Magali Haas, MD, PhD
CEO & President

Dr. Haas founded Orion Bionetworks in July 2012 and serves as its CEO and President. Orion Bionetworks was transformed to Cohen Veterans Bioscience in 2015 to specifically dedicate research to improving the detection and treatment of post-traumatic stress (PTS) and traumatic brain injury (TBI) and related co-morbidities so that the burden of these conditions may be lessened on service members, veterans, and their families.

Magali has over 15 years of pharmaceutical executive and clinical research experience, predominantly at Johnson & Johnson, where she assumed broad end-to-end development leadership roles in medical marketing, full clinical development, early development, and translational and biomarker sciences in psychiatry and neurology. She successfully filed NDAs in the US and Europe for risperidone indications in Autism, Adolescent Schizophrenia, Juvenile Bipolar Disorder and Conduct Disorders. She also led Development Teams evaluating compounds for Depression, Neuropathic Pain, Epilepsy, and Migraine Disorder.

She served 3 years as Chief Science and Technology Officer for One Mind for Research, a nonprofit organization launched in May 2012 by Patrick J Kennedy. She orchestrated the launch of One Mind’s seminal programs, Apollo, an informatics research portal and, Gemini, an international TBI/PTSD research program.

As an “intrapreneur” at J&J she established the first Neuroscience Translational Medicine & Integrative Solutions department, and co-founded the first Companion Diagnostics Center of Excellence as well as J&J’s Healthcare Innovation team. She serves on several advisory boards including Brain Canada, Prophase, Pear Therapeutics, PAASP and IMEC for nanoelectronics.

Magali earned her BS in bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania, an MS in biomedical engineering from Rutgers University, New Jersey, and her MD PhD with distinction in neuroscience from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York.

Allyson Gage, PhD
Chief Medical Officer

Dr. Allyson T. Gage is a neuroscientist and drug development executive, who has over 18 years of experience leading teams in all phases of clinical development. She has been responsible for the overall strategic
and clinical development of small molecules, biologics, and cellular therapies for the treatment of central nervous
system disorders, including depression, alcohol dependence, Alzheimer’s dementia, neuropathic pain, traumatic brain injury, and spinal cord injury. Allyson has a proven track record in partnering with therapeutic area clinicians, US and International regulators, patient groups, and data scientists to translate pre-clinical information into human evaluation, to design informative clinical trial protocols, and ensure a regulatory path with approvable and clinically meaningful outcome measures. Prior to joining Cohen Veterans Bioscience, Allyson’s most recent experience was focused in the field of regenerative medicine, working toward the development of a therapeutic for spinal cord injury.

Allyson earned her BA from Rutgers College in New Brunswick, NJ and her MS and PhD in neuroscience from Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York.

Andreas Jeromin, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer

Andreas Jeromin, PhD, has established research programs in translational neuroscience in both industry and biotech for the last 15 years and co-authored more than 100 publications. He has also been elected a member of the Dana Alliance for Brain Initiatives. Andreas Jeromin has led biomarker qualification programs in diagnostics and therapeutics in acute neurological injury and neurodegeneration in roles with increased responsibilities. This included several drug development program from POC to a NINDS-supported phase III trial (Protect III). He also supports as member of the SABs or steering committee, several biomarker qualification efforts such as ADNI, the Coalition against Major Diseases (CAMD) directed by the Critical Path Institute (C-PATH), the Alzheimer’s Association CSF QC and biomarker assay standardization initiatives in other CNS disorders, including MS (Accelerated Cure), ALS and PD. He is the founder and CSO of Atlantic Biomarkers, LLC, and joined Quanterix, Inc. as scientific and medical advisor in 2014.

Thomas P. Oberst
Chief Technology Officer

Thomas P. Oberst brings 35 years of computer systems experience in high tech and financial services, most recently as the CTO of Advanced Strategic Technology. He is providing vision and technical leadership in the area of Big Data and Cyber Security in support of Cohen Veterans Bioscience’s mission.

His career has spanned 20 years in high tech working, mostly in research and product development for startups which were later purchased by Hewlett Packard and EMC. His more recent career was spent working in the Enterprise Architecture and Technology Group at Fidelity Investments, where he helped design, develop, and deploy some of the most advanced systems used anywhere in Financial Services.

Tom has expertise in computer and server architecture, system design, development, systems engineering and deployment of secure, extremely scalable, globally deployable information infrastructure.

Tom earned his BS in Electrical Engineering from Union College, and Master Degrees in Computer Science and Business from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and the Harvard Business School.

Lee Lancashire, PhD
Chief Information Officer

Lee Lancashire, PhD has over 15 years of experience in machine learning and statistics. His PhD was focused on the development of artificial neural network based methodologies where he was involved in many of the first applications of neural nets to high dimensional datasets in bioinformatics.

Prior to joining Cohen Veterans Bioscience, Lee spent over five years within the IP&Science business of Thomson Reuters where he established and led the machine learning and statistical data analysis team. Here he held global responsibility for managing and delivering analytical projects, serving the majority of the top 10 pharmaceutical companies, as well as government, academic and non-profit organizations. These projects focused on utilizing advanced machine learning approaches in the molecular profiling of disease for biomarker discovery, patient stratification and drug target identification.

