Our Team
Management
Zou Bin, Ph.D.
Chief Executive Officer
Founder
Zou Bin, Ph.D.
Zou Bin is a seasoned executive and has helmed many leadership positions. He is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor at both National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University. Previously, he served as Managing Director at Trinity Innovation Bioventure Singapore (TIBS) and was the CEO of Shanghai Blueray Biopharma where he successfully led the team to develop several candidates into investigational new drug (IND) stage. Prior to his venture, Dr. Zou was a Principal Scientist at Novartis Institute for Tropical Disease where he spearheaded the team to the discovery of Phase II clinical trials drug NITD609. He is the author to more than 25 peer reviewed publications.
Zou Bin holds a Ph.D. from Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences and graduated with a B.S in Chemistry from Nankai University.
Humphrey Gardner, MD, FCAP
Chief Medical Officer – Consultant
Humphrey Gardner, MD, FCAP
A versatile physician-pathologist-scientist with over 30 years of comprehensive experience, spanning early discovery to Phase 3 clinical trials, particularly in oncology, rheumatology, and infectious diseases. This expertise encompasses roles across both startup ventures and large pharmaceutical companies. Notably, this includes serving as Chief Medical Officer at Medicenna Therapeutics, Harbour Biomed, and Roivant Sciences (Silicon Therapeutics), as well as Chief of Medical Oncology at Evelo Biosciences.
Humphrey holds a MB BChir and a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Cambridge.
Zhong Chen, Ph.D.
SVP – Biology
Zhong Chen, Ph.D.
Chen comes with rich interdisciplinary experience in basic and translational science, and has over 20 years’ experience in cancer research and protein science. She was previously Head of Discovery Biology at Duality Biologics and Head of Biologics at Reistone Biopharma. Earlier in her career, Chen served as Associate Principal Scientist at Harbour Biomed and was an Associate Professor at Center for Excellence in Molecular Cell Science, Chinese Academy of Sciences. She has successfully developed numerous potential biologics of various modalities including bispecific antibody and ADC, and has published more than 30 peer-reviewed publications and PCT patents.
Chen holds a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California in USA, and graduated with B.S. in Biotechnology from Peking University, China.
Bryan Yeung, Ph.D.
VP – Chemistry
Bryan Yeung, Ph.D.
Bryan has over 25 years of experience as a Medicinal Chemist. Prior to joining Axcynsis, he held positions as CTO at Arum Therapeutics and Sr. Director of Strategy at the RIGHT Foundation, a global heath fund based in South Korea. He was also Associate Director at the Novartis Institute for Tropical Disease where he led multiple drug discovery research programs. He has pharmaceutical industry experience spanning multiple disease areas including oncology and infectious diseases.
Bryan holds a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of Hawaii, USA.
Maria de Assis
VP – Clinical Operations
Maria de Assis
Maria de Assis has more than 32 years of experience in running and executing clinical trials and development of the clinical operations team. Her multiple disease / condition spans across many therapeutic areas like oncology, gene and cell therapy, cardiovascular, neurological, respirator and endocrinological medical conditions.
Prior to 2018 she was based in Asia Pacific working for major Pharmaceutical companies eg Novartis, Wyeth / Pfizer (as Operations Head for HKG) , Boehringer Ingelheim (Head of Clinical Operations) and CROs eg IQVIA (Clinical Operations Lead for SE Asia) and George Clinical (Head of Clinical Operations).
Prior to joining Axcynsis, she was Senior Operations Director for Oricell Therapeutics and prior to this as Executive Director for Harbour BioMed Inc, where her role in both companies was to establish US based clinical trials team and providing oversight for clinical trials executed in US.
Maria holds a Masters Degree in Clinical Research from Liverpool University UK.
Scientific Advisory Board
Paul Herrling
Paul Herrling
Professor Paul Herrling whose experience spans life sciences, neurosciences, vaccines, oncology, infectious tropical diseases, is also an emeritus professor of Drug Discovery at the University of Basel, Switzerland. Professor Herrling has held multiple leadership positions at Novartis including Head of Global Research at Novartis Pharma (1996-2012), Head of Corporate Novartis Research (2012-2017), and was the Chairman of the board of the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases (NITD) in Singapore from 2002 to 2017.
