[About Terrana™]

Noubar Afeyan is founder and CEO of Flagship Pioneering. He is also co-founder and Board Chairman of Moderna.

Founded in 2000, Flagship is an enterprise where entrepreneurially-minded scientists invent seemingly unreasonable solutions to challenges facing human health and sustainability. They begin by asking “What if?” and iterate toward the unexpected answers resulting in the creation of first-in-category bioplatform companies with significant impact. Flagship has developed more than 100 scientific ventures resulting in over $100 billion in aggregate value, thousands of patents and patent applications, and more than 50 drugs in clinical development.

During his career as inventor, entrepreneur, and CEO, Noubar has cofounded and helped build over 100 life science and technology startups. Prior to founding Flagship Pioneering, Noubar was the founder and CEO of PerSeptive Biosystems, a leader in bio-instrumentation that grew to $100 million in annual revenues. After PerSeptive’s acquisition by Perkin Elmer/Applera Corporation in 1998, he became senior vice president and chief business officer of Applera, where he initiated and oversaw the creation of Celera Genomics.

In addition to his role at Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA), the pioneering messenger RNA medicines company, he is also co-founder and Board Chairman of Generate:Biomedicines. Previously, he was a member of the founding team, director, and investor in highly successful ventures including Chemgenics Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Millenium Pharmaceuticals), Color Kinetics (acquired by Philips), Adnexus Therapeutics (acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb), and Affinnova (acquired by AC Nielsen).

Noubar entered biotechnology during its emergence as an academic field and industry, completing his doctoral work in biochemical engineering at MIT in 1987. He has written numerous scientific publications and is the inventor of over 100 patents. He was a senior lecturer at MIT’s Sloan School of Management from 2000 to 2016, and a lecturer at Harvard Business School until 2020. He teaches and speaks around the world on topics ranging from entrepreneurship, innovation, and economic development to biological engineering, new medicines, and renewable energy.

Noubar’s commitment to improving the human condition through science and business goes hand in hand with social investments and a global humanitarian initiative. Together with his partners, he has launched philanthropic projects including the Aurora Humanitarian Initiative, FAST Foundation, and the UWC Dilijan School. Noubar is a member of the Corporation of MIT (the Institute’s governing body) and a member of the board of trustees for the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

Noubar was born in Beirut to Armenian parents in 1962, did his undergraduate work at McGill University in Montreal, and completed his Ph.D. in biochemical engineering at MIT in 1987. A passionate advocate of the contributions of immigrants to economic and scientific progress, Noubar received the Golden Door Award in 2017 from the International Institute of New England, in honor of his outstanding contributions to American society as a U.S citizen of foreign birth. He was also awarded a Great Immigrant honor from the Carnegie Corporation in 2016, received a Technology Pioneer award from the World Economic Forum in 2012, and was presented with the Ellis Island Medal of Honor in 2008. In 2022, Noubar was elected to the National Academy of Engineering.

Ignacio joined Flagship Pioneering in early 2013 to lead sustainability venture creation activities. He also focuses on entrepreneurial activities in life sciences more broadly, with a special interest in food, nutrition, and human health.  

Ignacio is co-founder and founding CEO of Montai Therapeutics; founding team member and director at Indigo Ag; and the co-founder, founding CEO and Chairman of CIBO Technologies, Inari Agriculture, and Invaio Sciences. Ignacio was also co-founder of Senda Biosciences, which merged with another Flagship-founded company, Laronde, to form Sail Biomedicines. Additionally, he is a member of the board of directors of YourBio Health and previously served on the board of Novomer, which was acquired by Danimer Scientific in 2021.  

Prior to joining Flagship, Ignacio was founding member and managing director of Syngenta Ventures, the pioneering corporate venture capital group of agricultural giant Syngenta International, the world’s largest agrochemical business. During his tenure at Syngenta, Ignacio was directly involved in corporate strategy and led multiple venture capital investments in agribusiness, biotechnology, and sustainability companies in Europe, North America, and Latin America. Ignacio served on the Board of Directors of Biognosys AG (Switzerland), Population Genetics (England), BoMill AB (Sweden), and Agrinos AS (Norway) among others. He also played a key role in Syngenta’s external corporate venture capital activities managing Syngenta’s relationship as a limited partner with Life Science Partners (LSP) BioVentures, a $100 million agribusiness fund, and Gilde European Food and Agribusiness, a €90 million fund.  

Prior to Syngenta, Ignacio was the founding CFO of Progenika Group, where he oversaw the corporate financial strategy, the launch of new companies and spinoffs and the expansion of the group to the U.S. and Latin American markets before the company was acquired by Grifols (NASDAQ: GFRS), the world’s largest supplier of blood plasma products. Earlier, Ignacio spent several years working for Najeti Ventures Fund, investing in software and biotech companies in Europe.  

He holds a B.S. in Economics and Business Administration from Deusto University in Spain, and an International M.B.A. from Instituto de Empresa in Spain and WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany. 

