Our team

Andrea Ballabio, M.D.
Casma Founder
Director & Founder, TIGEM

Andrea Ballabio is the founding director of the Telethon Institute of Genetics and Medicine (TIGEM) of Pozzuoli and professor of medical genetics in the department of translational medicine at the Federico II University of Naples and visiting professor in the department of molecular and human genetics at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas.

Andrea’s work centers on the elucidation of the biological mechanisms underlying genetic diseases and the development of innovative therapeutic approaches. His team has identified numerous genes whose mutations cause human inherited diseases, leading to the discovery of their pathogenetic mechanisms. His current research focuses on the transcriptional regulation of lysosomal biogenesis and autophagy, on the role of the lysosome as a signaling hub, and on the mechanisms underlying lysosomal storage disorders and common neurodegenerative diseases.

Andrea was the president of the European Society of Human Genetics and Council member of the European Molecular Biology Organization. He is a recipient of two consecutive Advanced Investigator Grants of the European Research Council, in 2010 and 2016, which recognize the best European scientists. He has received numerous national and international awards for research and culture, including the 2007 Award of the European Society of Human Genetics. In 2007, he received the “Knighthood of the Italian Republic” from the president of Italy. In 2016 he was the first in Italy to win the prestigious Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine for his contribution to understanding the molecular mechanisms controlling the function of lysosomes in health and disease.

Andrea earned his medical degree at the University of Naples and did his residency in pediatrics. He completed his postdoctoral studies at Guy’s Hospital in London and the International Institute of Genetics and Biophysics in Naples, Italy.

Beth Levine, M.D.
Casma Founder
Former Professor of Internal Medicine & Microbiology, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Beth Levine was professor of internal medicine and microbiology, director of the Center for Autophagy Research, and Charles Cameron Sprague Distinguished Chair in Biomedical Science at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center. She was also an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Beth was recognized for her work on autophagy in physiology and disease and was known particularly for her work on the mammalian autophagy gene, BECN1, and the role of Beclin 1 and other components of the autophagy pathway in tumor suppression, innate immunity, aging and metabolism. The primary research focus of her lab was to understand the molecular regulation and biological functions of autophagy, with the expectation that doing so would lead to major discoveries in the pathogenesis and treatment of human diseases, including cancer, infectious diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, diabetes and aging.

After serving as a faculty member in the department of medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons from 1992 to 2004, Beth joined UT Southwestern to become chief of the division of infectious diseases. In 2011, she became director of the Center for Autophagy Research at UT Southwestern. She was a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the American Association of Physicians and the National Academy of Sciences. In 2014, she received the ASCI/Stanley J. Korsmeyer Award in recognition of fundamental contributions to our understanding of autophagy.

Beth graduated from Brown University in 1981 and from Cornell University Medical College in 1986, followed by a residency in internal medicine. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship in infectious diseases and virology at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Christian Grimm, Ph.D.
Scientific Advisor
Professor of Molecular Pharmacology at the Walther-Straub-Institute of Pharmacology and Toxicology, Medical Faculty, Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich, Germany.

Christian has been working in the field of ion channels, in particular TRP channels for more than 20 years, starting as a PhD Student (Dr. rer. nat.) at the Free University (FU) of Berlin, Germany, followed by postdoctoral research fellowships at Harvard University and Stanford University, USA (2004-2009). In 2009 Christian joined pharmaceutical industry (Pfizer Ltd., UK) as a principal scientist working on ion channels as targets to treat neuropathic pain. In 2011, Christian returned to Germany and to academia as a group leader in pharmacology at the Department of Chemistry and Pharmacy of the LMU Munich. Since then he has focused his research on endo-lysosomal ion channels, in particular TRPML channels and two-pore channels (TPCs), resulting in several high-profile publications in PNAS, EMBO J., Nature Commun., Nature Protoc., and Science. For his work he received several awards, the Ernst-Reuter Award of the Free University Berlin (2005), the NCL Foundation Award (2016), and the Care for Rare Award of the LMU Munich Childrens’ Hospital (2017). Christian has also a PhD in Philosophy (Dr. phil.).

Herbert “Skip” Virgin, M.D., Ph.D.
Casma Founder
Chief Medical Officer and Head, Altos Institute of Medicine

Skip Virgin is the Chief Medical Officer of Altos Labs and Head of the Altos Institute of Medicine. Prior to joining Altos, he was Executive Vice President and CSO at Vir Biotechnology, where he built and led an infection-targeted multi-platform immunology research organization and participated in the discovery and development of sotrovimab for the treatment of COVID-19.

He previously served as the Edward Mallinckrodt professor and Chair of the Department of Pathology and Immunology at Washington University School of medicine, and Director and Principal Investigator of an NIH-funded Center for Excellence in Translational Research. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Pathology and Immunology at Washington University School of Medicine and Adjunct professor of Internal Medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center.

