Dr. Korzenik is a specialist in Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endoscopy that focuses on developing new therapies for inflammatory bowel disease and primary sclerosing cholangitis. He is also well recognized for his compassion and dedication to his patients and for his integrative team approach to patient care. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, the Founding Director of the Crohn's and Colitis Center at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Director of the Resnek Family Center for Primary Sclerosing Cholangitis Research at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital and the Resnek Family Distinguished Chair in Gastroenterology and Hepatology at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital.

Dr. Korzenik has been involved in inflammatory bowel disease research and patient care for almost 25 years. His insights in Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis have opened new avenues of research and possible therapies, and he was among the first investigators to research the intestinal microbiome for clues about the role it may play in the development of inflammatory bowel disease as well as in its management through nutrition and therapeutics. Dr. Korzenik is an author of over 100 peer-reviewed articles and research papers and frequently speaks at professional meetings. He was named Humanitarian of the Year in 2013 by the New England Chapter of the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of America and was awarded the Torch of Friendship in 1999 by the Mid-America Chapter in St. Louis. Moreover, he has sequentially been selected as a Top Doctor by Boston Magazine in 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023.

Dr. Korzenik has led and was involved in many major clinical trials of new therapies for inflammatory bowel disease. For example, he has initiated a different therapeutic approach to Crohn’s disease through a set of multi-center clinical studies utilizing granulocyte colony stimulating factor (G-CSF) and granulocyte macrophagecolony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) as therapeutic agents. In addition, based on an understanding of ulcerative colitis as a vascular disease and under-appreciated properties of heparin, he has previously developed clinical trials using heparin for the treatment of ulcerative colitis. His research has also focused on uncovering better biomarkers that can guide drug development and determine which interventions tested in clinical trials may be most effective and on understanding what initiates and perpetuates inflammation.

Tomi Sawyer serves as a drug discovery and development consultant. Tomi is an accomplished and entrepreneurial drug hunter, medicinal chemist and chemical biologist with a track record of developing both peptide and small molecule drugs. Tomi has over four decades of industrial experience in both pharma and biotech and is well known for his contributions to GPCR, kinase, protease and protein-protein interaction drug discovery. He is the inventor of the marketed drugs Afamelanotide (Scenesse®, Clinuvel) and Ponatinib (Iclusig®, Ariad Pharmaceuticals [now Takeda]) and is credited with over 600 scientific publications, patents, and presentations.

Tomi is currently the Chief Drug Hunter and President of Maestro Therapeutics, a consulting/advisory enterprise that supports peptide drug discovery in academia, biotech and pharma. Tomi Sawyer has recently retired from his position as Distinguished Scientist, Global Chemistry at Merck Research Laboratories. In this role, he provided leadership to the Peptide Drug Hunter Network and several peptide R&D programs as well as innovative core capabilities and knowledge engine. He previously also served as the Chief Scientific Officer of Aileron, Senior Vice President, Drug Discovery at Ariad Pharmaceuticals, Senior Director, Chemical Sciences at Pfizer and was a past President of the American Peptide Society.

Tomi is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Massachusetts and the Northeastern University Center for Drug Discovery. In addition, he is a Distinguished Alumni Entrepreneur from his undergraduate alma mater, Minnesota State University at Moorhead, and previously served as a member of the MSUM Alumni Foundation Board of Directors. At his graduate alma mater, the University of Arizona, Tomi is a Distinguished Alumni Entrepreneur and has received a Professional Achievement Award from the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry and the College of Science.

Juan Patarroyo is an experienced biomedical scientist and life sciences operations expert with over 25 years of experience in immunology/microbiology, with specific expertise on mucosal immunology and the microbiome. He is fascinated by the interplay between the immune system (and in extension the body) and the commensal microbes and their associated (by)products. By understanding and leveraging this interplay, he strongly believes that we can develop meaningful and safe immunomodulatory drugs to treat and cure disease.

