Board of Directors

David Bianchi is a founding shareholder in Stewart Tilghman Fox & Bianchi P.A., a law firm located in Miami, Florida. For over thirty years he has had a diverse practice and represented a wide variety of clients. He was one of the original investors in Florida Savings Bank, a start-up bank that was eventually sold where he served on the board of directors and was vice-chairman of the holding company. Through Affomix Partners LLC, he is one of the original investors in Affomix Corporation and has assisted with a number of legal matters for the company.  He is a magna cum laude graduate of Tufts University with a degree in Economics. He received his J.D. degree from Boston College Law School.  

Gregory Gardiner, Ph.D., is a Partner at Elm Street Ventures. He was Group Director of R&D Operations, Pfizer Central Research, where he designed and implemented Pfizer’s external biotechnology strategy.  Dr. Gardiner also participated in the management of Pfizer’s worldwide drug discovery program, and was responsible for the scientific evaluation of licensing candidates including Lipitor, Celebrex, and Aricept. He is a director of four biotechnology companies, and a consultant and advisor to several investment funds and pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies as well as to Yale University’s Office of Cooperative Research, of which he was previously Managing Director.  He holds an adjunct faculty position at the Yale School of Medicine.  Dr. Gardiner received a Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry from Fordham University and was a Sterling Fellow in Chemistry at Yale.

Michael I. Sherman, Ph.D. is President and co-founder of Affomix. Dr. Sherman carried out and/or supervised basic and applied research for twenty years at Hoffmann-La Roche where he managed drug discovery efforts in three therapeutic areas. Since 1990, he has co-founded and initially served as president of six other biotechnology companies. Dr. Sherman is a Partner at Elm Street Ventures, Chairman of Iconic Therapeutics, Inc. and serves on the Board of OncoMEDx, Inc. Following his undergraduate work at McGill University, Dr. Sherman received his Ph.D. in molecular biology from the State University of New York, and did postdoctoral work at University of Oxford.

Michael P. Weiner, Ph.D. is Chief Scientific Officer and a co-founder of Affomix.  Dr. Weiner has a demonstrated record of placing well-received and innovative products in to the molecular biology marketplace, including Stratagene’s Quick-change site-directed mutagenesis kit and the first Next-generation DNA sequencing instrument (454 Life Sciences).  He was a Vice President at three CuraGen-associated biotechnology start-up companies: RainDance Technologies, The Rothberg Institute and 454 Life Sciences. Prior to that he was Head of the Department of Genomic Sciences at GlaxoSmithKline where he pioneered the development of a high-throughput, automated Y2H assay and a bead-based genotyping technology.  Before joining GSK he was Senior Staff Scientist at Stratagene Cloning Systems, Inc where he was responsible for advanced methods development. Dr Weiner holds a Ph.D. in genetics from Cornell University and did postdoctoral work in physical chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at Cornell University. Dr. Weiner has recently completed editing of a new laboratory manual from Cold Spring Harbor Press, entitled “Genetic Variation.”