Lee completed his post-doctoral research in Biostatistics and Bioinformatics at the Paterson Institute for Cancer Research, a Cancer Research UK core facility. He has also worked as a bioinformatics project lead in personalized medicine and diagnostics companies CompanDX and Almac Diagnostics. He has published in over 30 key industry journals and holds several patents around the use of neural networks in the biomedical domain.
In his free time Lee devotes time volunteering as a trustee for the Ichthyosis Support Group, a charity that supports individuals and families affected by a group of rare skin disorders.

Nikolaos Daskalakis, MD, PhD
Director,
Data Science and Translational Medicine

Dr. Nikolaos (Nikos) P. Daskalakis is a neuroscientist, who has over 13 years of experience in translational stress research. The major goal of his studies has been to identify key central and peripheral biological mechanisms perturbed in PTSD and other stress-related mental disorders that can be candidates for biomarkers or therapeutic targets. He has deep knowledge of the state-of-the-art genomic techniques, and systems biology analytic pipelines, which can be applied, in parallel, to a variety of human studies and to animal or cellular models of disease.

Dr. Daskalakis is also an Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, member of the Traumatic Stress Studies Division and associate scientist in the Laboratory of Molecular Neuropsychiatry. In the summer of 2017, he will move his academic research at the Department of Psychiatry of Harvard Medical School, joining the Division of Depression and Anxiety Disorders and the Neurobiology of Fear Laboratory at McLean Hospital. Finally, Nikos is an Associate Editor of Frontiers in Neuroscience and Frontiers in Endocrinology.

Dr. Daskalakis earned his MD from University of Athens (Greece). He completed his PhD in Neuroscience at Leiden University (The Netherlands) under the guidance of Dr. E. Ron de Kloet studying the impact of gene-environment interactions on rodent behavioral and neuroendocrine stress response. He also completed clinical research training in neuroendocrinology at the Leiden University Medical Center (The Netherlands). Finally, he received post-doctoral training in molecular psychiatry and bioinformatics at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai studying molecular and endocrine mechanisms of PTSD and intergenerational transmission of trauma in the labs of Drs. Rachel Yehuda and Joseph D. Buxbaum.

Dr. Daskalakis has earned young investigator awards by many national and international scientific societies and foundations (ACNP, ADAA, A.A. Martinos Foundation, BBR Foundation, EBBS, ECNP, FENS, IBRO, ISDN, ISPNE, SOBP).

Patricia Kabitzke, PhD
Associate Director,
Scientific Programs

Patricia Kabitzke is a behavioral neuroscientist, working on preclinical models of neuropsychiatric and developmental diseases such as PTSD, schizophrenia, and autism spectrum disorder. She has worked collaboratively with scientists across academia, biotech, big pharma, and nonprofit organizations, contributing expertise in study design, assay development, analysis, and offering creative solutions to complex problems. Dr. Kabitzke trained in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University with Dr. Christoph Wiedenmayer and was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Developmental Neuroscience and Behavior with Dr. Peter Balsam. More recently, she spearheaded and managed the Developmental Disorders group at PsychoGenics under the tutelage of Dr. Daniela Brunner. In addition to her research, Dr. Kabitzke is an Associate Editor for the International Journal of Comparative Psychology and is committed to the education and mentorship of future scientists, particularly women and underrepresented minorities.

Heather Lasseter, PhD
Senior Manager,
Scientific Programs

Dr. Heather Lasseter earned her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the field of behavioral neuroscience. As a doctoral candidate in Dr. Rita Fuchs’ laboratory, Heather explored the neural circuity that regulates the ability of a drug-paired environmental context to produce cocaine-seeking behavior in a preclinical model of addiction. Her doctoral dissertation research – which earned the 2012 Linda Dykstra Distinguished Dissertation Award in Social Sciences – focused on the contribution of a mesocorticolimbic subcircuit to the reinstatement of cocaine seeking. After earning her doctoral degree, Heather was awarded a post-doctoral Health Communications Fellowship at the National Cancer Institute in the Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences. She subsequently transitioned into the medical communications community as a Senior Medical Writer for Percolation Communications LLC, working within a number of therapeutic areas, including psychiatric and neurological disorders.

Kristophe Diaz, PhD
Manager,
Scientific Programs

After earning a doctorate in Molecular and Cellular Biology at the University of Massachusetts, Dr. Diaz investigated key mechanisms of cell division. He has also studied Life Science Innovation at Harvard Medical School and Business Law for Entrepreneurs at MIT Sloan School of Management.

Retsina Meyer, PhD
Manager,
Clinical Programs

“Knowing is not enough; we must apply. Willing is not enough; we must do.”-Goethe

Dr. Retsina Meyer pairs pursuit of scientific endeavors with the passionate execution to make real her vision to develop cures for mental illness.

