About

Dr. Teymour Boutros-Ghali, a Syntis board director, is the Co-founder and Managing Partner of BOLD Capital Partners, an early stage and growth technology venture fund. Dr. Boutros-Ghali brings more than 30 years of investment experience and has founded several successful technology companies.

Prior to BOLD, he was General Partner of Monitor Ventures, an early stage venture fund that he co-founded. He also previously served as Vice President of Time Inc. Ventures, Time Inc.’s corporate venture fund. Dr. Boutros-Ghali also serves as a board member at Proprio, Crowdz, GuRu, Hydropoint and MediaPlatform, and is also a board observer at BioNaut Labs and Chairman at Gallant Pet.

Dr. Boutros-Ghali holds a Ph.D. in plasma physics and a master’s degree in finance from MIT. He completed his undergraduate studies at Cambridge University in electrical engineering.

Rahul Dhanda is Co-founder, President and Chief Executive Officer of Syntis Bio, and sits on the company’s board of directors. He is also the co-founder and chairman of BLASTID, Inc., a spinout of Harvard Medical School funded through ARPA-H, and serves as an independent director at Constructive Bio.

Prior to Syntis, Mr. Dhanda co-founded Sherlock Biosciences, and led the company as CEO, president and director from inception to launching the first-ever CRISPR product, diagnostic or therapeutic authorized by the FDA. Under his leadership, Sherlock was recognized as a Fast Company Most Innovative Company (Top 10 in Biotech), a Red Herring Top 100 Company, Fierce15 MedTech, a Tech Pioneer by the World Economic Forum, and a Top 50 Innovative Company by BostonInno. Boston Business Journal named Mr. Dhanda to its Boston's Power50 list in 2020.

Mr. Dhanda spent over a decade at T2 Biosystems in critical roles that guided the company to become a publicly traded, commercial leader in infectious disease diagnostics. As Senior Vice President of Corporate Development and Marketing, he spearheaded multiple strategic and commercial initiatives, including marketing, product management and over $40 million in partnering deals.

Mr. Dhanda holds an MBA from MIT's Sloan School of Management and a B.A. from Wesleyan University. He authored "Guiding Icarus: Merging Bioethics with Corporate Interests," the first book addressing the intersection of industry and bioethics/public policy. He is also an inventor on numerous patents and has authored several publications.

Dr. Robert Langer, Co-founder of Syntis Bio and a board director, is one of eight Institute Professors at MIT, which is the highest honor awarded to a faculty member. He has written over 1,500 articles that have been cited over 422,000 times, and his h-index of 321 is the highest of any engineer in history and the 3^rd highest of any individual in any field. Dr. Langer has co-founded several other companies, including Moderna, and his patents have licensed or sublicensed to over 400 companies.

Previously, Dr. Langer served as Chairman of the FDA’s Science Board (the Agency’s highest advisory board) from 1999-2002. His over 220 awards include the U.S. National Medal of Science and the U.S. National Medal of Technology and Innovation, making him one of only three living individuals to have received both honors. Other honors include the Charles Stark Draper Prize (often called the Engineering Nobel Prize), Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering, Albany Medical Center Prize, Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences, Kyoto Prize, Wolf Prize for Chemistry, Millennium Technology Prize, Priestley Medal (highest award of the American Chemical Society), Gairdner Prize, Hoover Medal, Dreyfus Prize in Chemical Sciences, BBVA Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Biomedicine, Balzan Prize, and the Dr. Paul Janssen Award. Dr. Langer has been elected to the National Academy of Medicine, the National Academy of Engineering, the National Academy of Sciences and the National Academy of Inventors.

He holds a Sc.D. in chemical engineering from MIT and completed his undergraduate studies in the same specialty at Cornell University.

Dr. Martin D. Madaus, a Syntis board director, is an Operating Executive with the Carlyle Group, a global investment firm. He is a serial global healthcare CEO, board member, investor and strategy consultant with over 30 years of experience in diagnostics and life science tools Industry.

Previously, Dr. Madaus served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Inc., where he led the carve-out from J&J and business turnaround. Before that, he was Executive Chairman of Quanterix Corporation and a Senior Healthcare Advisor to the Carlyle Group. Dr. Madaus also brings expertise from tenures as Chairman, President and CEO of Millipore Corporation; President and CEO of Roche Diagnostics Corporation North America; Vice President of Business Development for Roche Molecular Diagnostics; and President of Roche Diagnostics Canada. Dr. Madaus started his career in the diagnostics industry at Boehringer Mannheim, Germany and served in various product management, marketing and general management roles in Germany, the United States and Canada.  He currently serves on the boards of Quanterix, Repligen, Azenta Life Sciences, Emulate Bio and Unchained Labs.

He received a D.V.M. from the University of Munich in Germany and a Ph.D. in Veterinary Medicine from the Veterinary School of Hanover in Germany.

Dr. Giovanni Traverso, Co-founder of Syntis Bio, a board director and Chair of the Clinical Advisory board, is an Associate Professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT and in the Division of Gastroenterology, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School. His earlier work focused on developing novel molecular tests for the early detection of colon cancer, and was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and The Lancet. This work was licensed to Exact Sciences and led to the development of the FDA-approved non-invasive test Cologuard^® for colon cancer screening. For Dr. Traverso’s post-doctoral research, he worked in Dr. Robert Langer's laboratory at MIT, where he developed novel technologies for drug delivery and physiological sensing via the gastrointestinal tract.

Dr. Traverso is the recipient of several honors, including the Grand Prize of the Collegiate Inventors Competition, a Research Fellowship from Trinity College, being named on the MIT Tech Review's TR 35 list, and receiving the 2023 Acta Biomaterials Silver Medal. He has been elected to the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the NAM Emerging Leaders in Health and Medicine Scholars program, the College of Fellows of the Controlled Release Society, and the National Academy of Inventors.

He received his B.A. from Trinity College, University of Cambridge and earned his medical degree from Univ. of Cambridge. Dr. Traverso holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University, where he worked in the lab of Professor Bert Vogelstein. He completed an internal medicine residency at Brigham and Women's Hospital, and gastroenterology fellowship training at Massachusetts General Hospital, both at Harvard Medical School.