Juan has designed, executed, and supervised a large range of in vitro and in vivo studies to evaluate immune signaling and candidate molecules for go/no-go drug development decisions within pharma (Novartis, Pfizer, Vedanta Biosciences) and academia (UCSF). He has built and managed R&D labs of newly formed biotechnology companies (Vedanta, Commence) and advises the leadership of life sciences companies on science strategy and operations at the non-profit organization LabCentral. His work has directly contributed to the advancement of several drug candidates to preclinical testing and of VE303 (Vedanta) to the clinic. Most recently, Juan was a Principal Scientist at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research and established a discovery platform harnessing the gastrointestinal microbiome to identify next-generation small molecules for autoimmune and allergic conditions, with a focus on discovering therapeutics that promote wound healing and epithelial barrier function in inflammatory bowel disease.

Early on, Juan has helped shaped our understanding of the role of major histocompatibility (MHC) class II restricted antigen processing and presentation in the central nervous system and in the role played by myelin-specific antibodies in experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), a model of multiple sclerosis. He has also been involved in studies characterizing the mechanism and protective effect of glatirameracetate (Copaxone), atorvastatin (Lipitor) and anti-CD20 antibody (Rituxan) in CNS autoimmune disease. Juan then joined the multiple sclerosis group at Pfizer to support the discovery and development of new drugs. There, he evaluated new anti-inflammatory biologics and small molecules. As the role of the microbiome in human health became established, he led evaluated natural ligand derivatives for their ability to promote immunotolerance and mucosal repair in inflammatory bowel disease. Excited by the role of the microbiome in health and disease, Juan then joined Vedanta Biosciences as its first scientist and pioneered the preclinical therapeutic development of live biotherapeutic products (LBP) consisting of defined consortia of aerobic and anaerobic bacterial isolates, leading to the first-in-human study of VE303 for recurrent Clostridium Difficile infection. VE303 is now in phase 2 clinical studies. He then briefly joined Commense Health to explore how to prime, seed, and maintain healthy microbiomes in children.

Dr. Christian is a pharmaceutical and biotech executive with more than 20 years of regulatory and drug development experience across pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. She has created high functioning, fit-for-purpose teams for emerging biotech, envisioned and built new capabilities in large pharma (e.g. Bristol-Myers Squibb Oncology Strategic Collaborations, leading to success in >$50M in development partnerships), and led R&D efforts across a variety of therapeutic areas including, but not limited to, CNS, immunology, and immuno-oncology in all phases of development.

Dr. Christian serves as the Senior Vice President of Regulatory at C4 Therapeutics, a clinical stage biotech developing a pipeline of targeted protein degraders for oncology. Besides her role at C4, Dr. Christian also serves as a scientific advisor to several emerging biotech companies and lectures at MIT on Regulatory Strategies for developing drugs and devices.  

Prior to C4, Dr. Christian was the Senior Vice President of Regulatory, Quality and Compliance at Lyndra Therapeutics, a rapidly growing clinical stage biotech whose mission is to reinvent medicine for a healthier world. She was also a founding member of Cyclerion Therapeutics, a spinout of Ironwood Pharmaceuticals focused on serious and orphan diseases, where she led Regulatory, Quality and Pharmacovigilance. Before her role at Cyclerion, Dr. Christian was Vice President of Global Regulatory Affairs at Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, where she transformed the regulatory organization, successfully negotiated approval of a stalled marketing application for Linzess® in China, advanced rare disease assets into Phase 1 and 2 and built organization models that enabled the spinoff of various assets.    

Prior to joining the world of biotech in Boston, Dr. Christian created and led successful and innovative teams at Bristol-Myers Squibb by identifying novel ways to accelerate research and the delivery of medicines to patients globally. Dr. Christian also held roles of increasing responsibility in Global Regulatory Affairs at Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development (now Janssen Pharmaceutica) across several therapeutic areas.