Dr. Duron founded Enlaza to pioneer the field of covalent biologics. He has an excellent track record with over 18 years of experience in venture-backed biotech. He also serves as a Managing Partner at Avalon BioVentures and CSO at Nerio Therapeutics. He previously was CSO and co-founder for Calporta Therapeutics (acquired by Merck). He was also Senior Vice President for Sitari Pharmaceuticals (acquired by GSK), Vice President at Afraxis (acquired by Genentech) and Director of Chemistry at Zacharon Pharmaceuticals (acquired by BioMarin). In each of the Avalon portfolio companies with which he has been associated, he has been on the founding management team, directing drug discovery efforts and building efficient and productive teams. Prior to joining the Avalon portfolio companies, Dr. Duron was at Kalypsys, where he worked on multiple drug discovery projects spanning CNS diseases, pain and inflammation, metabolic diseases and oncology.

Dr. Duron completed his post-doctoral training at The Scripps Research Institute after earning his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and his B.S. in chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin.

Dr. Madigan has a strong scientific background and over 25 years of experience in corporate financing, operations, business development and M&A. Dr. Madigan is currently a Managing Partner with Avalon BioVentures and serves as CEO of two Avalon Ventures portfolio companies from earlier funds: Ankasa Regenerative Therapeutics and Nerio Therapeutics. Previously, Dr. Madigan was the transacting CEO of Calporta Therapeutics which was acquired by Merck in November, 2019 for up to $576M. Dr. Madigan was also a founding member of various Avalon Ventures portfolio companies from earlier funds, including Ambit Biosciences (IPO, acquired by Daiichi Sankyo), Xenopharm (acquired by Deltagen) and X-Ceptor Therapeutics (acquired by Exelixis). He was a founder and the CEO of Strategic Enzyme Applications, a private company established in partnership with Monsanto. Dr. Madigan was also a founder and VP Corporate Development for BioVerdant, a venture-backed clean technology company. In earlier roles, Dr. Madigan was a senior manager at Nereus Pharmaceuticals and SIBIA Neurosciences (acquired by Merck).

Dr. Madigan performed his post-doctoral training at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He received his Ph.D. in Genetics and his B.S. in Biochemistry from The State University of New York at Stony Brook where, as a graduate student, he was awarded the Abrahams Memorial Award for outstanding potential for basic research.

Dr. Heidt has 15 years of experience in the development of a broad range of biologic therapeutics. Trained in antibody discovery and oncology cell biology, Dr. Heidt joined the Biotherapeutics team at Novartis, where she spent eight years in progressively increasing areas of responsibility in the design and development of biologics. Prior to joining Enlaza Therapeutics, she was the EVP of Translational Research at Inhibrx. In that role she built a dynamic, multi-disciplinary, high-performing team, delivering four successful first-in-human IND applications across a diverse array of oncology, immuno-oncology and orphan disease therapeutics, as well as devising and enabling clinical biomarker strategies.

Dr. Heidt completed her post-doctoral training at The Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation. She received her Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from the University of California, San Francisco as a Howard Hughes Predoctoral fellow, and her B.A. in Biology-Chemistry from Claremont McKenna College.

Dr. Natarajan has over 20 years of experience in research and development of protein-based therapeutics. Prior to joining Enlaza, he served as the Senior Vice President of CMC Development at Silverback Therapeutics. There he built and led the CMC team to complete the development and external manufacturing of multiple novel antibody-drug conjugates for first-in-human trials. He also served as the Vice President of Product Development at Dr.Reddy’s Laboratories, where he provided strategic and technical leadership to develop processes and analytics for a robust biosimilar pipeline and to guide late-stage assets toward regulatory approvals in emerging and developed market countries. He also led research and development efforts at Dendreon and Trubion to advance novel therapies for oncology and inflammatory disorders.

Dr. Natarajan completed his post-doctoral training at The Johns Hopkins Medical School. He received his Ph.D. in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering from The University of Maryland at Baltimore County and his B.Tech. in Chemical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras, India.

Dr. Burke joined Enlaza Therapeutics in April 2023, bringing over 17 years of experience in drug discovery and development of linker-payloads for antibody-drug conjugates. Following academic training in organic chemistry and targeted drug delivery, he joined Seagen (formerly Seattle Genetics) in 2005 as a postdoctoral research associate and progressed through roles of increasing responsibility to Director of Chemistry. Dr. Burke and his team pursued research on linker chemistry development to expand the scope of conjugatable payloads and the discovery of new chemotypes to extend the reach of ADCs as oncology therapeutics. He was co-inventor on multiple linker-payload technologies for targeted drug delivery applications, contributing to seven first-in-human IND programs.

Dr. Burke completed his postdoctoral training in synthetic organic chemistry at Wayne State University. He earned his Ph.D. in chemistry at the University of Colorado at Boulder on a DOD US Army Breast Cancer Research Program predoctoral fellowship, and his B.S. in chemical engineering from the University of Michigan.

Dr. Rowell has 15 years of experience in drug discovery and development with an emphasis on biologic therapeutics for immuno-oncology and oncology. Prior to joining Enlaza, Dr. Rowell was a member of the Cancer Therapeutics team at Novartis, where she served as biology lead on multiple programs. More recently, Dr. Rowell was the Sr. Director of Translational Research at Inhibrx, Inc., where she was responsible for designing and implementing clinical biomarker strategies and generating IND-enabling pharmacology and non-clinical safety data packages.

Dr. Rowell completed her post-doctoral training at The University of Washington School of Medicine. She received her Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of Pennsylvania, and her B.A. in Neuroscience from Colgate University.

Lei Wang is a Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, the Cardiovascular Research Institute, and the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at University of California San Francisco. His Ph.D. research at UC Berkeley, mentored by Peter G. Schultz, achieved the first expansion of the genetic code to include unnatural amino acids (UAAs) in 2001, for which he was awarded the Young Scientist Award by the Science magazine. After postdoctoral training with Roger Y. Tsien (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry), Wang started his group at the Salk Institute in 2005, and moved to UCSF in 2014. His group has developed new methods for the expansion of the genetic code in a variety of cells and animals, and has discovered that release factor one is nonessential in E. coli.

Recently, Wang pioneered the concept of proximity-enabled bioreactivity and achieved the genetic encoding of latent bioreactive UAAs in live systems. This new class of UAAs enables biospecific reactivity, inaccessible to proteins before, to be precisely introduced into biosystems, opening the door to harnessing covalent chemistry for protein engineering and biological research in vivo. Wang is a Top Young Innovator (by MIT Technology Review), a Basil O'Connor Starter Scholar, a Beckman Young Investigator, a Earle Scholar, an NIH Director's New Innovator Awardee, and a recipient of the Emil Thomas Kaiser Award.