Dr. Meyer is a translational neuroscientist, scientific founder of Resilience – a startup focused on novel treatments for PTSD and other brain diseases, and is currently consulting Scientific Program Manager for Cohen Biosciences. An active member of the biotech entrepreneurship community, Retsina works on local, national, and international programming to inspire scientist-entrepreneurs. Dr. Meyer has produced over 40 articles, abstracts, and lectures. Her academic discoveries gained international press, earned her a speaking engagement at the local TEDx conference, and served as the instigating discovery to found Resilience.

As an entrepreneur, Retsina is an alumna of MassBIO’s MassCONNECT program and SpringBoard’s Life Sciences Accelerator and is the 2014 champion of the international OneStart competition awarded by GSK’s SR One.
She obtained a Neuroscience Ph.D. at MIT where she earned five named fellowships, was a Presidential Fellow, Imperial College of London Global Fellow, and a Graduate Woman of Excellence. She served as a science advocate with the Science Policy Initiative, performing outreach, giving lectures, and meeting with members of congress to appeal for science and scientific funding.
Prior to her work at MIT, Dr. Meyer was a Fulbright Scholar, serving as a representative of the U.S. to Norway, where she worked in the lab of 2014 Nobel Prize winners Drs. May-Britt Moser and Edvard Moser. She holds bachelor’s degrees in applied mathematics, biochemistry and molecular biophysics, and biopsychology from the University of Arizona where she was a Baver Scholar, and worked in the laboratories of Dr. David Rowe, Dr. Carol Barnes, and Dr. Bruce McNaughton.

Chantelle Ferland-Beckham, PhD
Manager,
Scientific Programs

Dr. Chantelle Ferland-Beckham is a translational neuroscientist with over 12 years of experience in behavioral models of stress-related psychiatric disorders. The major goal of her research has been to develop animal models to investigate the complex molecular and epigenetic underpinnings of stress-induced pathology, including depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. She earned her PhD in Neuroscience from Tulane University under the mentorship of Dr. Laura Schrader and then went on to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at the Medical University of South Carolina, where she was awarded the Ruth L Kirschstein National Service Award (T32) from the National Institute of Drug Addiction to investigate the role of the endogenous oxytocin system in a model of comorbid methamphetamine addiction and post-traumatic stress disorder. Most recently, Chantelle was a AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow at the National Institutes of Health, where she worked as a Science Policy Analyst, developing policies to promote progress in biomedical research and serving as a legislative analyst to strengthen the relationship between the NIH and Congress. As a fellow, she worked on the Fellows in Innovation initiative, spearheaded by the Obama administration’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, to analyze current strategies and provide policy recommendations for suicide prevention in current and former members of the US military.

Dallas Hack, MD, Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired)
Chief Strategy Officer (Consulting)

Dr. Dallas Hack M.D. served as the Director of the US Army Combat Casualty Care Research Program and Chair of the Joint Program Committee for Combat Casualty Care from 2008 to 2014 and as the Senior Medical Advisor to the Principal Assistant for Research and Technology, US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command from 2014 to 2015. He coordinated more than 70% of the DoD trauma research to improve battlefield trauma care of those injured in combat. During this time, the Department of Defense funded more Traumatic Brain Injury research than any organization because of the increasing awareness of the massive burden of Traumatic Brain Injury in the military. He has held numerous military medical leadership positions including Chief of Clinical Services at Fort Knox, KY, Commander of the NATO Headquarters Healthcare Facility, and Command Surgeon at the strategic level during Operations Enduring Freedom and Iraqi Freedom. COL(R) Hack received numerous military awards including the Bronze Star, two Legion of Merit awards, and seven Meritorious Service Medals and was inducted as a Distinguished Member of the Military Order of Medical Merit. He has a BA from Andrews University, a MPH from Johns Hopkins University, a MD from Loma Linda University, a MSS from the US Army War College, and a CPE from the Certifying Commission in Medical Management. He was recognized as the Distinguished Alumnus of the Year by Loma Linda University in May 2015. After retiring from military service, Dr. Hack has consulted with numerous organizations to advance research in Brain Health and transition the progress to improved clinical practice.

Jessica Wolfe, PhD, MPH
Senior Clinical Advisor,
Trauma Research Programs

Dr. Jessica Wolfe has been a behavioral researcher, neuropsychologist and executive in health sciences and public health for over 30 years.  She is currently a senior consultant to ESC (formerly Executive Service Corps), focusing on non-profit strategy and management and professional Research Associate at Harvard Medical School, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation.  Prior to that, she served as Senior Research Advisor to Spaulding Hospital Rehabilitation Network’s Institute of Lifestyle Medicine and Senior Research Program Advisor to Partners Healthcare System’s Center for Connected Health where she focused on clinical and research productivity involving wellness and technology innovation.

Jessica helped found the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) National Center for PTSD where she subsequently developed and directed the National Center’s Women’s Health Sciences Division. There, she led competitively funded, large scale, research initiatives in war trauma, military sexual assault, and Gulf War illnesses.  She has over 70 peer-reviewed scientific publications.

Jessica received her Doctorate in clinical psychology from Columbia University.  She completed her Master’s in Public Health from Harvard University (HSPH).  Other interests include interactive health technologies, user-centered design (UX), neuroimaging in PTSD and traumatic brain injury (TBI), and stress adaptation across the lifespan.