Ryan is CEO of Terrana and an Origination Partner at Flagship Pioneering where he leads a team that founds and builds companies in agriculture and sustainability.

Ryan is an experienced leader in Ag-Biotech and has bridged the gap between research and commercial application throughout his career. Before joining Flagship, he served as Chief Technology Officer at Pairwise, responsible for company-wide R&D strategy and execution as the company advanced its research portfolio to deliver biotech charged consumer food products.

Prior to his time at Pairwise, Ryan was Associate Director of Agricultural Genomics at Illumina responsible for R&D direction, product marketing, product management, and market development for the company’s agriculture work. Ryan started his career at Monsanto where he held several roles. Over the course of his tenure, he was responsible for technical assessment of investment opportunities for the biologicals R&D program, driving implementation of a new genetics discovery framework in maize, applying quantitative genetics to advance understanding of the genetic interactions of yield relevant phenotypes, and creating Monsanto’s first high-density genotyping chip.

Ryan has a Ph.D. in Genetics from Iowa State University and a B.S. in Plant Science from Cornell University. He is the author of several published patents and papers. 

Ignacio joined Flagship Pioneering in early 2013 to lead sustainability venture creation activities. He also focuses on entrepreneurial activities in life sciences more broadly, with a special interest in food, nutrition, and human health.  

Ignacio is co-founder and founding CEO of Montai Therapeutics; founding team member and director at Indigo Ag; and the co-founder, founding CEO and Chairman of CIBO Technologies, Inari Agriculture, and Invaio Sciences. Ignacio was also co-founder of Senda Biosciences, which merged with another Flagship-founded company, Laronde, to form Sail Biomedicines. Additionally, he is a member of the board of directors of YourBio Health and previously served on the board of Novomer, which was acquired by Danimer Scientific in 2021.  

Prior to joining Flagship, Ignacio was founding member and managing director of Syngenta Ventures, the pioneering corporate venture capital group of agricultural giant Syngenta International, the world’s largest agrochemical business. During his tenure at Syngenta, Ignacio was directly involved in corporate strategy and led multiple venture capital investments in agribusiness, biotechnology, and sustainability companies in Europe, North America, and Latin America. Ignacio served on the Board of Directors of Biognosys AG (Switzerland), Population Genetics (England), BoMill AB (Sweden), and Agrinos AS (Norway) among others. He also played a key role in Syngenta’s external corporate venture capital activities managing Syngenta’s relationship as a limited partner with Life Science Partners (LSP) BioVentures, a $100 million agribusiness fund, and Gilde European Food and Agribusiness, a €90 million fund.  

Prior to Syngenta, Ignacio was the founding CFO of Progenika Group, where he oversaw the corporate financial strategy, the launch of new companies and spinoffs and the expansion of the group to the U.S. and Latin American markets before the company was acquired by Grifols (NASDAQ: GFRS), the world’s largest supplier of blood plasma products. Earlier, Ignacio spent several years working for Najeti Ventures Fund, investing in software and biotech companies in Europe.  

He holds a B.S. in Economics and Business Administration from Deusto University in Spain, and an International M.B.A. from Instituto de Empresa in Spain and WHU Otto Beisheim School of Management in Germany. 

André Andonian is Chair of Asia Pacific and Strategic Advisor at Flagship Pioneering, and currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Invaio Sciences. He has over three decades of experience advising companies around the globe on a broad range of strategic, operational, and organizational topics, with a longstanding presence in the APAC region.    

Andonian is Senior Partner Emeritus at McKinsey & Company, where he worked for 34 years, including as Senior Partner, Chairman of Japan, and Managing Partner of Korea. He also led Client Impact & Experience across Asia and was a member of McKinsey’s leadership teams in Asia, Europe, and the United States, advising clients in the high-tech, industrial, automotive & assembly, aerospace, basic materials, biotech, and private equity sectors. He was a long-term member of the firm’s global board and held extensive additional senior leadership roles in support of growth, people, and overall knowledge development.  Prior to joining McKinsey, Andonian worked at Masco Corporation in the US and at IBM in Austria, Spain, and the Middle East.    

Andonian also serves as an Independent Director of the Board of ADI, Chair of the Board of Cognaize in the US, and NC Chair of AEM Holdings in Singapore. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Sports & Health Sciences Department of the Technical University of Munich, chairs the Foundation for Armenian Science and Technology, and is a Special Advisor to the American Chamber of Commerce in Korea.    

As a Fulbright Scholar, Andonian received an MBA at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, an MA and BA in Social & Economic Sciences as well as a BSc in Engineering, all with highest distinction, from institutions in his hometown of Vienna, Austria. 

Amy O’Shea serves as Chief Executive Officer of Invaio Sciences and CEO-Partner at Flagship Pioneering. 

Amy has more than two decades of leadership experience across agriculture, health and nutrition, and pharmaceuticals. She previously served as President & Chief Executive Officer of Certis Biologicals, a division of Mitsui & Co. Under her leadership, Certis ramped up product development and manufacturing to serve the fast-growing need for bio-based agriculture products. 

