totient, later acquired by Absci. He's also a Principal Investigator at the University of Oxford, Kennedy Institute of Rheumatology, focusing on genetics of tertiary lymphoid structures formation in cancer and autoimmunity. Daniele received his PhD in Immunology from the University of Cambridge and his Master's Degree in Molecular Biology from the University of Pisa.

Did you know?:

Daniele loves hiking with his brother David and growing unlimited amounts of fresh lettuce for his beloved tortoise Mario.

Tom Cordaro

VP, Business Development

Tom Cordaro, Vice President of Business Development, is responsible for partnership development at Absci. Prior to joining, Tom served as Chief Strategy Officer and Interim Chief Business Officer for Acceleron Pharma, which was acquired by Merck in late 2021. Prior to Acceleron, Tom spent over 20 years at Bayer and Schering AG in various leadership roles within strategy, business development and commercial functions, helping to develop over five blockbuster franchises and multiple R&D partnerships. He holds an MBA from Syracuse University, and is based in the Cambridge, MA area.

Did you know?:

Tom spent over 10 years managing New York youth baseball teams, still loves trying to keep up with his children on the ski slopes and enjoys cycling and hiking with his family.

Alexander Khan, CPA

VP, Finance & Investor Relations

Alex Khan, Vice President, Finance & Head of Investor Relations interfaces with existing and prospective investors as well as sell side equity research analysts, and partners with the Executive Leadership Team on financial and investor-facing strategy and operations. His prior experience before joining Absci includes healthcare investor relations and advisory, equity research, and public accounting. Alex studied Economics-Accounting at The College of the Holy Cross and maintains a CPA license in New York.

Did you know?:

Alex enjoys biking, running, cooking, and music and is a longstanding New York Mets fan.

Board
of Directors

Board of
Directors

Frans van Houten, MSc

Former CEO of Royal Philips

Sean McClain

Founder, CEO & Director

Karen McGinnis, CPA

Former Chief Accounting Officer, Illumina

Karen McGinnis, CPA has served as a member of our board of directors since August 2020.

Ms. McGinnis has also served as an independent director of Alphatec Holdings, Inc. since June 2019, Sonendo, Inc. from October 2021 to March 2024, and Biosplice Therapeutics, Inc. from April 2021 until March 2023.

Ms. McGinnis was Vice President and Chief Accounting Officer of Illumina, Inc. from November 2017 until her retirement on April 2, 2021.

Ms. McGinnis also served as the Chief Executive Officer and President of Mad Catz Interactive Inc. from February 2016 to March 2017, the Chief Financial Officer of Mad Catz Interactive Inc. from June 2013 to February 2016 and served as the Chief Accounting Officer of Cymer, Inc. from November 2009 to June 2013. Previously, Ms. McGinnis served as Chief Accounting Officer for Insight Enterprises, Inc., from September 2006 until March 2009, its Senior Vice President of Finance from 2001 through September 2006 and its Vice President of Finance from 2000 through 2001. From 1997 to 2000, she served as the Chief Financial Officer of Horizon.

Prior to Horizon, Ms. McGinnis was employed by KPMG LLP from 1989 to 1997 and served as its Senior Assurance Manager.

Ms. McGinnis is a Certified Public Accountant and received a bachelor's degree in accounting from the University of Oklahoma.

Board of Director Roles

Chairperson of the Audit Committee

Member of the Compensation Committee

Karen McGinnis, CPA

Former Chief Accounting Officer, Illumina

Amrit Nagpal

Managing Director, Redmile Group

Amrit Nagpal has served as a member of our board of directors since October 2020. He is currently a Managing Director at Redmile Group, LLC, a healthcare-focused investment firm.

Prior to joining Redmile in January 2013, Mr. Nagpal spent ten years at Weintraub Capital Management LP, an investment firm based in San Francisco, CA, as both an analyst and portfolio manager. Prior to Weintraub, Mr. Nagpal was an associate and an analyst at Robertson Stephens, a San Francisco-based investment bank.

Mr. Nagpal holds a B.A. in Economics from Columbia University and an M.B.A. from The Anderson School at University of California, Los Angeles.

Board of Director Roles

Member of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee

Mene Pangalos, PhD

Former Executive Vice President of BioPharmaceuticals R&D at AstraZeneca

Daniel Rabinovitsj

Vice President, Meta

Daniel Rabinovitsj has served as a member of our board of directors since November 2022. Mr. Rabinovitsj has served as a Vice President of Meta, the parent company of Facebook, and Facebook since August 2018.

