Previously, as a post-doctoral fellow, she worked in the laboratory of Dr. Eric Olson at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Over the last years Leonela has been involved in developing a new therapeutic approach for correction of Duchenne muscular dystrophy using CRISPR/Cas9 genomic editing. She pursued the in vivo optimization of the CRISPR/Cas9 genomic editing, her work revealed promising results in mouse and large animals for translation of the genome editing technology to human patients.

Leonela did her graduate studies at the Institut de Genetique Biologie Moléculaire et Cellulaire (IGBMC) at the University of Strasbourg in France. During her doctoral studies, she uncovered the mechanistic basis of myotubular centronuclear myopathy and acquired expertise in the use of adeno-associated virus (AAV) for manipulation of gene expression in muscle.

She has lived and worked in several countries (Moldova, France, USA) and speaks 5 languages (romanian, russian, english, french and Italian). Leonela enjoys exploring new places, hiking, biking, volleyball and tennis. In her spare time, she enjoys music, reading and photography.

Originally a mechanical engineer, Russ spent 30 years at Shell first finding and extracting dead carbon from the deep earth, then after a brief detour into corporate finance, strategy and scenarios, leading investment in novel and alternative energy technologies at Shell Technology Ventures and Shell’s “GameChanger” breakthrough innovation program.

Russ retired from Shell in 2013 and has since been focused on the science and business of putting living carbon back into the shallow Earth by working to scale up proven regenerative agriculture practices. He is currently President of The Grassfed Exchange – a non-profit regenerative agriculture educational foundation focused on farmer-to-farmer knowledge exchange.

Throughout his career, Ginsburg has demonstrated a strong commitment to interdisciplinary science and innovation, with work spanning oncology, infectious diseases, cardiovascular disease, and metabolic disorders. He has held leadership roles in the U.S. and internationally, serving as co-chair of the National Academies’ Roundtable on Genomic and Precision Health, a founding co-chair of the International HundredK+ Cohorts Consortium, and founder and president of the Global Genomic Medicine Collaborative (G2MC), a not-for-profit organization aimed at creating international partnerships to advance the implementation of precision medicine. At NIH, Ginsburg has served on the board of external experts for the National Heart, Lung, Blood Institute, as an advisory council member to the National Human Genome Research Institute and the National Centers for Advancing Translational Sciences, and most recently on the Advisory Committee of the Director of NIH.

He received his M.D. and Ph.D. in biophysics from Boston University and completed an internal medicine residency at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. Subsequently, he pursued postdoctoral training in clinical cardiovascular medicine at Beth Israel Hospital and in molecular biology at Children’s Hospital as a Bugher Foundation Fellow of the American Heart Association.

Amy McGuire, J.D., Ph.D., is the Leon Jaworski Professor of Biomedical Ethics and Director of the Center for Medical Ethics and Health Policy at Baylor College of Medicine. She researches ethical and policy issues related to emerging technologies and innovative therapeutics, with a particular focus on genetics and genomics, big data, neuropsychology, and the clinical integration of novel neurological devices. Her research is funded by the National Institutes of Health. Dr. McGuire has received numerous teaching awards at Baylor College of Medicine, was recognized by the Texas Executive Women as a Woman on the Move in 2016, and has been invited to give two TED talks: a TEDMed talk titled “There is no Genome for the Human Spirit” in 2014 and a TEDx talk titled “Can Creating Moments of Meaning Improve Mental Health?” in 2022. She has served as a member of the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research and as an advisor to the X Prize in Genomics. Currently, Dr. McGuire is on the board of the Greenwall Foundation, is a Hasting’s Center Fellow, and is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for Geisinger Research, The Morgridge Institute for Research, and Nurture Genomics.

