Olfactive Biosolutions Team

The Best Team for the Job

Olfactive Biosolutions management has deep experience in the food and beverage and consumer packaged goods industries, with successful track records in product development, sales, and marketing.

Our team boasts world-class knowledge of both ectopic receptor and olfactory and taste receptor technology.

Olfactive Biosolutions data scientists have unique knowledge in how to train artificial intelligence with receptor data, to identify potential ectopic receptor effects and engineer flavors and aromas.

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Olfactive Biosolutions Team

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Nils Lommerin

Chief Executive Officer

Nils Lommerin was president and CEO of Del Monte Foods. During his tenure growth in EBITDA increased more than $46 million in three years.

Nils has also worked at Texas Pacific Group, Oxford Health Plans, PepsiCo, Post Cereals, and in consulting roles at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Texas Pacific Group and KKR.

Nils earned a Master of Science degree from Carnegie Mellon University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from East Stroudsburg University. East Stroudsburg University.

Chris Hanson

Chief Strategy and Development Officer

Chris Hanson founded Aromyx, which cloned olfactory, taste and related receptors into a sensing system to measure taste and smell. He has a deep understanding of olfactory, taste and ectopic receptors and holds numerous patents in the area.

He was educated at Stanford University with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in applied linguistics. He worked at the National Security Agency in computational linguistics and voice language analysis and had subsequent experience at Seagate Technology, Honeywell, US Department of Defense and the National Reconnaissance Office, and IBM Research.

Chris has experience in Big Data, AI, machine learning and cognitive computing. He serves as an advisor to Juji (AI), LumosTech (sleep tech), Neru Health (AI and sleep tech), Gryphon Bio and Trio Pharmaceuticals (pharma.)

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Birgit Cameron

Chief Operating Officer

Birgit Cameron was the founder of Patagonia Provisions, a sustainable food company that expands Patagonia's environmental mission through partnerships with forward-thinking farmers, ranchers, and fishermen. She led the creation of the Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) certification, a groundbreaking standard for food, textiles, and personal care ingredients.

Her commitment to sustainability is further exemplified by her production of the award-winning documentary "Unbroken Ground" in 2016.

Birgit is a board member at Atomo Beanless Coffee, Nordic Foodprint and Top 50 Farmers, and the Marine Stewardship Council.

Birgit holds a bachelor's degree from York University and has attended Harvard Business School.

Dr. Bill Harries

Chief Scientist

Dr. Harries is the cofounder and former chief scientist of Aromyx, a groundbreaking company that used robots to measure receptor activity with proprietary cell lines and cellular assays.

Earlier in his career he led research at UCSF in the Stroud Lab, and is an expert in membrane protein biochemistry and protein expression.

He is an accomplished protein biochemist, structural biologist, and cell biologist with more than 20 years of laboratory research experience in high-throughput recombinant membrane protein expression, protein design, protein purification, protein crystallization, and structure determination.

He is a board member at the Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute.

He holds numerous olfaction patents.

Brad Brown

Senior Scientist

Brad Brown has more than 15 years experience in the diagnostic, medical device and biotechnology industries developing assays and analytical test methods.

Brad has extensive experience in engineering olfactory, taste and ectopic receptors, as well as experience in automating cell seeding, transfection and genetic reporter assays. He has managed the migration of cell-based assays to high-throughput automated liquid handlers.

Earlier in his career he worked at Cabot, Thermo Fisher and Oxonica.

John Mumaugh

Senior Vice President, Sales & Marketing

John has more than 20 years’ experience in a wide range of disciplines including sales and sales management, business development and corporate M&A.

John was SVP Sales and Marketing at Security First Corp., a leading data security company. Earlier in his career John served as American Airlines Vice President of Sabre and as Senior Director of Sales and Market Planning at American Airlines. John managed American Airline’s annual corporate marketing budget and profit plan covering expenditures in excess of $4 billion, and directed the passenger sales division of American Airlines including the company’s revenue management reporting systems.

John developed and launched key elements of American’s Advantage Program along with the development of the first co-branded airline credit card, the Citibank AAdvantage card.

Biotechnology and AI Advisors

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Dr. Bruce German

Professor & Chemist, Food Science and Technology, University of California at Davis

Dr. Bruce German is a pioneering researcher in the field of food science and technology at the University of California, Davis. His work focuses on unraveling the intricate role of fats and other dietary components in our nutrition, delving into methods to assess how our health and metabolism respond to different foods.

