CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sherlock Biosciences, an Engineering Biology company dedicated to making diagnostic testing better, faster and more affordable, today announced the appointments of Don Haut, Ph.D., as chief business officer, and William J. Blake, Ph.D., as chief technology officer.
“We are very excited to have Will and Don on our leadership team,” said Rahul K. Dhanda, Sherlock’s co-founder, president and CEO. “Will brings deep experience in technical development and translational strategy, with particular expertise in Synthetic Biology. Don is an accomplished industry leader with a wealth of strategy, finance and business development experience in the biotech and medical technology industries. Their collective expertise will prove extremely valuable as we advance our SHERLOCK™ and INSPECTR™ platforms to develop a new generation of molecular diagnostics to address unmet needs in areas ranging from infectious disease oncology, and public health, to agriculture and industry.”
Dr. Blake has 20 years of experience building and leading interdisciplinary teams in biotechnology research and development spanning the fields of synthetic biology, diagnostics, biomanufacturing and cell engineering. Most recently, he led technical development and translational strategy for synthetic biology-based in vitro diagnostic technology at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University. Prior to the Wyss Institute, Dr. Blake was on the founding team of GreenLight Biosciences, where he led the development of novel cell-free manufacturing technologies and scientific partnership strategy as vice president of research and development. Prior to that, he managed collaborative research projects at Codon Devices, where he invented DNA assembly technologies and applied them to pioneering cell and pathway engineering applications. Dr. Blake is an author and inventor on numerous scientific publications and patents in the fields of synthetic biology, in vitro diagnostics, cell engineering and cell-free systems. He holds a Ph.D. in bioinformatics and an M.S. in biomedical engineering from Boston University, and earned his B.S. in biomedical engineering from The Johns Hopkins University.
Dr. Haut brings more than two decades of healthcare experience to Sherlock. He previously served as chief business officer at Histogenics, Inc., where he led all commercial, strategy and business development activities for the clinical-stage company. Prior to Histogenics, he was vice president for new business and vice president for American sales operations at The Medicines Company. In addition, he held leadership roles in strategy and business development in Smith and Nephew’s Advanced Surgical Devices and Endoscopy divisions, was director of strategy and business development at 3M Company, and was a principal at JSB Partners. He began his career with roles at Monsanto and McKinsey and Company. Dr. Haut currently serves on the board of directors of Trigemina, ArthroSurface and Xiros. He earned his MBA from Washington University’s Olin School of Business, his Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Missouri-Columbia and his B.A. from the College of Wooster.
“I’m delighted to join Sherlock’s exceptional team to harness the tools of Engineering Biology to expand the reach of existing molecular diagnostics,” said Dr. Blake. “I look forward to guiding the company’s efforts to develop and bring these tools to the people and industries who need them most, in healthcare and beyond.”
“Sherlock is leading the charge to vastly improve upon existing molecular diagnostic tools by leveraging the power of CRISPR and Synthetic Biology,” said Dr. Haut. “I believe Sherlock is uniquely positioned to make a positive impact on humanity by creating better, faster and more affordable tests for use in healthcare and industrial settings, and I am thrilled at this opportunity to work with such an accomplished team to make this vision a reality.”
About Sherlock Biosciences
Sherlock Biosciences is dedicated to making molecular diagnostics better, faster and more affordable through Engineering Biology platforms. The company is developing applications of SHERLOCK™, a CRISPR-based method to detect and quantify specific genetic sequences, and INSPECTRTM, a Synthetic Biology-based molecular diagnostics platform that is instrument free. SHERLOCK and INSPECTR can be used in virtually any setting without complex instrumentation, opening up a wide range of potential applications in areas including precision oncology, infection identification, food safety, at-home tests, and disease detection in the field. For more information visit Sherlock.bio.
