Board of Directors

Alec Machiels,
JD/MBA, Co-founder & Chairman of the Board

Alec Machiels received his J.D. from the University of Leuven in Belgium and holds a Masters in International Economics from Konstanz University, and an MBA from Harvard University. When graduating from law school, he won the 1995 European Community Law Moot Court Competition. He also won the 2001 Harvard Business School Business Plan Competition with the original business plan for Potentia. From 1996 to 1999, Alec worked at Goldman, Sachs & Co. in the Mergers & Acquisitions Division and the Private Equity Division in London and New York. Following his graduation from Harvard Business School, Alec co-founded Potentia and consulted with Radius Ventures, a venture capital firm investing in biotechnology and healthcare. He is currently a Partner at Pegasus Capital Advisors, a special situations private equity firm in New York City managing $1.1 billion in equity assets.

Cedric Francois,
MD/PhD, Co-founder & Chief Executive Officer/President

Cedric Francois's primary areas of expertise are immunology and immune system mediated disease.  Cedric Francois received his medical degree from the University of Leuven in Belgium and his Ph.D. in Physiology from the University of Louisville.  Following postgraduate training in pediatric and transplant surgery, Dr. Francois was a member of the research team that performed the first successful hand transplantation and of the Louisville Face Transplant Team, whose work supported the first human face transplantation in Lyon, France in 2005.  He has published numerous publications and is the principal author on the clinical report of the first four human hand transplantations.  He is an inventor on many biotechnology patent applications, including all of Potentia’s proprietary patent applications.  Dr. Francois led Potentia to become the first group to test complement-inhibiting drug candidates for age-related macular degeneration, more than a year before the landmark reports in Science magazine.

Marie-Claude Bernal,
MBA

Marie-Claude Bernal has served on the Board of Directors of ILOG, a Euronext and Nasdaq-listed company since December 2000. She was appointed chairman of the supervisory board of Esker S.A., a Euronext-listed company, in June 2001. From 1979 until December 2000, she was a senior vice president, partner, and international equity portfolio manager at Wellington Management Company in Boston. Mme Bernal earned a degree in finance and accounting from Haut Enseignement Commercial pour les Jeunes Filles in 1967, and an MBA in finance and computer science from the University of Chicago in 1971.

Stephen Gillies,
PhD, President of EMD Lexigen

Dr. Gillies has been President of EMD Lexigen since its founding in 1992, orchestrating the advancement of all business and scientific endeavors at the research center. Before joining the company, Dr. Gillies was vice-president of research at Damon Biotech and Abbott Biotech, Inc., where he oversaw development of recombinant antibodies and pro-urokinase, an anti-clotting protein. As a postdoctoral fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, working with Nobel Laureate Susumu Tonegawa, he identified the first cellular enhancer sequences. Dr. Gillies has a Master of Science degree and a Ph.D. from Rutgers University in New Jersey and a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Massachusetts.

David Darst,
Co-founder

David co-founded Potentia in 2001. He is also a co-founder of Medicine in Need, an innovative not-for-profit venture utilizing an aerosol delivery approach to improve infectious disease treatments and vaccinations. David's work experience in the healthcare field includes strategic planning at Pfizer and Millennium Pharmaceuticals, and in the healthcare practice of McKinsey & Company. David graduated from Harvard College with honors. He is currently completing his MBA degree at Harvard Business School. In between business school years, he is working with Orbimed Advisors LLC in New York.

Sinclair Dunlop,
MBA, Director

As Managing Partner of MASA Life Science Ventures LP (MLSV), Mr. Dunlop leads the review and analysis of MLSV investment candidates. A former international business and economics analyst with the Center for Strategic & International Studies in Washington, D.C., Mr. Dunlop has private equity and venture capital experience in Europe, the U.S. and Israel. Prior to joining MASA Inc as its Director of New Business Ventures, Mr. Dunlop was an Associate at New Vantage Group, manager of several early-stage venture capital funds in the Mid-Atlantic region. In May 2000, Mr. Dunlop received his M.B.A. from Columbia Business School where he was the R.C. Kopf British-American Fellow in international business. He also holds an M.A. with Honors in Political Economy from the University of Glasgow and an M.A. in International Relations from the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. He is a St. Andrews Society of New York Scholar.

Douglas E. Onsi,
JD, Director

Douglas E. Onsi is a Venture Partner at HealthCare Ventures. Prior to joining HealthCare Ventures in 2007, he served as Vice President, Campath Product Operations & Oncology Portfolio Management and as Vice President, Business Development at Genzyme Corporation. Before joining Genzyme, Mr. Onsi was Chief Financial Officer and Vice President, Business Development of TolerRx, Inc. Prior to TolerRx, he held a senior business development position at LeukoSite, Inc., which was merged with Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He has also practiced corporate law at Bingham Dana LLP. Mr. Onsi received his J.D. degree from the University of Michigan Law School and B.S. degree in biology from Cornell University.