Who we are
Simon Kahan
Chief Executive Officer.
Simon started his career at Cray Inc. transforming supercomputing by creating patentable solutions to critical problems. He went on to the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory to author collaborations including the Grappa Project at the University of Washington and to create award winning algorithms. Collaborating with the Institute for Systems Biology he led the creation of the Biocellion platform to simulate cancer and other living systems. Biocellion software was subsequently used by multinationals such as Proctor and Gamble and Celgene (Bristol Myer Squibb) to advance skin care and cancer treatments. Simon continues to contribute to his field as an academic advisor at the University of Washington (Computer Science and Engineering) and the Institute for Systems Biology. To address global and critical problems Simon established the Cultivated Meat Modeling Consortium, an international collaboration across industry, academia, NGO’s and independent professionals. Simon has refocused Biocellion to the challenges faced by cellular agriculture and regenerative medicine.
Beth mAcdonald
Chief People Officer.
Beth mAcdonald brings 20 years of corporate experience in product development together with 15 years of experience with organizational development to Biocellion. She worked for a Fortune 100 multinational, has started 3 successful companies, and worked in the US, Asia, Africa and Europe. She brings her ability to create cross-functional innovation to bear in space of computational biology.
Dan Formosa Ph.D.
Chief Branding Officer.
Dan achieved a global reputation for his work in the fields of design and marketing communications. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including Smithsonian’s Cooper-Hewitt National Design Award. He also received IxDA’s first annual Interaction Design Award, in the “Disruptive” category, for his work with Ford Motor Company. His work is included in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art. Among other accomplishments he co-founded the Masters In Branding program at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Dr. Sandeep Kumar
Scientific Consultant.
Dr. Sandeep Kumar is a distinguished cell and molecular biology researcher and educator with extensive experience in molecular biology, next-generation sequencing, and cardiovascular disease research, and a proven track record in scientific program management. He completed his Ph.D. at the University of Pune, India, and his postdoctoral studies at Texas A&M and Emory University. He has collaborated extensively with researchers in bioengineering, mechanical engineering, biomaterials, nanotechnology, stem-cell engineering, and bioinformatics and systems biology. By integrating expertise in molecular and cellular biology with cutting-edge bioreactor design and optimization he is advancing the development of sustainable and efficient cultured cell technologies.
Quynh Ton, Ph.D.
Scientific Consultant.
Quynh Ton earned a PhD in molecular and cellular biology from Lehigh University, where she published three first author scientific articles, one first author review article, and two coauthor articles. She continued her post-doctoral training at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, where she was awarded an NHLBI F32 fellowship and published a first-author article in translational medicine. She is an expert molecular and cell biologist with over 15 years of combined industry experience in cell-based bioassay, molecular sequencing, and recently in business development to support Quality Control in biologics, vaccines, and cell and gene therapy.
Dr. Boris Aguilar
Computational Modeler.
Dr. Boris Aguilar is a Computational Biologist working at the Institute for Systems Biology. He has more than 10 years of experience working on developing mathematical models to study complex biological processes including biomass growth in bioreactors. Dr. Aguilar is currently working on prototyping medical digital twins for personalized treatment. Dr. Aguilar is also a founding member of the Cultivated Meat Modeling Consortium.
Caroline Cannistra
Scientific Consultant.
Caroline Cannistra is a computational biologist specializing in computer modeling and computer-assisted experiments. She got her Bachelors in bioengineering at the University of Washington in 2017 and is currently pursuing a PhD in computational and systems biology at UC Irvine. At Biocellion she has worked on modeling skin tissue and multiple myeloma, presented on the potential of multi-scale tissue modeling at the International Conference on Cultured Meat in Maastricht in 2018, and helped organize the first meeting of the Cultivated Meat Modeling Consortium in 2019. She is passionate about in silico design for biological applications and in silico research.