Pioneering Founders, Experienced Leadership and World-class Advisors

timothy-lu

Dr. Lu has served as our CEO since he co-founded Senti Bio in 2016. Since 2010, Dr. Lu has been an MIT faculty member in the departments of Biological Engineering and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. In addition, Dr. Lu has been a co-founder and a Scientific Advisory Board member to a number of biotechnology and biopharmaceutical companies, including BiomX, Corvium, Eligo Bioscience, Engine Biosciences, Synlogic and Tango Therapeutics.

Dr. Lu earned his M.D. from Harvard Medical School and his Ph.D. in Electrical and Biomedical Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology as part of the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Medical Engineering and Medical Physics Program. Dr. Lu has extensive experience in the field of synthetic biology and has received numerous awards: NIH New Innovator Award, US President Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers, MIT Technology Review’s TR35, Navy and Army Young Investigator Prizes and others.

yvonne-li

Ms. Li has been serving as our interim Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer since May 2024. She is a seasoned finance executive with more than 25 years of extensive experience in equity financing, strategic financial planning and analysis, technical accounting, and internal controls. Prior to joining Senti, from 2019 to 2023, she held several roles at Nkarta Therapeutics, a publicly held biopharmaceutical company, including most recently as Chief Administrative Officer. She oversaw Nkarta’s accounting, finance, and associated budgetary and administrative operations, SEC regulatory compliance, and human resources administration. Before that, she was Senior Vice President of Finance at Amunix, a private biotech company acquired by Sanofi. Over her 12-year career at OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, she held senior leadership roles in finance, accounting and operations, including most recently as Principal Financial and Accounting Officer. Her contributions were pivotal in guiding the company through its IPO and a cross-border merger, and she played a key role in major strategic partnership transactions.

Ms. Li is a Certified Public Accountant (inactive) and member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. She earned her BA from the National Taiwan Normal University and MBA from San Francisco State University.

kanya-rajangam

Dr. Rajangam is responsible for leading the development and regulatory strategy to rapidly advance Senti Bio’s off-the-shelf CAR-NK cell oncology programs into and through clinical development. Dr. Rajangam served in leadership roles at various biotech companies, most recently Nkarta Therapeutics where, as chief medical officer, she was responsible for clinical development of CAR-NK cell therapies for oncology. Prior to Nkarta, she was chief medical officer at Atara Biotherapeutics where she led the development of T-cell therapies for oncology, neurology and infectious diseases. Prior to that, Dr. Rajangam was chief medical officer of Cleave Biosciences, where she led oncology clinical development programs. Prior to becoming a chief medical officer, Dr. Rajangam gained relevant senior leadership experience at Onyx and Exelixis, while contributing to the clinical development and global approval of several marketed oncology products including Kyprolis®, Cotellic® and Cometriq®/Cabometyx®. Dr. Rajangam currently serves on the board of directors of Turnstone Biologics, a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing next-generation tumor infiltrating lymphocyte cell therapies and oncolytic virus cancer immunotherapies.

Dr. Rajangam received a medical degree from St. Johns’ Medical College and completed her surgical residency with a focus on oncology at the Postgraduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), both in India. She received a Ph.D. in biomedical cell and tissue engineering from Northwestern University.

amy-alford

Mrs. Alford has been leading Senti’s R&D and clinical operations since 2022. She brings over 20 years of clinical operations experience, including departmental build outs and trial progression from First in Human/Phase I to registration. Prior to joining Senti, Mrs. Alford held various clinical roles at Kronos Bio, Peloton Therapeutics (acquired by Merck), and Reata Pharmaceuticals. She was also a clinical research consultant advising a number of companies on clinical development, strategy, and operations.  Mrs. Alford was part of the clinical teams for several FDA-approved products, including WELIREG® for the treatment of von Hippel-Lindau (VHL)-associated renal cell carcinoma.

