Breakthrough synthetic chemistry, made in Chicago

Geoffrey M. Duyk, M.D., Ph.D. is the Chief Executive Officer of Grove Biopharma. 

Dr. Duyk has spent 30 years in the biotechnology industry as an entrepreneur, executive, and investor. Most recently, he was the Managing Partner at Circularis Partners, an investment firm he co-founded, focused on advancing the circular economy and promoting sustainability. Prior to that, Dr. Duyk was Managing Director and Partner at TPG Alternative & Renewable Technologies (ART)/TPG Biotechnology.

Before joining TPG, Dr. Duyk served as a board member and President of R&D at Exelixis and was one of the founding scientific staff members at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, where he served as Vice President of Genomics. Earlier in his career, Dr. Duyk was an Assistant Professor in the Department of Genetics at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and an Assistant Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). While at HMS, he served as a co–principal investigator in the Cooperative Human Linkage Center, which was funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Dr. Duyk is a trustee of Case Western Reserve University, where he serves on the executive committee. He previously served on the Board of Trustees of Wesleyan University and the Board of Directors of the Moffitt Cancer Center. He currently serves on the IR&E (Institutional Research and Evaluation) Committee at Moffitt, a key component of its External Advisory Committee (EAC). He was also a member of the Board of Directors of the American Society of Human Genetics (ASHG), and served as its treasurer. He is a member of the Life Sciences Advisory Board at Innovatus Capital Partners and the Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (DOE). Dr. Duyk previously served on the board of the Jackson Laboratory and on numerous NIH advisory committees. He is currently a Senior Advisor at Qiming Venture Partners (USA) and serves on the boards of Enno DC, Oobli, and Melanyze

Dr. Duyk earned both his M.D. and Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University and completed his medical and fellowship training at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). While at UCSF, he was a Lucille P. Markey Fellow and an HHMI postdoctoral fellow. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dr. Bertin, co-founder, president, and CTO of Grove Biopharma, brings over 15 years of expertise in startup and R&D management. Before co-founding Grove, he served as director of innovation at Elevance, where his product innovations contributed to more than 20% of the company’s total revenue. Notably, he played a key role in developing a fine chemical intermediate for peptide APIs through the metathesis of natural oils. Dr. Bertin holds 40 US patents and has authored 18 peer-reviewed publications. He earned his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Northwestern University, focusing on the design of metathesis-based polymer nanostructures for targeted drug delivery. He also holds bachelor’s degrees in chemistry and business from Miami University in Ohio.

Dr. Robert (Bob) Campbell is the CSO of Grove Biopharma, bringing over 35 years of experience in drug discovery across both biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors to the role. Most recently he was senior vice president of biological and translational sciences at Redona Therapeutics, where he spearheaded small molecule initiatives to modulate RNA/DNA processing and sensing. Dr. Campbell also held leadership roles at Eli Lilly & Co.  where he was director, oncology drug discovery in Singapore, and Cadus, where he was head of new leads discovery. He began his career in research at Roche Pharmaceuticals. He has also served as Adjunct Professor at Rutgers University and Duke – National University of Singapore.

Dr. Campbell received his B.S. in biology and Ph.D. in biochemistry from Rutgers University.  He has published over 130 papers/book chapters in peer-reviewed journals and books. He currently serves as the Editor-in-Chief of SLAS Discovery and is a member of the editorial board for Molecular Cancer Therapeutics.

Dr. Laura Robinson, COO of Grove Biopharma, has 20 years of pharmaceutical industry experience, most recently as group director, medical affairs for AbbVie, with responsibilities spanning 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 Graduate Research 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. 

Dr. Gianneschi, scientific founder and chair of the Grove Biopharma SAB, received his B.Sc (Hons) at the University of Adelaide, Australia and his Ph.D. at Northwestern University. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at The Scripps Research Institute, he began his career at the University of California, San Diego. From there, 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. Prof. Gianneschi 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. He 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.