Dr. German's laboratory group focuses on research seeking to understand how to improve foods and their ability to deliver improved health.

Dr. German's unique approach utilizes milk as a genetic blueprint for designing foods that promote health. He draws upon the evolutionary logic behind milk, which has evolved to nourish growing mammals, to uncover the physical, functional, and nutritional properties of milk components.

He has served as a longtime scientific advisor to Nestlé.

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Dr. James Broach

Distinguished Professor & Chair, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Penn State University

Dr. James Broach is a prominent figure in biochemistry and molecular biology, holding the position of Chair in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Penn State, Hershey. His career also includes serving as the Director of the Penn State Institute for Personalized Medicine and as Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, where he chaired the biology department.

Dr. Broach co-founded Cadus Pharmaceuticals and served on the board of directors of Cadus Corporation. Cadus pioneered the use of olfactory receptors in drug discovery and had a successful IPO.

During his tenure at Princeton University, he played key roles as associate director of the Lewis Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics and co-director of the Center for Computational Biology.

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Dr. Robert Stroud

Professor, Dept. of Biochemistry & Biophysics and Dept. of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, UCSF

At the University of California, San Francisco, the Stroud Lab, led by Dr. Robert Stroud, is at the forefront of researching the molecular mechanisms of essential biological processes. Dr. Stroud is renowned for his groundbreaking work in structural biology, particularly in membrane protein biology.

His contributions include discoveries related to aquaporins, Rh factors, membrane protein synthesis, protein insertion through translocons, unfolded protein response, transporters, and the structural underpinnings of enzyme mechanisms.

Dr. Stroud has also led investigations into trypsin, viral proteases, polyketide synthases, and the cancer-target thymidylate synthase.

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Dr. Alex Woo

CEO, W2O Food Innovation

Dr. Alex Woo serves as the founder and CEO of W2O, a distinguished food technology firm with a decade-long track record of innovation. Dr. Woo's specialization lies in applying his niche expertise in taste and smell neuroscience, along with his extensive knowledge of plant-based sweeteners and flavors, to create a future of "Better Food."

His prior roles include positions as the Innovation Director in Global Science & Technology at Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company (Mars), Vice President of Research and Regulatory Affairs at Degussa Food Ingredients (now part of Kerry Ingredients), and managerial roles at Starbucks Coffee Company, Kraft Foods, Inc., and PepsiCo, Inc.

Woo also served as chief science officer in the Sweeteners division for Amyris (2019-2021), and as chief innovation officer for Nascent (2017-2019). He is currently on the science advisory board for Advance International and a board member for World Taste & Smell Association.

Woo holds a Ph.D. in Food Science from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Madhusudan Patel

Innovation Consultant (ex-IFF, Henkel, Colgate-Palmolive)

Dr. Patel, in his role as the director of global R&D at International Flavor & Fragrance, was responsible for ushering in new innovations, technologies, and capabilities across three critical business units: Nourish (covering food, beverage, taste, flavor, and nutrition), scent (encompassing fragrances, ingredients, technologies, and know-how), and Health and Wellness.

Dr. Patel has also held senior positions at Henkel and Colgate-Palmolive.

He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania and completed postdoctoral research at Collège de France in the laboratories of Professor Jean-Marie Lehn, a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry.

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Dr. Danny Dhanasekaran

Professor, Department of Cell Biology, Director, Center for Basic Cancer Research, OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center

Danny N. Dhanasekaran, Ph.D., is professor of cell biology at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences, where he holds the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation Endowed Chair in Cancer Research. He is also the director of the Center for Basic Cancer Research and the associate director for basic research at the OU Health Stephenson Cancer Center.

After earning his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the Indian Institute of Science, Dr. Dhanasekaran completed postdoctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the National Jewish Center for Cancer Research and Respiratory Medicine. His academic career progressed to a tenured professorship at the Fels Institute for Cancer Research and Molecular Biology, Temple University School of Medicine.

Internationally recognized for his academic and research pursuits, Dr. Dhanasekaran has held esteemed positions globally, including WCU professorship at Seoul National University and visiting professorships in at the University of Tokyo Medical and Dental University, Japan, and the Università del Piemonte Orientale, Italy.

