MARIELA JASKELIOFF, Ph.D.

I am a biologist with 12 years of drug discovery experience. I received my PhD in Biomedical Sciences from UMass-Chan Medical School and did my postdoc training at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. My first industry job was at Novartis, where I spent 8+ years in the NIBR Oncology department. During this time, I had the opportunity to develop as a drug hunter and a leader, learning every step of the small molecule drug discovery journey from target identification to early clinical development. As Project Team Leader for the NIBR Ras-MAPK Initiative, my team and I had the chance to impact the clinical development of Naporafenib (LXH254), with our work resulting in a number of hypotheses currently being tested in the clinic.

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My next stop was Skyhawk Therapeutics, a start-up biotech focused on targeting RNA for the modulation of traditionally intractable targets. Here, I steeped myself in the biotech way-of-life, and learned to develop programs with outsourced resources, limited budgets and tight timelines. More importantly, I learned to think about targets from unconventional perspectives, overseeing >20 programs spanning oncology, immunology and immuno-oncology targets.

In October 2022, I had the privilege of joining Curie.Bio. As part of the CSO Partner Organization, I lead evaluation and diligence of novel therapeutic concepts, help design execution plans and support portfolio companies as a fully-integrated team member.