Kyriacos Costa Nicolaou
Kyriacos Costa Nicolaou
Professor Nicolaou is the Harry C. & Olga K. Wiess Professor of Chemistry at Rice University in Houston, focusing his recent research on cytotoxic molecules for ADCs. Prior to this, Professor Nicolaou was Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at University of California San Diego and Aline W. & L.S Skaggs Professor of Chemical Biology, Darlene Shiley Chair in Chemistry and the Founding Chairman in the Chemistry Department at The Scripps Research Institute. He has received numerous internationally-acclaimed awards and honours for his scientific work such as the Chandler Medal, Columbia University (2008), the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Chemistry (2011), the Rolf Sammet Guest Professorship (Germany, 2014), the Nemitsas Prize known as the Nobel prize of Cyprus (2014), the Wolf Prize (Israel, 2016), and many more. Professor Nicolaou had a joint lab with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) in Singapore from 2005 to 2010 and was awarded an Honorary Life Fellow of the Singapore National Institute of Chemistry (2011).
Board of Directors
Zou Bin, Ph.D.
Chairman
Zou Bin, Ph.D.
Zou Bin is a seasoned executive and has helmed many leadership positions. He is currently an Adjunct Associate Professor at both National University of Singapore and Nanyang Technological University. Previously, he served as Managing Director at Trinity Innovation Bioventure Singapore (TIBS) and was the CEO of Shanghai Blueray Biopharma where he successfully led the team to develop several candidates into investigational new drug (IND) stage. Prior to his venture, Dr. Zou was a Principal Scientist at Novartis Institute for Tropical Disease where he spearheaded the team to the discovery of Phase II clinical trials drug NITD609. He is the author to more than 25 peer reviewed publications.
Zou Bin holds a Ph.D. from Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences and graduated with a B.S in Chemistry from Nankai University.
Jack Yin Zheng, Ph.D.
Board Member
Jack Yin Zheng, Ph.D.
Jack is the Founding Partner of Trinity Innovation Bioventure Singapore (TIBS) and Trinity Innovation Fund (TIF). He is also the Chairman of TIBS. Previously, he served as the Managing Director of SDIC Innovation Investment Management Co., Ltd. where he was responsible for equity investments in the Pharmaceutical and Healthcare sector, such as CanSino, Ascentage, Bright-gene, Dizal, Ribo, and EpimAb. Prior to SDIC, Dr. Yin worked in both biotechnology and global multinational pharmaceutical companies Novartis where he lead and managed innovative drug discovery projects. His previous academic background includes positions as Dean of School of Pharmacy and Deputy Director of the State Key Laboratory of Medicinal Chemical Biology at Nankai University. He also acted as the Executive Director of the Center of Basic Molecular Science at Tsinghua University.
Jack holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the National University of Singapore, and graduated with both M.Sc. and B.Sc. in Chemistry from Nankai University.
Thomas Keller, Ph.D.
Board Member
Thomas Keller, Ph.D.
Thomas has over 25 years of experience in drug discovery at Novartis and A*STAR. He currently serves as an Investment Partner at Trinity Innovation Bioventure Singapore (TIBS). Previously, he was Head of Chemistry and Deputy Director at the Experimental Therapeutics Centre (ETC), A*STAR, and Director of Discovery Chemistry at the Experimental Drug Development Centre (EDDC), A*STAR. Prior to A*STAR, Dr. Keller held key leadership positions as the Head of Chemistry at the Novartis Respiratory Research Centre (UK); Head of Chemistry and Deputy Director at the Novartis Institute for Tropical Diseases (Singapore). Dr. Keller was instrumental in setting up industrial drug discovery research groups at Novartis and ETC, which were responsible for the delivery of clinical development compounds such as Cipargamin (Malaria, Phase 2), Indacaterol (Respiratory, marketed) and ETC-159 (Cancer, Phase 1).
Thomas holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of British Columbia, Canada.