Previously, Mr. Rabinovitsj served as Chief Operating Officer of Ruckus Wireless, Inc., a global supplier of advanced wireless systems for the mobile Internet infrastructure market, from October 2014 until its acquisition by ARRIS International plc in December 2017. From 2011 to September 2014, Mr. Rabinovitsj served as Senior Vice President of Qualcomm Atheros, Inc.'s wired and wireless networking and small cell infrastructure business.

Prior to Qualcomm Atheros, Mr. Rabinovitsj served in a number of executive management positions at companies including Atheros Communications, NXP Semiconductors, ST Ericsson, and Silicon Labs. Mr. Rabinovitsj previously served as a board member of QuickLogic Corporation and a private company developing intellectual property based upon machine learning to improve communication and other systems.

Mr. Rabinovitsj received an M.A. in Asian Studies and a B.A. in Philosophy from the University of Texas at Austin.

Board of Director Roles

Chairperson of the Compensation Committee

Member of the Audit Committee

Amrit Nagpal

Managing Director, Redmile Group

Frans van Houten, MSc

Former CEO of Royal Philips

Frans van Houten has served as a member of our board of directors since June 2023.

Mr. van Houten has also served as an independent director of Novartis AG since February 2017, Castor EDC since May 2023, Synthesis Health Inc. since May 2023 and Affidea Group since January 2024. Mr. van Houten also currently serves as Chair of Graduate Entrepreneur, a start-up venture fund and ecosystem which he co-founded in January 2020.

Previously, Mr. van Houten was the Chief Executive Officer and Chair of the Board of Management and Executive Committee of Royal Philips NV from March 2011 until October 2022. Mr. van Houten served as Chief Executive Officer for NXP Semiconductors NV from October 2004 until December 2008 and in various managerial positions at Royal Philips from 1986 until 2004. Mr. van Houten also served as Co-Chair of the World Economic Forum in 2017 and Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Platform for Accelerating the Circular Economy (PACE).

Mr. van Houten received MSc and bachelor's degrees in economics from Erasmus University in Rotterdam.

Board of Director Roles

Chairperson of the Board

Member of the Audit Committee

Chairperson of the Nominating and Corporate Governance Committee

Dan Rabinovitsj

Vice President, Meta

Joseph Sirosh, PhD

Vice President of Alexa Shopping, Amazon

Joseph Sirosh, Ph.D. has served as a member of our board of directors since January 2022. Dr. Sirosh is currently the CEO and President of CreatorsAGI Inc, and recently served as Vice President of Amazon's Alexa Shopping group from October 2022 to November 2023.

Previously, Dr. Sirosh served as the Chief Technology Officer of Compass, Inc. from December 2018 to August 2022 and held various positions at the Microsoft Corporation from July 2013 to December 2018, including Chief Technology Officer of Artificial Intelligence.

During his tenure at Microsoft, Dr. Sirosh led product and engineering teams with responsibility for the enterprise database, Big Data, and machine learning products. Prior to Microsoft, Dr. Sirosh served as a Vice President of Technology at Amazon.Com, Inc., from December 2004 to July 2013, where he built the machine learning and Transaction Risk Management teams.

Dr. Sirosh holds a B. Tech in Computer Science and Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and an M.S. in Computer Science and a Ph.D. in Neural Networks from the University of Texas at Austin.

Joseph Sirosh, PhD

Vice President, Alexa Shopping, Amazon

Mene Pangalos,
PhD

Executive Vice President, BioPharmaceuticals R&D, AstraZeneca

Prof Sir Menelas Pangalos, Ph.D. has served as a member of our board of directors since January 2024.

Sir Pangalos previously served as AstraZeneca's Executive Vice-President of R&D BioPharmaceuticals from January 2019 to March 2024 and in various Executive Vice-President roles for AstraZeneca since 2010. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Sir Pangalos held senior R&D roles, including Senior Vice President, at Pfizer, Wyeth Research and GlaxoSmithKline.

In 2019, Sir Pangalos was awarded a knighthood from Her Majesty The Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Sir Pangalos holds Honorary Doctorates from Glasgow University and Imperial College, London, is a Fellow of the Royal Society, the Academy of Medical Sciences, the Royal Society of Biology and Clare Hall, University of Cambridge. Sir Pangalos has taught as a Visiting Professor of Neuroscience at Kings College in the Wolfson Centre for Age-Related Diseases since 2005. Sir Pangalos was also an Adjunct Professor of Neuroscience from 2007 to 2010 at the Institute of Neurological Sciences at Penn University.

Sir Pangalos received a Ph.D. in Neurochemistry and undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from the University of London.