An infectious disease expert and immunologist, he has identified mechanisms of infection pathogenesis and immunity, discovered murine norovirus, and was the first to culture a norovirus. His research showed that ‘virus plus susceptibility gene’ interactions elicit Crohn’s-like Paneth cell pathology, and linked the human virome to AIDS, inflammatory bowel disease, and type 1 diabetes.

Skip is a member of the American Society of Clinical Investigation, the Association of American Physicians, the American Academy of Microbiology and the National Academy of Sciences. He received his A.B., M.D., and Ph.D. from Harvard University and trained in internal medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and in infectious diseases at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis. He performed graduate work with Dr. Emil Unanue in bacterial immunity and postdoctoral studies with Dr. Bernard Fields in viral genetics and pathogenesis.

James Hurley, M.D., Ph.D.
Casma Founder
Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology, University of California at Berkeley

Jim is a professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Structural Biology at University of California at Berkeley. He is a leader in determining the structure of autophagy core complexes using crystallography, mass spectrometry and cryo-electron microscopy, and in understanding their mechanisms of membrane remodeling and regulation. Prior to entering academia, Jim worked as an investigator at the National Institutes of Health, where his group focused on structural mechanisms of endosomal and lysosomal transport, including autophagy. At NIH, Jim’s lab determined the structures of the ESCRT complexes of endosomal sorting, the first structures of the receptors for ubiquitin and the lipid PI3P, vesicular coat and small G-protein regulatory complexes of the trans-Golgi network and endosomes, cholesterol transporters involved in lipid sorting and the first structures of phosphoinositide lipid modifying enzymes. Jim moved to UC Berkeley in 2013, where he has concentrated on structural studies of the human ULK1 and PI 3-kinase autophagy initiating complexes. Jim won the 2014 Hans Neurath Award from the Protein Society for his work on vesicle coat complexes and a Bakar Fellows Award for work on autophagy.

Jim trained in structural biology with Robert Stroud at the University of California, San Francisco, where he completed a Ph.D. in biophysics in 1990. He also trained with Brian Matthews at the University of Oregon, where he was a postdoctoral fellow from 1990 to 1992.

Jeff Saunders, Ph.D
Scientific Advisor

Jeff brings over 25 years of drug discovery, team building and leadership experience in start-up and early-stage discovery organizations, pioneering and leading development of outsourcing models for effective and highly productive drug design teams. Jeff joined Casma as SVP of Drug Discovery in 2018 and transitioned to Scientific Advisor in January 2023. Prior to Casma, Jeff served as a vice president of chemistry at Nuvalent Therapeutics and was previously a co-founder of Resilience Therapeutics, a company developing therapies for anxiety- and trauma-related disorders. Prior to that, he was vice president of small molecule drug discovery at Ember Therapeutics. Before that, Jeff was the vice president of chemistry at Agios. He also worked as a consultant at Elixir Pharmaceuticals, where he managed all chemistry and related intellectual property for five years. Prior to this, he held the position of principal investigator at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Previously, he was a research scientist at the Squibb Institute for Medical Research. Jeff received his Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry at the University of South Carolina and held an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. He holds an A.B. in chemistry from Hope College in Michigan.

Martin Kampmann, Ph.D
Scientific Advisor
Associate Professor in the UCSF Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and the Institute for Neurodegenerative Diseases.

Dr. Kampmann received his BA in Biochemistry from Cambridge University and his PhD in Biophysics/Cell Biology from Rockefeller University.

He co-invented the CRISPRi and CRISPRa screening technologies, and his lab has pioneered CRISPR-based screens in human brain cell types such as neurons, microglia and astrocytes. He leverages this unique technology to uncover mechanisms and new therapeutic strategies for Alzheimer’s Disease and other neurodegenerative diseases. Two central questions are:
1. Why do proteins aggregate in these diseases, and what about protein aggregation is toxic to neurons?
2. What controls disease states of other brain cells, such as microglia and astrocytes, and how can these cells be reprogrammed for therapeutic benefit?

Dr. Kampmann was named an NIH Director’s New Innovator, an Allen Distinguished Investigator, a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative Ben Barres Early Career Acceleration Award, an Alzheimer Association Zenith fellow, and he received the Rainwater Prize for Innovative Early Career Scientists.

