About Us

Grove Biopharma is a preclinical biotechnology startup focused on therapeutic targeting of protein-protein interactions. Our Precision-Linked ProteomimeticTM chemistry platform, created by co-founder Professor Nathan Gianneschi at Northwestern University, is a novel drug modality at the interface of polymer science, protein engineering and medicinal chemistry. Based in Chicago, Grove is a portfolio member of Portal Innovations’ biotech incubator space.

Grove Biopharma Team

Geoffrey M. Duyk,
MD, PhD

Co-Founder, CEO

Nathan C. Gianneschi,
PhD

Scientific Founder

Paul A. Bertin,
PhD

Co-Founder, President & CTO

Laura Robinson,
PhD

COO

Marina Buyanova,
PhD

Principal Scientist, Chemistry

Brandon Nelson,
PhD

Principal Scientist, Chemistry

Shivangi Agarwal,
PhD

Principal Scientist, Biology

Fausta Fischietti,
PhD

Principal Scientist, Biology

Scientific Advisory Board

  • Richard Bayliss, PhD
  • Robert Booth, PhD
  • Matthew L. Becker, PhD
  • Luis Diaz, MD
  • Dean W. Felsher, MD, PhD
  • Jeffrey A. Johnson, PhD
  • Richard I. Morimoto, PhD
  • Krzysztof Matyjaszewski, PhD
  • Robert Pacifici, PhD
  • Gregory D. Plowman, MD, PhD
  • Kathryn Stein, PhD
  • James Stolzenbach, PhD
  • Brent Sumerlin, PhD
  • Leticia Toledo-Sherman, PhD

Copyright 2022 Grove Biopharma. All Rights Reserved.

Geoffrey M. Duyk,
M.D., Ph.D.

Co-Founder, Chairman

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Geoffrey M. Duyk, M.D., Ph.D. is a co-founder and Board Chair for Grove Biopharma, Dr. Duyk is a Partner of Circularis Partners, an investment firm focused on supporting technology-enabled companies that advance the circular economy, promote sustainability, and enhance resource efficiency. Circularis is a sub-advisor to the TPG Alternative & Renewable Technologies (ART) fund. Prior to Circularis, Dr. Duyk was the Managing Director and Partner of TPG Alternative & Renewable Technologies (ART)/TPG Biotechnology from 2004 to 2017.

Prior to joining TPG, Dr. Duyk served on the Board of Directors and was President of R&D at Exelixis. Prior to Exelixis, he was one of the founding scientific staff at Millennium and served as Vice President of Genomics. Prior to his tenure at Millennium, Dr. Duyk was an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School (HMS) in the Department of Genetics, and an Assistant Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). While at HMS, he was a Co-Principal Investigator in the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded Cooperative Human Linkage Center.

In addition to serving as the Chair for the Grove Biopharma Board of Directors, Dr. Duyk currently serves on the Board of Directors of Amyris (Nasdaq: AMRS); Anuvia Plant Nutrients; Concentric; and Regen. He is a trustee of Case Western Reserve University where he Chairs the finance committee and is a member of the executive committee. Dr. Duyk is also a member of the Institute Board of Directors of the Moffitt Cancer Center where he Chairs the R&D committee. He previously served on the Board of Directors of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG) where he is currently a member of the organization’s finance committee and Chairs the investment committee. Dr. Duyk is a member of the Life Sciences Advisory Board of Innovatus Capital Partners and the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) for Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (DOE). Previously, he served as a member of the SAB for Bayer CropSciences, Jackson Labs, as well as numerous NIH advisory committees.

Dr. Duyk holds a Ph.D. and M.D. from Case Western Reserve University. He completed his medical and fellowship training at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). While at UCSF, Dr. Duyk was a fellow of the Lucille P. Markey Foundation and was also awarded a post-doctoral fellowship from HHMI. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Nathan C. Gianneschi,
Ph.D.

Scientific Founder

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Nathan C. Gianneschi, Ph.D. is the scientific founder of Grove Biopharma. He received his B.Sc (Hons) at the University of Adelaide, Australia in 1999 and his Ph.D at Northwestern University in 2005. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at The Scripps Research Institute, he began his career at the University of California, San Diego in 2008. In July of 2017, Prof. Gianneschi moved his multidisciplinary research group to Northwestern University where he is currently Jacob & Rosaline Cohn Professor of Chemistry, Materials Science & Engineering, Biomedical Engineering and Pharmacology. The Gianneschi group takes an interdisciplinary approach to research, with interests that include biomedical applications, programmed interactions with biomolecules and cells, and basic research into nanoscale materials design, synthesis and characterization. For this work, he has been awarded the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, the NIH Director’s Transformative Research Award and the White House’s highest honor for young scientists and engineers with a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. Prof. Gianneschi was awarded a Dreyfus Foundation Fellowship, is a Kavli Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry, and is an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow.