His scientific prowess is recognized on numerous national and international scientific panels and editorial boards, including his role as a charter member of the NIH/CSR Study Section on Tumor Cell Biology. He actively contributes to several grant review panels, such as those for the NIH, DOD, AHA, and other international funding organizations. An active editor and member of several international journal editorial boards, Dr. Dhanasekaran is the founding editor and editor-in-chief of the Journal on Molecular Signaling.

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Tsachy Weissman

The Robert and Barbara Kleist Professor in the School of Engineering, Stanford University

Tsachy Weissman is a distinguished researcher specializing in Information Theory, Data Compression, Communications, Statistical Signal Processing, and Machine Learning. He has contributed to numerous patents and served as the Senior Technical Advisor to the HBO show "Silicon Valley." Tsachy is also known for co-inventing the Discrete Universal Denoiser (DUDE) algorithm.

Tsachy Weissman has been on the faculty of the Electrical Engineering department at Stanford since 2003, researching and teaching the science of information, with applications spanning genomics, neuroscience, and technology. He has been serving on editorial boards for scientific journals, technical advisory boards in industry, and as founding director of the Stanford Compression Forum.

An IEEE fellow, he has received multiple awards for his research and teaching, including best paper awards from the IEEE Information Theory and Communications societies, while his students received best student authored paper awards at the top conferences of their areas of scholarship.

He has prototyped Guardant Health’s first algorithms for early detection of cancer from blood tests, and has more recently co-founded and sold Compressable to Amazon, reducing humanity’s cloud storage carbon footprint.

His favorite gig to date was advising the HBO show “Silicon Valley”. Tsachy is also known for co-inventing the Discrete Universal Denoiser (DUDE) algorithm.

Tyrone Grandison

CTO App Innovation, Infrastructure, Security, Global Partner Solutions, Microsoft

Dr. Tyrone Grandison is a versatile leader with a strong background in technology, research, entrepreneurship, and data science.

He was the board chairman of the Data-Driven Institute. Tyrone has co-founded ventures including woyhd.org, Hipaantrepeneurs, the Di-PaSS series, WonderWomenHacks and HacksforHumanity. He was the first Chief Information Officer for the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the deputy Chief Data
Officer for the U.S. Department of Commerce, and advisor to the country of Jamaica on National IT issues.

He holds positions at the University of Technology - Kingston, Jamaica and the University of the West Indies – St. Augustine,
Trinidad. Tyrone received his Bachelor’s in computer studies from the University of the West Indies in 1997, his Master’s in software
engineering in 1998 and a Ph.D. in Computer Science from the Imperial College of Science, Technology & Medicine in London in
2003.

Dr. Grandison is an Eisenhower Fellow, AAAS-Lemelson Invention Ambassador, an ACM Distinguished Engineer, an IEEE Senior
Member and a HIMSS and BCS Fellow. He also received the IEEE Technical Achievement Award in 2010 for ‘pioneering contributions to Secure and Private Data Management’. He has authored more than 100 technical papers, co-invented over 47 patents and written several
books.

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Morgan Moncada

CEO & Founder, Neru Health

Morgan is founder and CEO of Neru Health, an artificial intelligence company applying AI to sleep improvement. He is a Harvard MBA/MS Biotechnology alumnus and a Blavatnik Life Science Fellow. He also holds a Bachelor's in biology from Stanford University.

Morgan is experienced in developing and commercializing early life science technologies, ranging from therapeutics to digital solutions., Morgan embodies the synthesis of business acumen and scientific rigor.

Morgan brings a results and process-driven application of entrepreneurship and agile product development to the integration of biotechnology, healthcare, and data science.

He is experienced in venture capital deal-vetting, financial analysis and operations as well as biotechnology fundraising, operations, and product management. He is the creator and producer of technology impact podcast Imagine Human (www.imaginehuman.com).

David Hartford

Biotech and AI Investor

Mr. Hartford’s experience encompasses the spectrum of private equity and venture investing, having been a start-up entrepreneur, early-stage technology CEO, general partner in a venture group, and a founding partner in a multi-billion Euro investment arm of a family office that invested in PE and VC funds and companies on six continents.

He has also invested in, and been a board member and advisor for, companies at the intersection of biology, data and AI.