Dr. Mendell has been the recipient of several awards including the Allan C. Davis Medal for the Outstanding Young Scientist in the State of Maryland in 2007, the AACR Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research in 2010, the O’Donnell Award from the Texas Academy of Medicine, Engineering, Science, and Technology (TAMEST) in 2016, and the Paul Marks Prize in Cancer Research in 2019. Dr. Mendell was appointed as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Early Career Scientist in 2009 and an HHMI Investigator in 2015. In 2011, Dr. Mendell received a Rising Stars Award from the Cancer Prevention and Research Institute of Texas (CPRIT) and relocated his laboratory to UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas where he is currently a Professor and Vice-Chair in the Department of Molecular Biology and a member of the Simmons Cancer Center and the Center for Regenerative Science and Medicine.

His extensive publications on the synthesis and materials physics of complex oxides are highly cited (over 100,000 citations, H-factor =150). He is a fellow of APS, AAAS & MRS and an elected member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering, a Foreign member of the Royal Society of London, the Indian National Science Academy, the Indian National Academy of Engineering and a Fellow of the American Academy for Arts and Sciences. His awards include the Humboldt Senior Scientist Prize, the APS Adler Lectureship and McGroddy New Materials Prize, the TMS Bardeen Prize and the IUPAP Magnetism Prize and Neel Medal and the Europhysics Prize in 2022. He was recognized as a Thomson-Reuters Citation Laureate in Physics for his work on multiferroics.

He served as the Founding Director of the successful Department of Energy SunShot Initiative in the Obama administration, envisioning and coordinating the R&D funding of the U.S. Solar Program, spearheading the reduction in the cost of Solar Energy. He also served as the Deputy Director of Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Associate Lab Director at LBNL. Most recently, he served on the Biden-Harris Transition Team for Energy. He is also a co-founder of Kepler Computing, which is focused on low power computing using ferroelectrics.

Starting 15 August, he is serving as the Vice President for Research at Rice University.

Prior to forming TPH, Mr. Tudor was a Partner at Goldman Sachs and a leader of its worldwide Energy practice. Over his 30-plus year career in Investment Banking, he has worked on many of the defining transactions of the period, across most energy subsectors and geographies.

Mr. Tudor is currently the Chairman of the Houston Energy Transition Initiative, which is a consortium of Houston’s leading energy companies working to shape the region’s Energy Transition Strategy.

Mr. Tudor is the Past Chair of the Greater Houston Partnership and of the Rice University Board of Trustees. He serves on the Board of Advisors for Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, the Jones School of Business at Rice, the Carbon Neutral Coalition, and the National Advisory Board for the Tulane Center for Energy Law. Mr. Tudor also serves on the Board of Directors of the National Petroleum Council, Puloli Inc., New ASEAN Energy Inc., the Houston Symphony, Good Reason Houston, and the MD Anderson Board of Visitors.

Mr. Tudor holds a BA in English and Legal Studies from Rice University, and a JD from Tulane.

Dr. Zoghbi graduated with distinction from the American University of Beirut and received her medical degree from Meharry Medical College. She joined Baylor College of Medicine for her residency and obtained additional training in molecular genetics.

Dr. Zoghbi’s expertise ranges from neurodevelopment to neurodegeneration. She and Dr. Harry Orr discovered that Spinocerebellar Ataxia type 1 is caused by expansion of a polyglutamine tract. Her subsequent studies demonstrating that such expansion leads to accumulation of the mutant protein in neurons has had profound ramifications since many neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer and Parkinson disease involve similar accumulations of disease-driving proteins. She discovered Atoh1 and showed that it governs the development of components of the proprioceptive, balance, hearing, vestibular, and breathing pathways. She also discovered that mutations in MECP2 cause the postnatal neurological disorder Rett syndrome and revealed the importance of this gene for various neuropsychiatric features.

Dr. Zoghbi has trained over 100 scientists and physician-scientists. She has been committed to educating the next generation of scientists. She has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Sciences, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and has received several honors including the Breakthrough Prize, Brain Prize and the Kavli Prize.