Board of Directors
Brian Atwood specializes in biotechnology investing at Versant. Brian co-founded Versant Ventures after spending four years at Brentwood Venture Capital where as a general partner he led investments in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and bioinformatics. He also has more than 15 years of operating experience in the biotechnology industry, with emphasis on therapeutic products, devices, diagnostics, and research instrumentation.
Prior to launching his career in venture capital, Brian was founder, president, and CEO of Glycomed, a publicly traded biotechnology company. At Glycomed, Brian concentrated on business development and strategic alliances, closing deals with Eli Lilly & Company, Millipore, Genentech, and Sankyo, before leading the sale of Glycomed to Ligand Pharmaceuticals. Prior to this, he co-founded and served as director of Perkin Elmer/Cetus Instruments, a joint venture for robotics automation and genomics research instruments and products later acquired by Perkin Elmer. Under Brian's management, the venture developed and launched the GeneAmp® Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) system, the fundamental DNA amplification innovation responsible for fueling the explosive growth of genomics research. Brian served on the Board of Directors at Pharmion Corporation (sold to Celgene in 2008). Brian currently serves as a Board member at the private companies FivePrime Therapeutics, Veracyte, Inc., Trius Therapeutics, Inc., OpGen, Inc., Immune Design Corporation, PhaseRx, and Clovis Oncology, Inc., as well as public companies, Cadence Pharmaceuticals (CADX), and Helicos Biosciences (HLCS). He is an observer of the Board at ForteBio Inc.
Brian received a Bachelor's degree in Biological Sciences from the University of California, Irvine, a Master's degree from the University of California, Davis, and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
David Baltimore, Ph.D. is co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in
Physiology or Medicine for his discovery of reverse transcriptase.
He is currently the Robert A. Millikan Professor of Biology at the
California Institute of Technology, where he was the president from
1997 to 2006, and the president of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science. While at MIT, Baltimore was founding
director of the Whitehead Institute. He has had profound influence
on national policy concerning recombinant DNA research and the AIDS
epidemic. Dr. Baltimore is a member of the Board of Directors of
Amgen, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Board of Sponsors,
Encyclopædia Britannica editorial board, NIH AIDS vaccine task
force, and numerous other organizations and their boards. He
received a B.A. from Swarthmore College and Ph.D. from The
Rockefeller University. He is a member of the National Academy of
Sciences and the Institute of Medicine. 
Richard Klausner, M.D. is a Managing Partner of The Column Group.
He is the former Executive Director for Global Health of the Bill
and Melinda Gates Foundation and Director of the National Cancer
Institute. He has served as an Advisor to the Presidents of the
Academies for counter-terrorism, Liaison to the White House Office
of Science & Technology Policy, President of the American Society
of Clinical Investigation, and Chairman of the National Science
Education Standards Projects of the National Academy of Sciences.
His research has been recognized with awards including the
Outstanding Investigator Award from the American Federation of
Clinical Research, the William Damashek Prize, the Dickson Prize in
Medicine, and the Raymond Bourgine Award. He is a member of the
National Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Medicine and the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Ed Penhoet, Ph.D. (Chairman of the Board) is a Director of Alta
Partners. He sits on the board of several life sciences companies,
including ChemoCentryx, Chimerix, Metabolex, Renovis, Scynexis, and
ZymoGenetics. Previously, Ed was founder, President, and Chief
Executive Officer of Chiron. He is the Vice Chair of the
Independent Citizens Oversight Committee for the California
Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM), and recently served as
the President of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. Earlier,
Ed was a faculty member of the Biochemistry Department and Dean of
the School of Public Health at the University of California,
Berkeley, and has co-authored more than 50 scientific articles and
papers. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and its
Institute of Medicine.
Steve Reed, Ph.D. (Chief Executive Officer) is the founder and
scientific director of the Infectious Disease Research Institute.
He co-founded Corixa Corporation in 1994, where he served as Chief
Scientific Officer. In 2005 he founded Dharma Therapeutics, a
Seattle biotech developing transdermal delivery systems. His
academic appointments include Professor of Medicine at Cornell
University Medical College in New York and Research Professor of
Pathobiology at the University of Washington. He serves on several
editorial review committees, has served as a member of the Tropical
Medicine Review Board of the National Institutes of Health and is
a member of the Vaccine Development Steering Committee of the World
Health Organization. Dr. Reed's research interests have focused on
the immunology of intracellular infections, and on the development
of vaccines and diagnostics for both cancer and infectious
diseases.