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Ashley Zehnder
Co-founder and CEO at Fauna Bio, Veterinarian
Ashley Zehnder is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fauna Bio, a biotechnology company leveraging insights from the biology of non-traditional mammalian species to develop novel therapeutics for human diseases. She has a diverse background as a veterinarian-scientist specializing in avian and exotic animal medicine, and she holds a PhD in Cancer Biology from Stanford University. Her research has focused on translational science, veterinary informatics, and cancer biology, with over 20 peer-reviewed publications in journals like Cell and Nature Medicine .123
Before founding Fauna Bio in 2018, Zehnder worked as a research scientist and postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, where she developed resources like the Exotic Tumor Database to improve cancer research in non-domestic species. She has been recognized as an Emerging Woman Founder in Bio by the Wave Summit and has mentored early-stage biotech founders through organizations like On Deck Longevity Biotech and Nucleate Bio .126
Under her leadership, Fauna Bio uses AI-driven approaches to identify therapeutic targets based on evolutionary adaptations in extreme mammals, such as hibernation and tissue regeneration. The company aims to address age-related diseases and other health challenges by mimicking these natural protective mechanisms .45
Highlights
On May 23, 2018 an amazing thing happened. It was on this day 6 years ago that we officially incorporated Fauna Bio and embarked on what has been the most exciting journey of our lives. It continues to be a remarkably rewarding (and sometimes remarkably exhausting!!!) journey, but when someone asked me recently what I would do if I won the lottery, I said I'd put the money into Fauna and keep doing this job. I guess that means I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I feel incredibly grateful to share this work and mission with my one-of-a-kind co-founders Linda Goodman and Katharine Grabek and the entire, amazing team at Fauna. There is so many exciting things ahead - we are just getting started!
(and yes Laura Deming, we still have our orange shoes!)
#biotech #genomics #founderledbio #femalefounders
We are thrilled to announce this groundbreaking partnership in the field of obesity with our new partner Eli Lilly and Company! This partnership is a chance to fully deploy our AI platform, ConvergenceTM, to find new targets for a disease that affects over 130 million people in the US and 1 billion people around the globe. We have much to learn from how other mammals have adapted to alter their metabolism (using the same genes that we humans have) and can double their body weight every year without suffering from metabolic syndrome. On our blog (www.faunabio.com), our team provides key perspectives on this partnership, explaining in more detail why hibernating mammals are an amazing model for obesity and also how we are deploying AI to more rapidly find the right drug targets from increasingly complex genomics data.
If you want to learn more about how Fauna’s approach enhances drug discovery across many disease areas, come find me at JPM or come to our panel at Biotech Showcase: Metabolic Syndrome: Therapeutic Advances to Short Circuit Debilitating Disease on Wednesday, January 8th at 8am PST!
https://lnkd.in/g_gtNWHB
#drugdiscovery #genomics #femalefounders #obesity #ai #biotech #lifesciences
