About our
Founding

Aetna Wun Trombley, Ph.D.

Aetna Wun Trombley, Ph.D. has served as President, Chief Executive Officer and a member of Lycia’s board of directors since April 2020.  She has also served as an independent director of Carmot Therapeutics since 2016.  Prior to joining Lycia, Aetna was President and Chief Operating Officer of NGM Biopharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: NGM), where she had broad strategic and operational responsibilities for nine years.  At NGM, she was instrumental in establishing multiple strategic partnerships and a successful initial public offering in 2019.  Previously, she served as Chief of Staff for the Chief Executive Officer of Novartis and was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company. She received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, San Diego and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from MIT.

Steve Staben, Ph.D.

Steve Staben, Ph.D. joined Lycia Therapeutics as Chief Scientific Officer in October 2021.  Prior to Lycia, he spent over 14 years at Genentech leading drug discovery programs in oncology and immunology as well as new modality platforms.  His basic research interests include new mechanisms for modulation of therapeutic targets, including applications of induced proximity.  He has co-authored over 70 peer reviewed articles and patent applications.  Steve holds his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.

Sofia Touami, Ph.D.

Sofia Touami, Ph.D. joined Lycia as Chief Business Officer in July 2023. Prior to Lycia, she was Chief Business Officer at Hexagon Bio, responsible for strategic planning, business development, and corporate operations. Previously, she served as Vice President of Business Development at Frontier Medicines, where she led business operations and transactions, including the company’s global strategic collaboration with AbbVie. Prior to Frontier, Sofia was Senior Director of Business Development and Alliance Management at NGM Biopharmaceuticals, where she negotiated and managed multiple partnerships with academic, non-profit and industry partners, including Merck, MedImmune, Janssen and Daiichi-Sankyo. Sofia received an A.B. in Chemistry from Washington University in St. Louis, a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Stanford University, and completed postdoctoral work at The Scripps Research Institute.

Jian Cao, Ph.D., RAC

Jian Cao, Ph.D., serves as Vice President of Chemistry, Manufacturing and Controls (CMC). Prior to Lycia he served as Vice President of Pharmaceutical Development at Invectys, Inc., a clinical-stage immuno-oncology company where he led all CMC and IND-enabling studies on CAR-T cell therapy, monoclonal antibody, nanobody and DNA cancer vaccine development. Before joining Invectys, Jian was the Acting General Manager for Alvotech & CCHT Biopharmaceuticals Inc., where he led cGMP manufacturing including process development, manufacturing, QA, QC, regulatory affairs, preclinical and clinical development. Prior to that, he worked at Sorrento Therapeutics and was responsible for multiple antibody drug development programs. Jian received his B.S. in Applied Chemistry and his M.S. in Polymer Chemistry from Jilin University in Changchun, China. He received his Ph.D. in Protein Biochemistry from the University of New Mexico and completed his postdoctoral studies at the University of California, San Diego.

Winsome Chung

Winsome Chung joined Lycia Therapeutics as Vice President, Finance in May 2022. She has over 20 years of finance, accounting and business operations experience in both private and publicly traded companies across multiple industries including early stage to late stage life science companies. Before joining Lycia, she served as Head of Financial Planning and Analysis at ArsenalBio where she led the corporate and strategic planning function. Prior to ArsenalBio, Winsome held multiple roles at NGM Biopharmaceuticals where she served as Controller as well as Executive Director of FP&A. During her tenure there she built out and scaled the accounting and finance functions and supported the company’s initial public offering. Winsome holds a B.S. in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley.

Darrin Lindhout, Ph.D.

Darrin Lindhout, Ph.D. joined Lycia in September 2020 and currently is our Executive Director, Head of Biologics, providing leadership for our biologics and discovery research efforts. He was most recently Director, Protein Sciences at NGM Biopharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:  NGM), where he spent 11+ years building the biologics capabilities.  While at NGM, he directly contributed to seven IND candidates and was involved in protein engineering and research processes spanning metabolic, oncology and ophthalmology indications, resulting in more than 20 granted patents pertaining to protein structure/function.  Prior to NGM, Darrin completed his post-doctoral research at Stanford University School of Medicine in the Department of Structural Biology in 2008 and received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Alberta in 2005.

