Dr. Nikolich has served as CEO of Amnestix, Inc. since the company’s first round of investment in March 2007. He is also a board and SAB member of several biotech companies. Dr. Nikolich has been the US partner and advisor of Dievini, a German investment fund since 2007, supporting the portfolio companies in strategic activities. Between 2005 and 2007, he led the Neuroscience Institute at Stanford University as its executive director. He co-founded several biotech companies, including AGY Therapeutics with Bob Swanson in 1998. Karoly started his career in the biotech industry as a scientist at Genentech 25 years ago where he initiated and built the company’s first neuroscience research program and participated in numerous discovery and development programs. Later, he was VP Research at Lynx Therapeutics (acquired by Solexa/Illumina). Karoly is currently also Consulting Professor at Stanford University Medical School and was formerly Adjunct Professor at the University of Southern California. He was a member of federal and private grants review and advisory committees, journal editorial boards, and served as investment advisor to numerous public and private venture funds. As a scientist he co-authored 125 publications and was inventor of over 20 patents. Karoly is a graduate of Eotvos University in Budapest, Hungary, and conducted postdoctoral studies at Tulane University in New Orleans and at the University of California San Francisco.
Dr.Aden has over 20 years of experience in biotechnology, pharmaceutical and healthcare companies where she has held senior management and operational positions. She was a Senior Vice President of Strategy for the Pharmaceutical Division and Vice President of Global Research Strategy for Hoffmann-LaRoche at their headquarters in Basel, Switzerland. Highlights from her career at Roche include the launch of CellCept®, a drug used in solid organ transplantation with sales exceeding one billion dollars, and the development and implementation of Roche's research portfolio management system. She was the General Manager of Regenerative Medicine and SVP of Geron Corporation where she developed the business plan for their human embryonic stem cell technology. More recently, she was COO at Alfa Wassermann, Inc during which time sales and operating profits grew in the highly competitive diagnostics and separations businesses. She also created and oversaw the development of a new product for proteomics/separations that leveraged the company's core technologies. She has successfully managed large organizations in international companies where she increased productivity through market driven and customer focused programs. Dr. Aden received her bachelor's degree in Anthropology/Biology from UC Berkeley, her PhD in Anthropology/Epidemiology from the University of Pennsylvania, her post-doctoral work was done at Stanford University in Human Genetics and she held the position of Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.
Dr. Klein has over 16 years of experience in the biotechnology field and has held positions of increasing responsibility including VP, Business Development and Technology Development. Dr. Klein’s background includes research and business development roles at Rinat Neuroscience, Genentech and Deltagen. While at Rinat, he played a key role in research discovery in the areas of Alzheimer’s disease, pain, and Parkinson’s disease. In addition to his research role, he executed an all cash acquisition by Pfizer as a member of the six-person transaction team. Prior to his work at Rinat, he was the first employee at Deltagen and was instrumental in its growth to over 500 people as a public company. At Genentech he invented the technology that initiated the company’s genomics program – one of the largest research programs in Genentech’s history and was the project team leader for their lead Parkinson’s disease therapeutic. He has been actively involved in both the genomics and neuroscience areas and has successfully built up research organizations and high throughput production organizations. Dr. Klein received his bachelor’s degree in Biochemistry from UC Berkeley and his Ph.D. in Biology from MIT.