Prior to Certis, Amy held multiple leadership positions at FMC Corporation, an agricultural sciences company, including Vice President and Business Director of the Agricultural Solutions Division for North America, Global Director of Marketing, Strategy & Innovation for FMC’s Health & Nutrition Division, and FMC’s Global Director of Sales. Earlier in her career with FMC, Amy served as Country Manager, Latin America. 

Amy serves on the Board of Directors of Gensource Potash and INTAG, Integrated Agriculture Systems. Previously, she was a board member of numerous industry associations, including Crop Life America, FFA, and IFAC (International Food Additives Council). 

Amy graduated summa cum laude with an MBA from Drexel University and holds a Bachelor of Arts in Classical Civilizations from Boston University.

Hugh Grant was Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the former Monsanto Company. He joined Monsanto in 1981 and spent the next 37 years working on three continents in a variety of senior positions. He held the roles of Chairman and CEO from 2003 until his departure in 2018 upon Monsanto’s sale to Bayer. Monsanto and Grant were recognized by numerous groups for innovation, corporate responsibility and business leadership during his tenure.  

Grant has been named on Barron’s list of Most Respected CEOs, the Harvard Business Review’s Top 50 Best Performing CEOs, and recognized as “CEO of the Year” by Chief Executive magazine. In 2015, employee reviews also earned Grant an honor on the Top 10 Highest-Rated CEOs list by Glassdoor.com. Grant serves as lead director of PPG Industries, Inc., and recently joined the board of Freeport McMoRan. He is also a former member of Civic Progress in St. Louis, Missouri. In 2011, he was inducted as a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. 

Steve Jacobsen is an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and Professor of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of California, Los Angeles. His research interests center on mechanisms of epigenetic inheritance in plants, including the genetics and genomics of DNA methylation, histone methylation, and small RNA driven silencing pathways. The lab also develops tools for gene editing in plants, as well as tools for targeted epigenetics using CRISPR systems. He has published over 230 research articles and reviews. Jacobsen received the Beckman and Searle young investigator awards and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences in 2011 and the American Academy of Sciences in 2016. He is also a cofounder of Inari Agriculture.

Peter Moffett holds a PhD in biochemistry from McGill University and undertook postdoctoral research at the Sainsbury Laboratory (2000-2003) with David C. Baulcombe. Dr. Moffett then accepted a position as assistant scientist at the Boyce Thompson Institute for Plant Research, located at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY (2003-2009). In 2009 he moved his research group to the Biology Department at the University of Sherbrooke, Canada, and has been a tenured full professor since 2012. Professor Moffett’s research focuses on various aspects of the molecular interactions between plants and pathogens, with a focus on viruses and bacteria. The Moffett lab has published on mechanisms by which plants recognize pathogens via NLR proteins, RNA silencing as an anti-viral defense, and how bacteria modify the plant microenvironment for their benefit. Current research projects are supported by grants from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Canadian National Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), Genome Canada, the Quebec Ministry of agriculture (MAPAQ) and the Quebec Funds for Nature and Technology Research (FRQNT). Dr. Moffett is the scientific director of the FRQNT-funded Strategic Research Network, the Centre SÈVE, a group of 76 plant laboratories across the province of Québec. As he is director of the plant growth and phenotyping platform at the University of Sherbrooke and a co-director of the Eastern Canada Plant Phenotyping Platform. 

Roger Innes holds the Class of 1954 Professorship in Biology at Indiana University-Bloomington. He received his Ph.D. in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and completed Post-doctoral research at the University of California-Berkeley where he helped develop Arabidopsis as a model system for studying molecular plant-microbe interactions. He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Academy of Microbiology, and is the immediate Past President the International Society of Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions. He also served as President of the North American Arabidopsis Steering Committee (NAASC). His current research focuses on molecular mechanisms underlying the plant immune system and development of novel strategies for engineering disease resistant crops. 

Marilyn J. Roossinck received a B.A. degree in Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, and in Evolutionary, Populational and Organismal Biology, from the University of Colorado in 1982.  She received her Ph.D. in Microbiology and Immunology from the University of Colorado School of Medicine in 1986.  She did a postdoc in plant virology at Cornell University and joined the Samuel Roberts Noble Foundation as an assistant professor of Plant Biology in 1991.  In 2011, she moved to the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Huck Institute of Life Sciences, at the Pennsylvania State University, as a full Professor, where she taught a course in Virus Ecology.  She has published over 100 scientific papers, edited or co-edited twenty books, and written two popular press books on viruses. Her research includes experimental evolution of plant RNA viruses, biodiversity studies of viruses in wild plants, plant and fungal viruses involved in plant adaptation to extreme environments, and the ecology of persistent viruses of plants and fungi. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the US Department of Agriculture and the US Fish and Wildlife Services as well as a number of private and local funding agencies.  She currently is a Professor Emerita at Penn State, and serves as an editor for the journal VIrus Evolution, and is a member of the editorial board for the journal Virology.