Yongjian Wu, Ph.D., joined MBrace in April, 2022 as the Chief Development Officer and Head of CMC. Dr. Wu has over 21 years of experience in CMC development of biologics.

Before joining MBrace, he was Vice President of CMC at Ansun Biopharma, leading the CMC development of immune-oncology programs comprising oncolytic virus and NK cell therapy. Prior to Ansun, he was COO of MabPlex USA, a biologics CDMO specialized in ADC development and manufacturing. Before that, Dr. Wu held increasing responsibilities at Tanvex Biopharma as director, VP of R&D and CSO, leading biosimilar programs from preclinical to BLA filing.

Dr. Wu started his career in cell line development at Bayer and protein engineering at BioMarin. He spent six years in Analytical Development/QC at Genentech, first in bioassay development and then in protein analytical chemistry, contributing to a dozen INDs for MAbs and ADCs.

Dr. Wu obtained his B.Sc. in biochemistry, Ph.D. in Immunology, both from University of Toronto, and did postdoctoral research in the Department of Neurobiology at Stanford University.

Dianna DeVore, Ph.D., is General Counsel and SVP, Corporate Development for MBrace Therapeutics.  Dr. DeVore has extensive experience developing and implementing product protection and commercialization strategies for life science and biopharmaceutical companies.

Prior to joining MBrace Therapeutics, Dr. DeVore was General Counsel and SVP, Corporate Development at Inscripta, Inc., a company developing CRISPR genome engineering solutions and Senior Vice President of Intellectual Property and Legal Affairs at Ariosa Diagnostics, Inc. (acquired by Roche Molecular Systems in 2015).

She has been in-house legal counsel for various companies including Complete Genomics, Cambridge Antibody Technology (a wholly-owned subsidiary of AstraZeneca) and Élan Pharmaceuticals. In 2002, Dr. DeVore co-founded the Australian Stem Cell Centre (ASCC) in Melbourne, Australia, the first Australian Biotechnology Centre of Excellence, where she served as Chief Operating Officer and VP, Cardiac Development.  

Dr. DeVore holds a B.S. in Art History from Johns Hopkins, a Ph.D. in Genetics from Yale University, and a J.D. from Stanford Law School. 

Sara has 28 years of experience in Clinical Research in various therapeutic areas, with a strong commitment to serving Oncology patients. She is a proven leader who builds highly respected and very loyal Clinical Operation groups in particular at smaller start-up companies. Prior to joining the MBrace team, Sara was the Global Head of Clinical Operations for Clovis Oncology. During her long tenure at Clovis (2010-2023), Sara helped build a team of 3 employees into, at its peak, a group of 65 employee across comprised of Clin Ops, Translational Medicine Ops, and ClinOps Standards and Innovations across all phases of clinical development with a global reach. Their efforts led to a PARPi (Rucaparib) obtaining approval in the US and Europe with indications in Ovarian and Prostate cancer, in addition to bringing in new early development compounds. Prior to Clovis, Sara joined Intermune early on and held positions of increasing responsibility across multiple therapeutic areas during her 9 years there. During her career, Sara has been a part of several successful FDA and EMA inspections under global filings with both Agencies. Obtaining her BA in Psychology and Sociology at the University of Colorado at Boulder allowed Sara to ski in very different conditions than her upbringing at a ski resort in Maine and racing in some fairly brutal conditions. Sara had a short stint as a Social Worker and is incredibly satisfied having landed in Clinical Research by happenstance all those years ago.

Dr. Parsons is a physician scientist with more than 20 years’ experience in designing, executing, and leading clinical trials in the private and public sectors. He has expertise in all phases of bench-to-beside biomedical research and is an author on over 190 scientific publications, including papers in JAMA, the New England Journal of Medicine, and Journal of Clinical Oncology. He has served on national clinical practice guidelines committees for the American Society of Clinical Oncology, National Comprehensive Cancer Network (Committee Co-chair), and American Urological Association (Committee Chair); in leadership positions within the National Cancer Institute (NCI) national clinical trials network; and on the editorial boards of three medical journals. Prior to joining MBrace Therapeutics, he served as Senior Medical Director at Janssen from 2021 to 2023. In this role, he oversaw the PROTEUS Phase 3 registrational trial (with 2400 participants globally, to date the largest genitourinary cancer surgery trial ever undertaken), co-led the development of a novel prostate cancer registrational protocol, and actively advised on Phase 1 through 3 trial designs across the solid tumor portfolio. Prior to Janssen, Dr. Parsons was an endowed Professor and Head of Urologic Oncology at the Moores UC San Diego Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Parsons completed his residency in urologic surgery and fellowship in urologic oncology at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. He received his M.H.S. in Clinical Investigation from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, M.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, and A.B. in History from Stanford University.    

Dr. Barnhart is the Senior Director for Preclinical Safety at MBrace Therapeutics. Dr. Barnhart has 25 years’ experience in animal models of disease and the preclinical safety of cancer therapeutics including ADCs, checkpoint inhibitors, small molecules and gene therapy. She is considered an international expert in both laboratory diagnostics and the ethical management of nonhuman primates (NHP) in research benefiting human health.

Prior to joining MBrace, Dr. Barnhart was the Site Director for the largest NHP facility in North America. Her responsibilities included the importation, breeding and management of 11,000 NHPs and supervision of 150 employees and contractors.  Dr. Barnhart was the Associate Director of Clinical Pathology at AbbVie in North Chicago and directed the GLP Clinical Pathology and Biomarker Laboratory. She supported two drugs through successful NDA applications – Venclexta and Viekira Pak. As an Assistant Professor in comparative pathology at MD Anderson Cancer Center, Dr. Barnhart directed the GLP Clinical Pathology Laboratory and maintained grants through NIH and the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. She is published in Science Translational Medicine and has been interviewed by NBC Nightly News, Reuters, and the Canadian and Australian Broadcast Corporations.

Dr. Barnhart is a Past-President of the American Society for Veterinary Clinical Pathology. She served a 4-year term on the Board of Directors for the American College of Veterinary Pathology (ACVP) and was an appointed member of the ACVP Certifying Examination Committee for 7 years. She has chaired the Continuing Education Committee for the Society of Toxicologic Pathologists.

Dr. Barnhart completed her PhD and residency in clinical pathology at Texas A&M University. Prior to that she spent 5 years in private practice. She received her DVM and BS in Veterinary Science at Texas A&M University.

Fernanda I. Staquicini, Ph.D. is the Director of Research & Development for MBrace Therapeutics. Dr. Staquicini co-developed the SPARTA methodology along with Founders Drs. Arap and Pasqualini.

She has extensive experience with phage display technologies in animal models and human subjects and detection of protein-protein interactions in the context of in vivo and in vitro phage display.

Prior to joining MBrace Therapeutics, Dr. Staquicini held faculty positions at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, University of New Mexico Comprehensive Cancer Center, Rutgers University and Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey. Dr. Staquicini holds a B.Sc. in Biomedical Sciences and a Ph.D. in Immunology both from the Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil. She completed her post-doctoral research training at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center.