Mrs. Alford earned a master’s degree in Clinical, Counseling and Applied Psychology from Northwestern University, and a bachelor’s degree in Biology & Psychology from Rhodes College.

patrick-chen

Mr. Chen joined Senti Bio in 2023 and leads the CMC / Technical Operations department and is responsible for the process development, analytical development, and manufacturing activities.  He brings over 30 years of experience in the biopharma industry in the development and manufacturing of proteins, enzymes, monoclonal antibodies, gene and cell therapy products.  Prior to Senti Bio, Mr. Chen was Vice President of Manufacturing at Grace Science and led the CMC activities for the development and manufacturing of a gene therapy for an ultra rare disease indication. Prior to that, he was the head of External Manufacturing at Sangamo Therapeutics and was responsible for GMP manufacturing and supply of plasmids, mRNA, viral vectors and cell therapy products including stem cells and Treg cells. Mr. Chen has had increasing roles of responsibility and has been in involved in the initial process development and manufacturing of Humira®, the design of a large-scale biologics manufacturing facility for Amgen Rhode Island to manufacture Enbrel®, led the CMC project management department at Chiron and was the CMC and tech transfer leader at Genentech for various products including Activase®, Rituxan® and Perjeta®.

Mr. Chen received his Chemical Engineering degree from UCLA and his MBA from the Babson FW Olin Graduate School of Business.

thomas-chung

Mr. Chung joined Senti Bio in 2022 and brings 15 years of investing, operations, board and advisory experience from a broad set of industries including life sciences, healthcare, technology, and consumer/retail. As an investor, he was responsible for the identification, evaluation, structuring, execution, and management of control-oriented equity and debt investments, working hand-in-hand with management teams and through board roles to drive value creation.

Mr. Chung began his career at UBS Investment Bank, in the Financial Sponsors, Leveraged Finance & Restructuring Group, where he worked on debt-financed transactions and restructuring advisory services related to over $25 billion of securities. Subsequently, he focused on investing roles at Health Evolution Partners, a $500 million operations-oriented private equity fund focused on high-growth healthcare businesses, and the mezzanine group at Crescent Capital Group, a $3 billion fund focused on high-yield debt and equity investments. Across his investment experience, Mr. Chung was responsible for managing over a dozen portfolio companies, including the sale of 5, altogether worth nearly $1 billion of invested capital.

Mr. Chung earned his BS in Biomedical Computations and BA in Economics, both from Stanford University.

dee-olomajeye-dragon

Dee Olomajeye Dragon joined Senti Bio in 2019 and is responsible for all facets of Senti’s People (HR) strategy, with Diversity, Inclusion, and Culture as key building blocks in designing Senti’s employee experience to drive business success. Mrs Dragon is a business strategist with a People/HR lens, leading Senti’s efforts to deliver on the promise of the top talent the company attracts.

Prior to her role at Senti, Mrs. Dragon worked as a Senior Consultant in the Benefits & Total Compensation field, most recently serving as Assistant Vice President with Aon’s Health & Benefits Solutions Practice in San Francisco. In this role, Dee helped her clients develop people strategies and deploy programs in the areas of Total Rewards, Employee Experience Curation, Culture Building and Diversity, Equity & Inclusion.

Mrs. Dragon’s professional journey includes stints in Brussels, Chicago & Los Angeles, and professional tenures at Mercer Human Resource Consulting, The Los Angeles Times, and Willis Towers Watson.

She received her B.F.A. Degree in Media Communications from The University of Cincinnati and resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.

brian-garrison

Dr. Garrison joined Senti Bio in 2016, where he has continually applied his 25 years of cell & gene therapy experience towards the successful development and clinical application of Senti’s Gene Circuit technologies to develop truly innovative medicines with the ability to target diseases in a more focused, controlled, and effective manner. Dr. Garrison currently leads both the Discovery Research and Translational Science Teams at Senti.

Dr. Garrison earned his B.S. in Microbiology (minor: Comparative Literature) from University of California, Davis, and a Ph.D. in human gene therapy from Stanford University, then completed 2 postdoctoral fellowships (Harvard University & Harvard Medical School) focused on stem cell biology, leukemia,
genome editing, and TGFβ, with numerous high impact publications, fellowship, grant, and contract awards.