Sarah McWhirter, Ph.D.

Sarah McWhirter, Ph.D. serves as Vice President, Head of Biology at Lycia Therapeutics.  Prior to Lycia, she served as Executive Director of Research and Translational Medicine at Aduro Biotech.  At Aduro, Sarah was promoted into roles of increasing responsibility where she was the primary R&D lead for the Novartis partnership developing STING agonists for oncology that led to a first-in-human STING agonist. She and her team also spearheaded discovery efforts that enabled a research collaboration and licensing agreement with Eli Lilly to develop therapeutics for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.  Prior to Aduro, Sarah supervised research activities in Dr. Mark Schlissel’s laboratory at University of California, Berkeley.  Sarah earned her Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley and conducted postdoctoral fellowship in at Harvard University in the laboratory of Dr. Tom Maniatis.

Larry Rozsnyai, Ph.D.

Larry Rozsnyai, Ph.D. serves as Vice President of Intellectual Property. Prior to Lycia, he served as Vice President of IP, Licensing and Transactions at Olema Pharmaceuticals, Vice President of IP at Myovant Sciences, and Senior Counsel, Intellectual Property at Gilead. Larry has built patent portfolios supporting multiple commercial products, defended patents from third-party oppositions in Europe, India, and other countries, negotiated and closed research and commercial license agreements, and led other strategic initiatives. Larry received his B.S. in Chemistry from University of California, Berkeley, his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, performed postdoctoral research at Harvard University, and received his J.D. from the University of Washington.

Nadia Tchao, M.D.

Nadia Tchao, M.D. serves as Executive Director, Head of Translational Medicine/Early Development at Lycia. Nadia has over 17 years of experience leading cross-functional teams to develop innovative clinical development strategies for new drug candidates across a broad range of inflammation indications. She has worked across diverse therapeutic modalities and also served as the translational medicine representative on targets from early-stage research to late development. Most recently she was a Medical Director of Early Development, Inflammation at Amgen for 7.5 years where she led the development of multiple early assets from IND filing through proof-of-concept studies. Nadia earned a BS in Molecular Biology from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.D. from Duke University. She completed her Internship and Residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and a Pulmonary Critical Care Fellowship at the University of California San Francisco where she was an associate professor prior to joining industry.

Carolyn Bertozzi, Ph.D.

Carolyn Bertozzi, Ph.D. is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Chemical & Systems Biology and Radiology at Stanford University, the Director of Stanford’s Sarafan ChEM-H Institute, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 2022, Professor Bertozzi received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for founding the field of bioorthogonal chemistry, a set of chemical reactions that allow researchers to study molecules and their interactions in living things without interfering with natural biological processes.

Professor Bertozzi has co-founded eight companies advancing her work and other approaches for therapeutic application and has previously served on the scientific advisory boards for GlaxoSmithKline and several other biotech companies. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and OmniAb and previously served on Eli Lilly and Company’s Board of Directors from 2017 to 2021.

Professor Bertozzi is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded the Lemelson-MIT Prize, the Heinrich Wieland Prize and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, among many others. She completed her B.S. in Chemistry from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.

Carolyn Bertozzi, Ph.D.

Carolyn Bertozzi, Ph.D. is the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor of Chemistry and Professor of Chemical & Systems Biology and Radiology at Stanford University, the Director of Stanford’s Sarafan ChEM-H Institute, and an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In 2022, Professor Bertozzi received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for founding the field of bioorthogonal chemistry, a set of chemical reactions that allow researchers to study molecules and their interactions in living things without interfering with natural biological processes.

Professor Bertozzi has co-founded eight companies advancing her work and other approaches for therapeutic application and has previously served on the scientific advisory boards for GlaxoSmithKline and several other biotech companies. She currently serves on the Board of Directors for Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and OmniAb and previously served on Eli Lilly and Company’s Board of Directors from 2017 to 2021.

Professor Bertozzi is an elected member of the Institute of Medicine, National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has been awarded the Lemelson-MIT Prize, the Heinrich Wieland Prize and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, among many others. She completed her B.S. in Chemistry from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.