Pietro De Camilli, M.D.
Scientific Advisor
John Klingenstein Professor of Neuroscience and Professor of Cell Biology
Investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute
Director, Program in Cellular Neuroscience, Neurodegeneration and Repair

A native of Italy, De Camilli earned his M.D. degree from the University of Milano in 1972. In the late 1970’s he was a postdoctoral fellow with Paul Greengard in the Department of Pharmacology at Yale, and subsequently an assistant professor in the Yale Section of Cell Biology. Following a return of a few years to Milan, he moved back to Yale in 1988 where he is currently John Klingenstein Professor of Neuroscience, Professor of Cell Biology and Director of the Yale Program in Cellular Neuroscience, Neurodegeneration and Repair (CNNR), a Program he co-founded in 2005. He served as Chair of the Department of Cell Biology (1997-2000), chair of the Department of Neuroscience (2015-2021) and Director of the Kavli Institute for Neuroscience (2015-2022). In 2017 he served as President of the American Society of Cell Biology. Since 1992 he has been a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. He is an elected member of EMBO, of the National Academy of Sciences (USA), the National Academy of Medicine (USA), the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and is a foreign member of the italian “Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei”.

The De Camilli lab is interested in the mechanisms underlying the dynamics of cell membranes with emphasis on the role of these mechanisms in neuronal physiology and synaptic transmission. His studies on synaptic vesicle recycling have contributed to the general fields of neurotransmitter secretion and of membrane shaping mechanisms. His discovery and characterization of the role of phosphoinositide lipids in the control of endocytosis have broad implications in the fields of phospholipid signaling and of membrane traffic. More recently he helped advance the field of subcellular organelle cross-talk at membrane contact sites. His studies have also contributed to the elucidation of pathogenetic processes in human diseases, including, most recently, Parkinson’s disease and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Sascha Martens, Ph.D.
Scientific Advisor
Vice-Dean, University of Vienna

Sascha has worked at the Max Perutz labs, University of Vienna for over 10 years where he is currently the Vice-Dean of the Institute. As a principal investigator, Sascha leads research on the foundations of autophagy, exploring how the numerous factors required for autophagy work together to form the autophagosomes that engulf and dispose of harmful cellular material. He is the author of dozens of papers on the factors and processes involved in autophagy and has received several prestigious research grants, including the Human Frontier Science Program grant, the European Research Council Starting and Consolidator grants, and was elected EMBO member in 2020. He has a diploma degree in biology and a Ph.D. in genetics from the Institute for Genetics of the University of Cologne, Germany, where he worked with Jonathan C. Howard (FRS) on cell autonomous immunity. He conducted postdoctoral research with Harvey T. McMahon (FRS) on synaptic vesicle fusion at the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, U.K.

Sharon Tooze, Ph.D
Scientific Advisor
Principal Group Leader, The Francis Crick Institute

Sharon Tooze is a Principal Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute, and holds an ERC advanced grant. Sharon is an EMBO member, a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, and Fellow of the European Academy of Sciences. Sharon is a member of a number of editorial boards of scientific journals, and participates in review panels and grant agencies across Europe and the UK. Sharon has organized a number of conferences including Gordon Conference, Keystone Meetings and EMBO workshops in Europe. Sharon completed her PhD and post-doctoral work at EMBL, Heidelberg in the Cell Biology Programme. Sharon then became a group leader at ICRF, London, later called the London Research Institute, Cancer Research UK, London, and now the Francis Crick Institute. Sharon’s training in cell biology was the foundation for her career-long interest in organelle biogenesis, first applied to neuroendocrine dense core secretory granules, followed by her research into autophagosome formation and autophagy. Her expertise is in protein trafficking, including subcellular fractionation, in vitro reconstitution, protein targeting, and structure-function analysis of proteins. Since 2004, Sharon’s lab has been focused on understanding how autophagy occurs in mammalian cells. Her laboratory identified some of the key mammalian proteins, ULK1, ATG9 and WIPI2, and now studies these proteins to gain an understanding of their function in autophagy. Her work on the early stages of autophagosome formation mediated by these key proteins, as well as the recruitment and function of the ATG8 protein family have elucidated mechanisms involved in phagophore composition and membrane expansion.

Steven Gygi, Ph.D.
Scientific Advisor
Professor of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School

Steven received his Ph.D. from the University of Utah in Pharmacology and Toxicology performing small molecule mass spectrometry.  He went on to pursue postdoctoral work with Ruedi Aebersold at the University of Washington in 1996.  A revolution in biological mass spectrometry was occurring which allowed for the measurement of protein expression levels and a new field, Proteomics, was born.  In 2000, Dr. Gygi moved to Harvard Medical School and joined the Department of Cell Biology.  Currently, he is the faculty director of two MS core facilities (Taplin Biological MS Facility, and the Thermo Fisher Center for Multiplexed Proteomics—TCMP@HMS).

Research in the Gygi lab centers around developing and applying new technologies in the field of mass spectrometry-based proteomics.  These include the systematic and proteome-wide measurements of many protein properties including their expression levels, modification states, structure, localization, function, and interactions.  For example, the Gygi lab, together with the Harper lab at HMS, is creating a genome-scale map of the protein-protein interaction landscape in cells (termed BioPlex).  In addition, sample multiplexing techniques like Tandem Mass Tags (TMT) are being improved to allow up to 16 proteomics samples to be analyzed simultaneously using high resolution mass spectrometry.