Joanne Kotz, Ph.D.

Joanne’s life sciences experience spans research, business and operations. She helped formulate the initial scientific strategy for Jnana and has led the business and operations of the company since its launch in 2017. Prior to Jnana, she had a leadership role at FBRI, F Prime Capital’s initiative to enable therapeutic breakthroughs in Alzheimer’s disease and related brain disorders by funding innovative academic research and launching companies. Before F-Prime, Joanne was a director at the Broad Institute, where her research and business responsibilities included defining strategy and leading efforts in early stage drug discovery through collaborations with patients, disease foundations and biopharma. Joanne received her Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and a B.S. in chemistry and B.A. in sociology from the University of Florida. She conducted postdoctoral research at the Necker Children’s Hospital in Paris and at Genentech. Following Genentech, she was at Nature Publishing Group, including as founding editor of the journal Nature Chemical Biology.