Our leadership

Brent R. Stockwell, Ph.D. is a Professor at Columbia University in the Departments of Biological Sciences and Chemistry. His research involves the discovery of small molecules that can be used to understand and treat cancer and neurodegeneration, with a focus on mechanisms governing cell death. These interdisciplinary investigations have led to new methods of small molecule drug discovery, and the discovery of a new form of regulated cell death known as ferroptosis. He has received numerous awards, including a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award at the Scientific Interface, a Beckman Young Investigator Award, an HHMI Early Career Scientist Award, the BioAccelerate NYC Prize, the Lenfest Distinguished Columbia Faculty Award, the Great Teacher of Columbia College Award from the Society of Columbia Graduates and an NCI Outstanding Investigator Award. He has trained >100 students, technicians and postdoctoral scientists, published >100 scientific articles, been awarded 18 US patents, and received 45 research grants for >$30 million. He founded the biopharmaceutical company CombinatoRx Incorporated, and is the author of The Quest for the Cure: The Science and Stories Behind the Next Generation of Medicines.

Ofra Weinberger, Ph.D., is the Director of Licensing at Columbia Technology Ventures (CTV), and Associate Vice President for Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer at Columbia University. Ofra oversees the commercialization of technologies in a varied portfolio comprising both life sciences and physical sciences opportunities and has extensive experience commercializing discoveries that are developed in university labs; negotiating licenses and research collaboration agreements with industry, developing strategic alliances, and spinning out companies to commercialize university technologies. Ofra ‘s approach involves the creation of partnerships among the various stakeholders, including fostering collaborations with industry and negotiating partnerships with investors, facilitating collaborations among investigators, providing educational, technical, and entrepreneurial support to the community of university investigators individually and via research accelerator programs whose mission is the cultivation of promising research projects that have translational and commercial potential. Leading the licensing and startup formation team for Columbia Technology Ventures, she oversees the management of over 400 inventions, 200 patents, approximately 100 licenses to industry, and the formation of approximately 25 new startups per year.

CTV, the technology transfer office of Columbia University, has been operational since 1982 and has returned over $2B in revenue to Columbia, making it one of the most successful university tech transfer programs in the world. CTV’s core objective is to facilitate the transfer of inventions arising out of academic research to outside organizations to assure their development for the benefit of society.

Ofra Weinberger received a PhD in the field of immunology from Harvard University, where she was a National Science Foundation Scholar in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Baruj Benacerraf and subsequently continued her postdoctoral training at Harvard in the Department of Genetics. Prior to joining CTV, Ofra was a member of the faculty at Columbia University in the Department of Physiology and Cellular Biophysics where her research focused on the molecular mechanisms underlying HIV pathogenesis.

Dr. Muredach P. Reilly serves as Director of the Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (Irving Institute), home to Columbia University’s NIH-NCATS funded Clinical and Translational Science Award Program hub. He is also the Associate Dean for Clinical and Translational Research at the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Director of the Cardiometabolic Precision Medicine Program in the Division of Cardiology.

Translational research takes discoveries from basic biological research and applies them to clinical trials, leading to therapeutic opportunities and advancements. Dr. Reilly, a cardiologist and Herbert and Florence Irving Professor of Medicine, was recruited in 2016 from the University of Pennsylvania (UPenn) to lead Columbia’s Irving Institute into a new era of genomics and translational personalized healthcare. His research program is dedicated to precision medicine studies of cardiovascular disease and related metabolic disorders. This translational research emphasizes humans as the most ideal “model” to understand mechanisms of human disease and therapeutic opportunities for prevention. Clinically, Dr. Reilly is an expert in preventive cardiology and provides expert care for patients with rare cholesterol disorders and premature heart disease. Through his leadership role at the Irving Institute, his translational research, as well as aligning with institutional and national initiatives, Dr. Reilly builds programs to drive forward the field of precision cardiovascular medicine including Columbia commercialization programs in therapeutics.

Prior to his role at Columbia, Dr. Reilly held faculty positions at UPenn and lead initiatives in clinical and translational research. Dr. Reilly received his medical degree from University College Dublin, Ireland and completed his residency and fellowship training in Medicine and Cardiovascular Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where he also received a M.S. degree in clinical epidemiology. In 2010, Dr. Reilly was elected to the Royal College of Physicians in Ireland as well as to the American Society of Clinical Investigation. In addition, he has received numerous awards including the 2013 William Osler Patient Oriented Research Award, American Heart Association’s Mentor of Women Award in 2015 and, in 2018, the Jeffrey M. Hoeg Award for Basic Science and Clinical Research from Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology (ATVB).