Our team

Cristiana Pires is one of the co-founders of Asgard Therapeutics and serves as CEO since the start of the company. Cristiana performed her post-doctoral studies in Filipe Pereira’s lab and focused in dendritic cell reprogramming strategies to modulate immune responses, which then led to the creation of Asgard Therapeutics. Before that, Cristiana trained in pharmaceutical sciences and performed her PhD studies in Miguel Seabra’s Laboratory at Nova Medical School in Lisbon, Portugal. During her PhD, she explored direct reprogramming to generate retinal pigment epithelial cells for cell replacement therapy applications. Now as CEO, Cristiana has attracted >1.5 million Euros in non-dilutive funding, including the Horizon 2020 SME instrument and Eurostars grants as well as a seed round of investment of 6 million Euros. By combining her pharmaceutical and scientific background with entrepreneurship experience, Cristiana is motivated to bring TrojanDC to the patients.

Fábio Fiúza Rosa holds a master’s degree in Biochemistry from University of Coimbra, Portugal, and a double PhD degree in experimental biology and biomedicine from Lund University, Sweden, and Coimbra University, Portugal. During his research career, he developed a strong interest in deciphering how direct cell reprogramming can be used to modulate immune responses. Fabio pioneered the use of cell reprogramming to induce the dendritic cell fate in unrelated cell types. Fabio is also passionate about entrepreneurship, having participated in several acceleration programs and business competitions. As a result, he co-founded Asgard Therapeutics to help bringing highly innovative laboratory-based technologies to the clinic. He filed 4 patent applications and received over 15 different scientific and entrepreneurship awards. In 2021, Fabio was appointed Board Observer and Head of Research at Asgard Therapeutics to lead research and development activities and mature cell reprogramming technologies for cancer immunotherapy.

Filipe Pereira is an Associate Professor in Molecular Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of Lund University in Sweden, group leader of the Cell Reprogramming in Hematopoiesis and Immunity Laboratory and scientific co-founder and head of innovation of Asgard Therapeutics. Filipe Pereira has received his PhD at Imperial College London where he established cell fusion and heterokaryons to study cellular reprogramming mechanisms. Then he did his postdoctoral training at Mount Sinai in New York, where he applied reprogramming concepts to hematopoiesis. His group has pioneered cellular reprogramming approaches in immunology with the induction of dendritic cells from non-hematopoietic cell-types. This conceptual shift opened exciting opportunities to merge cellular reprogramming and cancer immunotherapy now being explored at Asgard Therapeutics. For his scientific accomplishments and innovation efforts, he has received several notable scientific awards, including an ERC Consolidator Grant, the Mount Sinai-KiiLN entrepreneurship award and a medal of merit from his hometown.

Alan Griffith is Chief Development Officer at Asgard Therapeutics. Before joining Asgard Therapeutics, Alan held several senior positions in gene therapy companies. From senior CMC-related positions at Athena-Vision, a spin-out from University College London (UCL), Alan progressed to MeiraGTx. He started as manufacturing lead co-steering the design and establishment of an in-house GMP manufacturing and QC facility, which contributed to a successful IPO and strategic collaboration with Janssen. Alan then showcased his motivation and leadership skills, progressing through a series of roles with increasing responsibility up to Director of Preclinical Viral Vector Development, and following the journey of gene therapy programs from development into clinical trials.  More recently, Alan worked as Vice President of Research at Purespring Therapeutics and helped bring two gene therapy products from academic setting into candidate selection, building teams and resources to facilitate CMC readiness for translational development. Alan has also worked in academia, including at the National Institute of Cellular Biotechnology (NICB), UCL and lecturing at King’s College London. Alan holds a bachelor’s degree and PhD in Biotechnology at NICB, both from Dublin City University, as well as a Diploma in Business Management and Entrepreneurship.  

Jan Villadsen holds two Graduate Diplomas in Business Administration from Copenhagen Business School. He accumulated over 35 years of experience as a Finance Professional both as CFO and executive finance consultant in the biotech industry as well as Group Treasurer in a global company. He has held several senior positions in the Financial Sector primarily in investment banking and capital markets operations. Jan is currently Head of Finance at Asgard Therapeutics.

