CEO

Chuck Murry, MD, PhD, is CEO of StemCardia. A physician-scientist pioneer in heart regeneration, as an academic leader he was the founding director of the University of Washington (UW) Center for Cardiovascular Biology, and co-founder of the UW Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine, where he serves as Director. Having raised over $150M in grant and philanthropic funding over the course of two decades towards scientific development of stem cell based heart regeneration, Dr. Murry partnered with Sana Biotechnology in 2019 to establish clinical-grade induced pluripotent stem cell (iPSC) based cardiac cell manufacturing. There he served as Senior Vice-President until co-founding StemCardia to commercialize a pipeline of gene-enhanced iPSC cardiac cell therapies targeting heart disease.

Head of Operations

Lil Pabon, PhD is Head of Operations for StemCardia. A developmental biologist by training, Dr. Pabon has over 18 years’ experience with human pluripotent stem cells and their application towards cardiovascular regenerative medicine. As a Senior Scientist and Research Operations Director she helped establish the scientific foundation for the Heart Regeneration Program at the University of Washington (UW). At Sana Biotechnology, Dr. Pabon served as Head of Research Operations, Cell Therapy until co-founding StemCardia to develop next generation cell-based cardiac therapies targeting heart disease.

Chief Medical Officer

Robb MacLellan, MD, is Chief Medical Officer of StemCardia, and serves as the Robert A. Bruce Professor of Medicine and Executive Vice-Chair of the Department of Medicine at UW. He led the Cardiology Division at UW from 2011-23. Dr. MacLellan serves as the Director of the UW Medicine Heart Institute, a multi-disciplinary service line with four hospitals and 4 additional satellite clinics. His clinical expertise is in heart failure, and is a prominent investigator in cardiovascular regenerative medicine serving as the co-Director of the UW Heart Regeneration Program. His research focuses on developing new therapies to regenerate the heart for patients who have suffered a heart attack or developed heart failure.

Chief Sentific Officer

Michael Regnier, PhD, is Chief Scientific Officer of StemCardia. He is the Associate Chair for Research and Development in the Department of Bioengineering at University of Washington (UW) and the founding director of the Center for Translational Muscle Research and Bioengineering Cardiovascular Training Program. His research program is multidisciplinary in nature and has been consistently funded by the National Institutes of Health and other public and private agencies for over 25 years to study contractile dysfunction that occurs with heart and skeletal muscle diseases. The results of studies are used to design and develop gene and engineered stem cell approaches to treat these muscle diseases.

President

Carter Cliff is President of StemCardia. He has raised over $250 Million as co-founder and executive of biotechnology companies developing disease-modifying genetic medicines, including Opsis Therapeutics and Kenai Therapeutics. Opsis entered a Strategic R&D Alliance with BlueRock Therapeutics (a Bayer AG company), who provided a $70 Million up-front commitment for option to three programs. Kenai raised an $83 Million Series A financing co-led by Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation, Cure Ventures and The Column Group, with participation from Euclidean Capital and Saisei Ventures.