Rewiring Cancer

Dr. Nathanael S. Gray is a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of Shenandoah Therapeutics and the Krishnan-Shah Family Professor of Chemical and Systems Biology at Stanford University. He co-founded Shenandoah Therapeutics with Dr. Gerald Crabtree and Dr. Isabella Graef to bring gain-of-function strategies to reprogram transcriptional regulators such as Bcl6.

After completing his Ph.D., Dr. Gray was recruited to the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF) in San Diego, California. In 2006, Dr. Gray returned to academia as a faculty member at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School in Boston. There, he established a discovery chemistry group that focuses on developing first-in-class inhibitors for newly emerging biological targets and advanced compounds targeting EGFR, BRD9, JAK2, CDK7, Pi3K and PIP4K2c into clinical development. In 2021, Dr. Gray joined Stanford University where he has joined the Stanford Cancer Institute and Sarafan ChEM-H to spur the development of prototype drugs.

Dr. Gray has also been involved in establishing several biotechnology companies to advance projects from the lab into the commercial sector including: Gatekeeper (acquired), Petra (acquired), Syros (IPO), C4 (IPO), Matchpoint, Larkspur, and Lighthorse.

Dr. Gray is an inventor of more than 150 published patents and more than 500 peer-reviewed publications. These contributions have been recognized through numerous awards including the National Science Foundation’s Career award in 2007, the Damon Runyon Foundation Innovator award in 2008, the American Association for Cancer Research for Team Science in 2010 and for Outstanding Achievement in 2011, the American Chemical Society award for Biological Chemistry in 2011, the Nancy Lurie Marks endowed professorship in 2015, the Paul Marks Prize in 2019, and the AACR Chemistry Award in 2024.

Jim joined Samsara BioCapital as a Venture Partner in Fall, 2022 and has over 28 years of experience in drug discovery across multiple therapeutic disciplines.

Prior to joining Samsara, Jim spent 22 years at Janssen Research & Development in roles of increasing responsibility. Most recently, he was Vice President and Global Head, In Silico Discovery & External Innovation, leading a multi-disciplinary group of computational & data scientists providing predictive and design tools across all modalities within the Therapeutics Discovery organization at Janssen. Prior to this he was Vice President & US Regional Head, Discovery Chemistry, leading drug discovery teams at multiple sites. These teams were responsible for the design and synthesis of small molecule drug candidates working with partners across all six Therapeutic Areas within JRD and delivered clinical-stage small molecule drug candidates against targets ranging from GPCRs & kinases to cytokines & cytokine receptors. From 1999-2014, Jim led various Immunology medicinal chemistry groups at J&J/Janssen which progressed clinical-stage molecules against novel first-in-class targets such as cathepsin S, histamine H4, and LTA4H. Jim began his career in the pharmaceutical industry at Ligand Pharmaceuticals, working on non-steroidal AR & PR modulators.

Jim received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, working with Professor Scott Denmark, and his BS from Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, CA. He also performed post-doctoral studies with Professor Lanny Liebeskind at Emory University.

Dr. Wendy Young is a biotechnology, pharmaceutical, and life science executive with more than 30 years of experience in the discovery and development of new medicines and research platforms. She currently serves as a board member and scientific advisor at several public and private biotech companies and is a senior advisor at GV (Google Ventures). Previously, Wendy was Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery at Genentech, where she helped build and later led the small molecule drug discovery organization.

During her tenure, more than 25 clinical candidates were discovered across multiple therapeutic areas and nominated for development. These include inavolisib, now FDA-approved as Itovebi; fenebrutinib and giredestrant, both currently under FDA review; and divarasib, currently in pivotal trials. Wendy was the discovery team leader and is a co-inventor of fenebrutinib, a potential first-in-class oral treatment for both relapsing and primary progressive multiple sclerosis. Earlier in her career, she held leadership roles at Scios, a Johnson & Johnson company, and at Celera Genomics.

Driven by a strong passion for innovative research and basic science, Wendy is named as an inventor or author on more than 70 patents and publications. Her leadership and scientific achievements have been widely recognized. She was inducted into the MEDI Hall of Fame in 2024, received the Earle B. Barnes Award for Chemical Leadership in 2020, was named one of Endpoints News’ Top 20 Women in Biopharma in 2019, and was inducted as an ACS Fellow in 2018. Wendy earned her doctorate in chemistry from Princeton University and was an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Gary Yeung is the Founder and Managing Partner of YK Bioventures, bringing over 25 years of life sciences investment and executive leadership experience. Throughout his career, Gary has raised over $800 million in capital and invested in more than 25 private life sciences companies.

As a senior executive, he played key leadership roles in building and scaling Guardant Health (NASDAQ: GH), Annexon Biosciences (NASDAQ: ANNX), and Erasca (NASDAQ: ERAS). Previously, Gary spent 12 years at Genentech leading operational teams that filed 42 INDs and launched multiple FDA-approved therapies. He began his career at McKinsey & Company and GE.

Gary holds an MBA from UCLA, a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from UC Berkeley, and is a CFA charterholder.

Dr. Gerald Crabtree is the David Korn Professor at Stanford University. He is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute since 1987.

In 1993, Drs. Crabtree and Stuart Schreiber pioneered the concept of chemically induced proximity (CIP), developing heterobifunctional molecules to control biologic processes such as signaling and transcription. Building on this foundational discovery, he conceived TCIPs, small molecules that rewire cancer drivers to activate cell-death programs. With Dr. Nathanael Gray he led TCIP development reported in (Nature (2023), Science (2024), and Cell (2026). He co-founded Shenandoah Therapeutics with Drs. Gray and Graef to advance TCIPs toward the clinic.

Dr. Crabtree defined the signaling pathway by which foreign antigens activate the immune response and the mechanism of action of the immunosuppressants Cyclosporin A and FK506. His laboratory showed that this pathway is essential to the development of the heart, immune, skeletal, and nervous systems. He also pioneered chromatin biology through the discovery of mammalian BAF remodeling complexes and neuron-specific nBAF, revealing their roles in development, neurological disorders, and cancer.

He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Other honors include the NIH Director’s Award, the NIH Merit Award, Stanford’s Outstanding Inventor award, a Thomson Scientific Laureate in Chemistry (2006), and the NIH Javits Neuroscience Investigator Award.

Raised in rural West Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley, he earned a B.S. in chemistry and mathematics from West Liberty State College and an M.D. from Temple University. He began his research career at Dartmouth and was a senior investigator at the National Institutes of Health before joining the Stanford faculty in 1985.