Speaker Profile
Ph.D., Co-Founder, , Chairman, & CEO, Xaira
Biography
Marc Tessier-Lavigne is co-founder, Chairman CEO of Xaira Therapeutics. Previously, he held executive positions in the private sector at Genentech, where he was executive vice president for research and chief scientific officer, and in the academic sector, where he served as president of The Rockefeller University and then of Stanford University, where he remains professor of Biology (on leave). He also served previously on the faculty of the University of California, San Francisco, and was an investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. A Rhodes Scholar, Dr. Tessier-Lavigne has been a leader in understanding mechanisms that direct the wiring of the brain, and has helped elucidate mechanisms of neurodegeneration. He is the recipient of numerous scientific awards, including the 2020 Gruber Neuroscience Prize, and has been elected to multiple scientific societies, including the US National Academy of Sciences and US National Academy of Medicine; he is also an Officer of the Order of Canada, one of that countrys highest honors. Dr. Tessier-Lavigne has co-founded two neuroscience startups, Renovis and Denali, and served on the boards of Agios, Regeneron, Pfizer, Juno and Denali.
Session Abstract – PMWC 2026 Silicon Valley
Track Chairs:
Gad Getz, Broad Institute & Alex Morgan, Khosla Ventures
PMWC Award Ceremony
• Greg Brockman, President & Co-Founder, OpenAI
• Steve Wozniak, Co-Founder, Apple
Fireside Chat
• Vinod Khosla, Khosla Ventures
• Greg Brockman, President & Co-Founder, OpenAI
Target Discovery: Beyond Genomics – Revealing Hidden Layers of Biology with AI
• Keynote: Stephen Quake, CZ Biohub
• Chair: Cindy Lawley, Olink
• Aritro Nath, City of Hope
• Massa Shoura, Phinomics
• Omar Serang, DNAnexus
Foundation Models for Human Biology: Accelerating Immunotherapy Discovery Through Multimodal AI
• Ron Alfa, Noetik
Systems Integration for Drug Discovery and AI
• Hugo Lam, Genentech
Interpretable AI Models for Multi-Modal Biomarker Discovery in Drug Development
• Vitalay Fomin, Numenos
Closing the Loop: Coupling AI with In Vivo Validation
• Gabriel Musso, biosymetrics
Interpretable AI for Biomarker Discovery: Accelerating Drug Development
• Chair: Rajat Roy, PATHOMIQ INC
• Shivanni Kummar, MD, OHSU
Can AI Really Create the Next Blockbuster Drug? Closing the Loop from Discovery to Development
• Chair: Amar Das, Guardant Health
• Ari Caroline, Weave Bio
• Dina Katabi, Emerald/MIT
• Andrei Georgescu, Vivodyne
• James Zou, Stanford
Gemini Digital Twins Accelerate Precision Medicine
• Collin Hill, Aitia
Scaling Rare Disease Discovery with AI: From Genomic Data to Therapeutic Insights
• Lisa Gurry, GeneDx
Enabling Targeted Precision Drug & Gene Delivery with Predictive AI
• Andre Watson, Ligandal
Is AI the New Drug?
• Chair: Alex Morgan, Khosla Ventures
• Michael J. Kahana, Nia Therapeutics
