Our Team

Management Team

Arnon Lavie, PhD

Co-founder, President, CEO, CSO, Director

Arnon Lavie obtained his PhD degree from Brandeis University (Waltham, MA) and completed his post-doctoral training at the Max Plank Institute in Dortmund, Germany. In 1999 Arnon joined the University of Illinois at Chicago where he became a full Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics in 2010. He is an expert structural biologist with documented success in modifying the substrate specificity of medically relevant enzymes. Arnon is the author of over 80 peer-reviewed publications. Arnon has multiple patents and has licensed several of his discoveries.

Amanda M. Schalk, PhD

Co-founder, COO, NIH Grants PI, Director

Amanda Schalk earned her undergraduate degree in Biochemistry on a full-ride scholarship from Eastern Michigan University. She then pursued her Master’s and PhD in Molecular Biology at the esteemed International Max Planck Research School and the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany. Following her doctoral work, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship in Dr. Lavie’s lab at the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she engineers their superior L-asparaginases, leading to multiple first-author publications in peer-reviewed journals and patents.

Currently, Amanda oversees EbD's National Cancer Institute (NCI) grants and manages IND-enabling studies across various contract research organizations (CROs). Her leadership and contributions to translational science have been widely recognized—she was named a Chicago 40 Under 40 Translational Scientists by Halo, received the Early Career Innovator Award from AWIS Chicago, and was honored as one of Crain’s Chicago Business Notable Women in STEM.

Ying Su

Co-founder

Ying is a very enthusiastic medical scientist whose diligence, expansive knowledge and experience in research methods and demand for top quality work add another valuable layer of expertise to the EbD team. She has been working as a Senior Research Specialist and Lab Manager for the past 20 years at University of Illinois at Chicago. Never shrinking from a challenge, Ying hikes and mountain bikes through dangerous terrain in her free time.

Gary Gordon, MD/PhD

Head of Clinical Development

An accomplished pharmaceutical executive and strategic business leader, Dr. Gordon has extensive experience in the development of drugs from first in-human studies to approval and commercialization.

Dr. Gordon brings innovative approaches to the process, leveraging advantageous regulatory pathways and close collaborations with investigators, patient advocacy groups and key academic and government consortiums.

Dr. Gordon has held key leadership roles across multiple pharmaceutical companies, most recently serving as Chief Medical Officer at Ayala Pharmaceuticals and previously holding the position of Vice President of Oncology at AbbVie where he was instrumental in advancing the company’s oncology portfolio, contributing significantly to its growth in the field. His leadership helped secure the approval of venetoclax, facilitated major acquisitions, and fostered strategic collaborations. Notably, he was part of the AbbVie-Genentech team who won the 2017 Prix Galien award for Best Pharmaceutical Product.

Before his tenure at AbbVie, Dr. Gordon was Chief Scientific Officer and Vice President of Clinical Affairs at Ovation Pharmaceuticals from 2001 to 2003. His career in the pharmaceutical industry began in 1995 at G.D. Searle, a division of Monsanto that later became part of Pharmacia.

Scientific Advisory Board Members

Lewis Silverman, MD

Director of the Hope and Heroes Division of Pediatric Hematology, Oncology and Stem Cell Transplantation and Professor of Pediatrics at Columbia University Medical Center

Dr. Silverman is the Director of Pediatric Hematology/Oncology/Stem Cell Transplantation and Professor of Pediatrics practicing at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. He was formerly the Chair of the DFCI ALL Consortium, which runs multi-center clinical trials in children and adolescents with newly diagnosed ALL. Dr. Silverman is a graduate of Harvard University and Harvard Medical School. He completed his pediatric residency at Boston Children's Hospital and fellowship in pediatric hematology and oncology at Boston Children's Hospital and the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. He is board-certified in Pediatric Hematology/Oncology. His professional interests focus on the care of children with pediatric leukemia, especially those with acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL). He is a renowned KOL in ALL and has pioneered new treatments and approaches aimed at improving survival rates.

Wendy Stock, MD

Anjuli Seth Nayak Professor of Leukemia Research at the University of Chicago

Co-chair of the leukemia committee for the NCI-sponsored cooperative clinical trials group, the Alliance, where she leads the research efforts in ALL at the national level. She has designed and led both early phase and pivotal national trials for patients with acute leukemia and has published over a hundred peer-reviewed papers in this area.

Yogen Saunthararajah, MD

Professor of Medicine and Co-Leader of the Developmental Therapeutics Porgram at Cleveland Clinic Taussig Cancer Institute Case Comprehensive Cancer Center

Long-standing practicing hematologist-oncologist and physician-scientist with specific clinical and research interests in AML. He provides direct advice regarding clinical translation and assists with additional pre-clinical in vivo models to move Enzyme by Design's therapeutics towards the clinic.

Board of Directors

Jim Audia, PhD

Dr. Audia brings over three decades of experience in drug development, with a distinguished track record in neuroscience and oncology. He was recognized as a Distinguished Scholar at Eli Lilly, where he contributed significantly to scientific advancement in both fields. Dr. Audia previously served as Chief Scientific Officer at Constellation Pharmaceuticals and has played a pivotal role in guiding numerous biotech companies through his work as an independent board director and scientific advisor.

Known for his ability to bridge science and collaboration, Dr. Audia also served as Executive Director of the Chicago Biomedical Consortium, fostering innovation and partnerships across the biomedical community. He currently serves as a founding scientist and Executive Vice President of Drug Discovery and Early Development at FLARE Therapeutics.

Jennifer Lee, MS

Ms. Lee is the CEO of JLC Life Sciences, where she specializes in helping companies build, scale, and navigate successful exits. She also serves as Senior Vice President of Clinical Operations and Quality Assurance at Novita Pharmaceuticals. With deep expertise in clinical operations, she has held leadership roles at Elevar Therapeutics and served as Executive Director and Head of Oncology at Radius Health. There, she led the development of both early- and late-stage oncology programs, driving successful regulatory approvals and playing a key role in securing global licensing agreements that ultimately led to the company’s acquisition.

Ms. Lee's broad industry experience spans senior roles in clinical development at Medeor Therapeutics, Iovance Biotherapeutics, Gilead Sciences, and Astellas. She also brings a valuable perspective as a venture capital limited partner and angel investor. She also contributes to the advancement of cancer research and innovation as an advisory board member for BrightEdge, the American Cancer Society’s venture fund.