Board of Directors

In addition to serving on the Company’s Board, Bennett M. Shapiro, M.D. is a Senior Partner at PureTech Ventures and a consultant in the field of biotechnology.  Prior to this, he was Executive Vice President, Merck Research Laboratories (NASDAQ: MRK). He joined Merck in September 1990 as Executive Vice President, Worldwide Basic Research, where he was responsible for all the basic and preclinical research activities at Merck; in 1999 he became Executive Vice President, Worldwide Licensing and External Research, where he directed all of Merck’s research relationships with the academic and industrial biomedical research community, and retired from Merck in 2003.

Previously, he was Professor and Chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Washington. He is the author of more than 120 papers on the molecular regulation of cellular behaviour and the biochemical events that integrate the cascade of cellular activations at fertilization.

Dr. Shapiro received his bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Dickinson College and his doctorate degree in medicine from Jefferson Medical College. Following an Internship in Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Hospital, he was a Research Associate at the NIH, then a Visiting Scientist at the Institute Pasteur in Paris and returned to the NIH as Chief - Section on Cellular Differentiation in the Laboratory of Biochemistry, prior to joining the University of Washington. Dr. Shapiro has been a Guggenheim Fellow, a Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science and a Visiting Professor at the University of Nice. He has served on many institutional advisory boards and scientific review panels. He is also currently a Director of Momenta Pharmaceuticals (MNTA),  Celera Corporation (CRA), Satori Pharmaceuticals, Enlight Biosciences, and the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi).

Mr. Zeitlin is the founder of The Keffi Group Ltd., with interests in telecommunications infrastructure, life sciences and financial services. These interests are in India, Israel, Africa and the United States.  He formerly served as a partner at The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., where his career included a number of senior management positions in the investment banking division; he focused on the industrial, consumer and healthcare industries. He also served in the firm's executive office.

Mr. Zeitlin currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Trustees at Amherst College and is a member of the Boards of Milton Academy, the Harvard Business School Board of Dean's Advisors, Teach for America, Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Montefiore Medical Center, Playwrights Horizons and Common Ground Community. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Affiliated Managers Group, Inc. and Coach, Inc.

Mr. Zeitlin holds an A.B. degree, magna cum laude, in Economics and English from Amherst College and an M.B.A. from Harvard University.

Dr. Gelvan is the Managing Director of Life Sciences, Aurum Ventures MKI Ltd. He is a seasoned life-science executive who, before joining Aurum Ventures, managed GammaCan International, Inc., a development-stage pharmaceutical company. Previously, Dr. Gelvan founded and managed Zetiq Technologies, a drug discovery company specializing in cell-based high-throughput screening for novel anti-cancer drugs. Dr. Gelvan founded Zetiq after leaving a senior position in Clal (Israel) Ltd., one of Israel's largest holding conglomerates. Dr. Gelvan holds a Ph.D. in Business Economics from RUC in Denmark and is an experienced lecturer of corporate finance and entrepreneurship.

Ms. Ruti Alon is a General Partner in Pitango Venture Capital. With close to 30 years of international experience in the high-tech medical industry, Ms. Alon heads the Life Sciences activities at Pitango and has led several of its portfolio companies to successful acquisitions, among them Disc-O-Tech, Colbar, Ventor and Optonol.

Ms. Alon previously worked on Wall Street where she held senior positions with Montgomery Securities and Kidder Peabody & Co., as a senior medical device analyst. She also managed her own independent consulting business in San Francisco, providing broad-based services to early-stage companies and venture capitalists in the medical devices industry.

Ms. Alon is the force behind the establishment in 2005 of ILSI, Israel Life Science Industry, a not-for-profit organization representing the mutual goals of approximately 750 Israeli life science companies. Ms. Alon is the current Chairperson of ILSI.

Ms. Alon has a B.A. in Economics from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, an M.B.A. from Boston University, and an M.S. from the Columbia University School of Physicians and Surgeons.

Prof. Harats founded VBL in 2000 based on more than 20 years of research in atherosclerosis, vascular biology and lipid metabolism. He is the Director of the Bert W Strassburger Lipid Centre at Chaim Sheba Medical Centre - Tel Hashomer and Chairman of its Institute Review Board and has consulted to major pharmaceutical companies. Prof Harats is an M.D. graduate of the Hadassah Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel, and has carried out post-doctoral work at University of California, San Francisco. He is also a Professor of Medicine in the Departments of Internal Medicine and Biochemistry at the Sackler Faculty of Medicine of Tel Aviv University.

Prof. Ruth Arnon is an immunologist with the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, and currently serves as the President of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanity. Formerly vice-president of the Weizmann Institute of Science from 1988 to 1997, Prof. Arnon has made significant contributions to the fields of vaccine development, cancer research and to the study of parasitic diseases. She co-developed Copaxone®, a drug for the treatment of Multiple Sclerosis presently marketed in the USA, Canada, the EU, Israel, Australia and many other countries worldwide.

Prof. Arnon joined the staff of the Weizmann Institute in 1960. Prior to her appointment as vice-president, she served as Head of the Department of Chemical Immunology, and as Dean of the Faculty of Biology. From 1985 to 1994, she was the director of the Institute's MacArthur Center for Molecular Biology of Tropical Diseases. She is a member of the Israel Academy of Sciences, and served as its vice-president from 2004 to 2010.  Prof Arnon is also an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO). She has served as president of the European Federation of Immunological Societies (EFIS), as secretary-general of the International Union of Immunological Societies (IUIS). 

Over the years she served as a member of the Board of Trustees of many organizations including the Sabin Vaccine Institute and the International Vaccine Institute in Seoul (IVI). Her awards and honours include the Robert Koch Prize in Medical Sciences, Spain's Jimenez Diaz Memorial Award, France's Legion of Honour, the Hadassah World Organization's Women of Distinction Award, the Wolf Prize for Medicine, the Rothschild Prize for Biology, and the Israel Prize. At the Weizmann Institute, Prof. Arnon is the incumbent of the Paul Ehrlich Professorial Chair in Immunochemistry.