Martin Bonde is CEO of Swiss-based oncology company Inthera Bioscience AG.  With 25+ years of international experience from the biotech industry, Martin has held several leadership positions as CEO for e.g. Vaccibody AS (now Nykode Therapeutics AS, Euronext Growth Oslo:VACC), Epitherapeutics Aps (sold to Gilead Sciences, Inc.), NatImmune A/S (sold to Azanta A/S), Combio A/S (sold to Arpida AG), Torsana Biosensor (sold to Celtor Bioscience, Inc.), and Osteometer Biotech (now Nordic Bioscience A/S). Martin serves on the Board of Directors in privately held digital pathology software company Visiopharm A/S and in BioInnovation Institute (BII), an international life science incubator funded by the Novo-Nordisk Foundation. Martin holds a Master of Science and Ph.D in Chemical Engineering from the Technical University of Denmark as well as a Graduate Diploma in Business Administration (HD i Udenrigshandel) from Copenhagen Business School.

João Ribas is a Senior Associate at Novo Holdings investing in and creating new biotech companies. João holds several board positions including Tribune Therapeutics and Orbis Medicines, the latter where he serves as interim Chief Business Officer. Prior to joining Novo Holdings, João worked at M Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Merck KGaA, participating in the transactions of Plexium and Pantheon Biosciences. He was a Fellow at the European Institute of Innovation and Technology and a member of MIT Hacking Medicine. João holds a Ph.D. in Bioengineering from the University of Coimbra and performed his doctoral thesis at Harvard Medical School & Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He helped start companies in the US and Europe, and was the recipient of several entrepreneurial awards.

Philipp holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Basel and has a long track record of working in translational immuno-oncology (IO) research, infectious diseases, and general drug discovery within the pharmaceutical industry. In 2015 he joined Boehringer Ingelheim´s IO department, where he led multidisciplinary research teams and delivered the IO research strategy for innovative platforms and biology areas. Contributing to Boehringer Ingelheim´s external innovation strategy he further identified, evaluated, initiated, and managed alliances with multiple external partners. Philipp joined the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund (BIVF) as Investment Manager in 2020. With a focus on life sciences in Europe, he is responsible for identifying, evaluating, making, and managing equity investments to create options in new therapeutic approaches and businesses. In addition to Asgard Therapeutics, Philipp currently serves as a board member of ImCheck Therapeutics in Marseilles and represents the BIVF in the Selection Committee of the AMR-focused incubator INCATE.

Jonas has been focused on the commercialization of life science innovation for 20 years. Between 2001 and 2010, Jonas was the CEO of Cogmed, a start-up in the field of evidence-based cognitive training (clinically validated software, today called digital therapeutics), based in Stockholm and later in the US. Jonas took the company from the research phase at the Karolinska Institute in 2001, to acquisition by Pearson, in 2010. Before joining Industrifonden in 2017, Jonas also held various advisor and board member roles, in both early stage and public companies, and across digital health (such as Shim, acquired by Kry/Livi), medtech and biotech (such as Bioinvent). His background also includes strategy consulting work with The Boston Consulting Group in Stockholm and Paris. Jonas holds a M.Sc. from the Stockholm School of Economics.

Filipe Pereira is an Associate Professor in Molecular Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of Lund University in Sweden, group leader of the Cell Reprogramming in Hematopoiesis and Immunity Laboratory and scientific co-founder and head of innovation of Asgard Therapeutics. Filipe Pereira has received his PhD at Imperial College London where he established cell fusion and heterokaryons to study cellular reprogramming mechanisms. Then he did his postdoctoral training at Mount Sinai in New York, where he applied reprogramming concepts to hematopoiesis. His group has pioneered cellular reprogramming approaches in immunology with the induction of dendritic cells from non-hematopoietic cell-types. This conceptual shift opened exciting opportunities to merge cellular reprogramming and cancer immunotherapy now being explored at Asgard Therapeutics. For his scientific accomplishments and innovation efforts, he has received several notable scientific awards, including an ERC Consolidator Grant, the Mount Sinai-KiiLN entrepreneurship award and a medal of merit from his hometown.

Lars Hedbys holds a MSc in chemical engineering from Chalmers University of Technology and a PhD in Applied Biochemistry from the University of Lund. Lars has over 30 years of international experience within the life science industry, having led companies in various fields of the industry, including pharmaceutical development, advanced therapy medical products and contract research organizations. Lars is currently an independent member of the board at Asgard Therapeutics.

