Our Team
Erika Smith, MBACEO
Over the last 25 years, Erika successfully advanced dozens of companies and technologies in life-sciences by leading the launch of three investment funds: the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale, the YEI (Yale) Innovation Fund, and the Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) BioLife Fund in partnership with Johnson & Johnson. Erika holds board roles at BIO and at CVG, the venture capital organization of CT. She is an invited TedX presenter, received an Innovation Award from Senator Chris Murphy, and co-authored a playbook for best practices of "Empowering Women Entrepreneurs" sponsored by JPMorgan Chase (INBIA). Erika received a bachelor’s in Biomedical and Electrical Engineering and MBA from Vanderbilt University. |
Steve Strittmatter, MD, PhDFounder & Scientific Advisor
Steve is the Vincent Coates Professor of Neurology and co-founded the Yale Program in Cellular Neuroscience, Neurodegeneration and Repair. |
George Maynard, PhDPresident & CSO
George has 27 years of pre-clinical development and medicinal chemistry experience. Previously he worked at Hoechst and Neurogen. |
Craig Hackett, PhDVP Process Science & Manufacturing
Craig has 30+ years of process development and manufacturing experience, developing recombinant proteins as subunit vaccines and biotherapeutics. Previously he worked at Acorda Therapeutics, Curagen, and Protein Sciences. |
Gilbert Block, MD, PhD Chief Medical Officer
Dr. Block has 30+ years of pharmaceutical and biotechnology experience focusing primarily on neurologic and neuroinflammatory diseases, rare and ultra-rare orphan disorders, psychiatric diseases and pain. Dr. Block is the founder and principal of The Willmatt Group, LLC, a biotechnology and pharmaceutical consulting company. Previously he worked at Merck, AstraZeneca, Cephalon, Cambridge Neurosciences, i3 Global, Neuraltus Pharmaceuticals, and Vtesse Pharmaceuticals. He was previously on the faculty of the Departments of Neurology at Cornell University Medical College/New York Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine/Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania and is currently an Adjunct full professor at Drexel University School of Medicine. Dr. Block is a member of the external review boards of the Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) and the Bridging Interventional Development Gaps (BrIDGs) groups at NIH, and a founding member of the American Society of Experimental Neurotherapeutics. Dr. Block received his PhD and MD at Case Western Reserve University. |
Crista Adamson, PhDDirector Clinical Engagement
Crista sustained a C5 spinal cord injury in 1985 when she was 20 years old. She was awarded a scholarship from the Swim with Mike Physically challenged athletes fund at USC where she completed her BA and MS in 1991. She received her PhD in 2001 from Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. Her postdoctoral fellowship, as well as her position as a research associate, focused on therapeutic strategies for treatment, regeneration, and recovery in spinal cord injury at the Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience. |
Ann Hollmann
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Anjali Walia, Yale '21
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