Paul A. Bertin, Ph.D.

Co-Founder, President & CTO

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Paul A. Bertin, Ph.D., co-founded Grove Biopharma, Inc. in 2020 and brings more than 15 years of startup and R&D management experience to the team. Prior to Grove, Dr. Bertin most recently served as Director of Innovation at Elevance where his product innovations contributed to greater than 20% of the total enterprise revenue, including a key fine chemical intermediate for peptide APIs from the metathesis of natural oils. Dr. Bertin is an inventor on 40 US patents and an author on 18 peer-reviewed publications. He received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Northwestern University for the design of metathesis-based polymer nanostructures for targeted drug delivery and his bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and business (decision sciences) from Miami University in Ohio.

Laura Robinson, Ph.D.

COO

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Laura Robinson, Ph.D., is the COO of Grove Biopharma. Dr. Robinson has 20 years of pharmaceutical industry experience, most recently as Group Director, Medical Affairs for AbbVie, with responsibilities spanning a variety of rare and specialty diseases in nephrology, endocrinology and neuroscience. During her career with AbbVie, Dr. Robinson also held senior leadership roles in marketing and global commercial development. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, she was a consultant with McKinsey & Company, working in the biotech and semiconductor industries. Dr. Robinson holds a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from Northwestern University, where she was a National Science Foundation Fellow, conducting research on the photophysical properties of supported molybdenum clusters. She received her B.S. in Chemistry from the College of William and Mary in Virginia.

Marina Buyanova, PhD

PRINCIPAL SCIENTIST, CHEMISTRY

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Marina Buyanova, Ph.D., is a Principal Scientist (Biomacromolecular Chemistry) at Grove Biopharma. Dr. Buyanova received her B.Sc. in Chemistry from Novosibirsk State University and her Ph.D. in Chemistry from the Ohio State University. Her Ph.D. research was focused on the development of cell-penetrating peptides and macrocyclic peptides as inhibitors of protein-protein interactions. She has co-authored more than ten research publications and book chapters in the field of drug discovery. Dr. Buyanova brings extensive expertise in peptide chemistry, medicinal chemistry, and chemical biology to Grove Biopharma.

Brandon Nelson, PhD

PRINCIPAL SCIENTIST, CHEMISTRY

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Brandon Nelson, Ph.D., is a Principal Scientist (Chemistry) at Grove Biopharma. Dr. Nelson brings experience in multiple therapeutic areas, including oncology, from his years as a medicinal chemist at AbbVie, working on small molecule drug discovery. Dr. Nelson received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his work on the total synthesis of multiple alkaloid natural products and was a recipient of the National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. Dr. Nelson received his B.S. in Chemistry with a minor in Mathematics from Illinois State University.

Shivangi Agarwal,PhD

Principal Scientist, Biology

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Shivangi Agarwal, Ph.D., is a Principal Scientist (Cell and Molecular Biology) at Grove Biopharma. Dr. Agarwal received her Ph.D. in Biotechnology from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India, for the identification and characterization of a novel ribonuclease from Bacillus anthracis. Prior to Grove, Dr. Agarwal worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Ohio State University, Northwestern University and Rush Medical Center. She has robust experience in molecular biology, cell biology, protein expression and purification and is passionate about developing clinically relevant therapeutics. She has authored 24 peer-reviewed publications and serves in the editorial board of several reputed journals.

Fausta Fischietti, PhD

PRINCIPAL SCIENTIST, BIOLOGY

Mariafausta Fischietti is a Principal Scientist (Discovery Biology, Oncology) at Grove Biopharma. She received her B.S. in Biotechnology, M.S. in Medical Biotechnology, and Ph.D. in Medical Biotechnology from University of L’Aquila (Italy). Dr. Fischietti completed postdoctoral fellowships at both the University of L’Aquila and the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. Prior to joining Grove Biopharma, Dr. Fischietti was a Research Assistant Professor at Northwestern University. She brings a wealth of experience and expertise in molecular biology, studying signaling pathways in cancer cells to identify new therapeutic targets for the treatment of different types of cancers. Dr. Fischietti has co-authored 24 publications in peer-reviewed journals, including Oncogene, Cancer Research Communications, Molecular and Cell Biology, Nature Communications and Blood.