Fábio Fiúza Rosa holds a master’s degree in Biochemistry from University of Coimbra, Portugal, and a double PhD degree in experimental biology and biomedicine from Lund University, Sweden, and Coimbra University, Portugal. During his research career, he developed a strong interest in deciphering how direct cell reprogramming can be used to modulate immune responses. Fabio pioneered the use of cell reprogramming to induce the dendritic cell fate in unrelated cell types. Fabio is also passionate about entrepreneurship, having participated in several acceleration programs and business competitions. As a result, he co-founded Asgard Therapeutics to help bringing highly innovative laboratory-based technologies to the clinic. He filed 4 patent applications and received over 15 different scientific and entrepreneurship awards. In 2021, Fabio was appointed Board Observer and Head of Research at Asgard Therapeutics to lead research and development activities and mature cell reprogramming technologies for cancer immunotherapy.

Filipe Pereira is an Associate Professor in Molecular Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of Lund University in Sweden, group leader of the Cell Reprogramming in Hematopoiesis and Immunity Laboratory and scientific co-founder and head of innovation of Asgard Therapeutics. Filipe Pereira has received his PhD at Imperial College London where he established cell fusion and heterokaryons to study cellular reprogramming mechanisms. Then he did his postdoctoral training at Mount Sinai in New York, where he applied reprogramming concepts to hematopoiesis. His group has pioneered cellular reprogramming approaches in immunology with the induction of dendritic cells from non-hematopoietic cell-types. This conceptual shift opened exciting opportunities to merge cellular reprogramming and cancer immunotherapy now being explored at Asgard Therapeutics. For his scientific accomplishments and innovation efforts, he has received several notable scientific awards, including an ERC Consolidator Grant, the Mount Sinai-KiiLN entrepreneurship award and a medal of merit from his hometown.

Axel Schambach is the Director and Full Professor of Molecular Medicine at the Institute of Experimental Hematology at Hannover Medical School. His research focuses on the investigation of the biology of blood cell formation and function with a primary focus on genetic cell modification as a new therapeutic modality. Axel is also a Visiting Scientist and Lecturer at Boston Children’s Hospital. He is the lead author on more than 320 scientific papers, is the inventor of several patents for gene therapy vector systems, and has received multiple awards, including ERC Consolidator and ESGCT Young Investigator Award. He received his MD at the University of Hamburg and gained his PhD from the Institute of Experimental Hematology, Hannover Medical School, focusing on enhanced transgene expression of retroviral vectors by post-transcriptional elements.

Johanna Olweus is Head of the Department of Cancer Immunology at the Oslo University Hospital Comprehensive Cancer Center and a Full Professor at the University of Oslo. Her research group is focusing on translational studies of T cell-based cancer immunotherapies, focusing on the identification of novel immune receptors for application in gene and cell therapies. She was Director of the K.G. Jebsen Center for Cancer Immunotherapy from 2013 to 2019, and will be co-Director of a Center of Excellence in cancer immunotherapy awarded by the Norwegian Research Council, starting in 2023. She was awarded an ERC Consolidator grant that started in 2020, her work has been published in top-tier journals, such as Science and Nature Biotechnology, and she is the inventor of several patents. Johanna received her MD degree, and PhD at the University of Bergen, Norway, and she is a specialist in Immunology and Transfusion Medicine (Clinical Immunology).

Joshua Brody is the Director of the Lymphoma Immunotherapy Program at The Tisch Cancer Institute at Mount Sinai and a member of several organizations including the Society for the Immunotherapy of Cancer and the Alliance for Clinical Trials in Oncology. Dr. Brody has developed a robust clinical program, as well as a translational Cancer Immunotherapy Lab which investigates basic and applied tumor immunology for the development of novel therapies, particularly for lymphomas, breast cancer, and head/neck cancer with results published in top-tier journals including Nature Medicine and Cancer Discovery. Dr. Brody has pioneered a therapeutic vaccine approach—in situ vaccination—that activates professional antigen presenting cells to induce anti-tumor immunity at the tumor site and in addition can cause regression of tumors throughout the body. Joshua Brody received his BA in Biochemistry at Harvard University, MD at Stony Brook University, performed his residency in Internal Medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital, and Fellowship in Medical Oncology at Stanford.