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Dr. Hassan Javanbakht

Chief Scientific Officer

Dr. Javanbakht received his Ph.D. from McGill University and completed his post-doctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School. He then moved to Roche Palo Alto LLC where he worked on developing antivirals to treat HIV infection. He was part of the team that advanced Elipida® (RO4970335), a potent and highly selective non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NNRTI), into clinical development. He then transferred to Hoffman La-Roche where he began his work on hepatitis B virus (HBV) and Influenza. His group there focused on developing novel direct-acting antivirals and immunomodulatory therapies to treat chronic HBV. He led the teams that developed a first-in-class small-molecule viral expression inhibitor (RG7834), a liver-targeted anti-HBV locked nucleic acid (RG6004), and an immunomodulator, all of which advanced to Phase 1 clinical evaluation. His work also led to discovery of PAPD5/7 as host factors for HBV expression. Subsequently, he moved to Gilead Sciences where he led a research team focused on curing HBV and developing a number of novel therapeutics scheduled to enter clinical studies. Most recently, he was the head of infectious diseases at SQZ Biotechnologies leading a group of scientists developing cell-based vaccines for treatment of persistent viral infections. So far, he has authored more than 45 peer-reviewed scientific publications in high-impact journals and holds more than 11 issued patents and applications.

Keting Chu

Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board

Dr. Keting Chu is an experienced biotech executive, entrepreneur and life science venture investor with a broad range of experiences in therapeutic development in both large and small biotechnology companies and venture investments.

Prior to founding Bluejay, Keting was a Partner and a Venture partner at LYFE Capital. Working with the team in Lyfe capital, Keting helped to close $550M Lyfe Capital Fund III and invested in Ansun Biopharm, Pliant Therapeutics and Tempest Therapeutics. Pliant and Tempest went IPO in NASDAQ successfully in 2020 and 2021. Keting was previously a venture partner in Apple Tree Partners briefly. Before joining Apple Tree Partners, Keting spent five years as VP, Research TAP at The Leukemia and Lymphoma Society (LLS). There she was responsible for venture philanthropy, also known as the Therapy Acceleration program. At LLS, Keting led the investment into Celator, Stemline, Constellation, Affimed, ArgenX, Kite Pharma, Kiadis, OncoPep, Valor and a number of projects in academic institutions with the focus on proof-of-concept (POC) studies in patients. Three of the nine companies received “Breakthrough” designation by the FDA in 2016 after positive proof-of-concept studies. Celator was acquired by Jazz Pharma for $1.5B, Kite by Gilead for $12B and Stemline by Menarini for $677M. Three NDAs, by Celator, Kite and Stemline, were approved by the US FDA successfully. Prior to LLS, Keting was the CEO of Mission Therapeutics and the Co-Founder, President and CEO of DigitAB, Inc. and BioCubed Corporation. For her first startup company, Five Prime Therapeutics, Keting was Vice President of Biology and Head of R&D where she built the R&D strategy and team, established the technology platform and generated a product pipeline. Prior to Five Prime, Keting was the Head of Immunotherapy and Antibody Therapeutics Division at Chiron Corporation, where she engaged in preclinical and clinical developments of protein, DNA-based, and small molecule therapeutics for cancer and inflammatory diseases. Three cancer therapeutic antibodies that keting led the team from discovery to phase I clinical trials are in phase II and III testing now.

Keting received her MD in Sun Yat-Sen Medical University where she specialized in infectious diseases in China, and Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology at University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). She also conducted her postdoctoral training at Cardiovascular Research Institute at UCSF.