An entrepreneur, investor, and attorney, Patrick brings more than 20 years of experience in health tech and life sciences, including executive leadership positions at Arches Technology, Outcome Health, and closerlook. Patrick was a Co-Founder and Executive Director of MATTER, a Chicago healthcare technology startup center and innovation hub. He helped build biotechnology companies MediChem Life Sciences and Advanced Life Sciences, both of which he helped take public as chief legal executive.
John is a proven leader with a track record of bringing valuable corporate, academic, and civic enterprises from concept to reality, including Advanced Life Sciences, Chicago Innovation Mentors, MATTER, and the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago. John is Co-Founder and Chairman of Pyxis Oncology, Executive Chairman of ClostraBio, and Board member at Grove Biopharma. Over the course of his career, John has successfully raised more than $345 million of private and philanthropic capital to fund the development of transformative organizations.
Dr. Zhang brings a passion for moving science from lab bench to patient bedside, and expertise in immunology and animal models of disease. She most recently cofounded Seurat Therapeutics, a biotech startup spun out of the University of Chicago, focused on developing an intranasal repurposed biologic for treating migraines, seizures, fibromyalgia, and other chronic pain conditions. Dr. Zhang raised $1.5 million and led the company to pre-IND, while managing business development, operations, therapeutic R&D, and strategy.
As a Director of Finance & Controller for Portal Innovations, Ula oversees financial reporting and daily financial operations for the company. Ula has spent most of her career in healthcare finance, most recently as a Controller at Swedish Hospital part of NorthShore, where she was responsible for managing financial operations and overseeing financial reporting, accounting, accounts payable and treasury for several corporations. Ula’s strong business acumen aided her in leading several strategic initiatives that resulted in improvement of efficiency, reporting and daily financial operations. She brings a fresh perspective to building and leading finance teams, focusing on collaboration, empowerment and business growth.
Dr. Schultz is a scientist by training. He assesses new investment opportunities and supports companies within the Portal/Fulton Labs ecosystem. Before joining Portal, he was a life sciences consultant where he advised therapeutics, diagnostics, and medical device companies on indication prioritization, competitive landscape analysis, and revenue forecasting. He completed his PhD at Harvard Medical School where he researched mechanisms that underlie the aging process, with a focus on biomarkers, inflammation, and metabolism.
E.J. oversees Portal’s membership experience, administration, and ecosystem development work. E.J. is a leading global expert in entrepreneurship having spent his career growing people, creating companies, and understanding the ecosystems that drive entrepreneurial success. He has been quoted in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and many other leading global outlets. Previously, E.J. contributed to entrepreneurial growth through the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago. Additionally, E.J. spent more than a decade building the global footprint of the Kauffman Foundation, the world’s leading philanthropic agent supporting entrepreneurial change.
Working as the Membership and Office Manager, Ikeadi is one of the first people you will see entering the space at 1375. An industrial designer by training with experiences in occupational safety, qualitative research, and co-working spaces, Ikeadi brings high levels of empathy and collaboration when helping others.
Steve is a "startup midwife" who has spent the last decade helping inventors turn their discoveries into businesses, whether in a startup, a university, or even a refugee camp. He most recently led the George Shultz Innovation Fund at UChicago, where he nucleated and invested in University spinouts. Prior to UChicago he was an Associate for Ocean Tomo's Innovation Management practice, where he advised companies on how to acquire, develop, and commercialize technologies.
Rose Jones-Boyd is the Executive Assistant to the Founder & CEO.
She is a seasoned professional with over 25 years of experience in professional office executive assistant positions and a track record of strong performance in high-volume, high-pressure environments. She has extensive experience with all administrative tasks including scheduling and correspondence.
As Executive Assistant, Rose ensures the smooth operation of the office. Having held several positions in the University and business fields, Rose can tailor her skills to meet the needs of colleagues and clients. Before joining Portal, Rose worked 13 1/2 years as an Executive Assistant at the University of Chicago.
Deonta welcomes Portal visitors, members, and partners with a smile and pours positive energy into every interaction. From onboarding assistance to office and lab deliveries and all other administrative matters, Deonta creates a seamless and enjoyable experience for everyone. Prior to Portal, Deonta worked as an educator and caretaker.
As the Lab Manager at Portal, Elizabeth works closely with Yuan to support daily operations within the lab space and to provide a safe environment for our member companies. Prior to Portal, Elizabeth was a bench scientist with a particular affinity for analytical chemistry. In her lab work, she developed a strong understanding and respect for spreadsheets and documentation – her reliability in performance of this understanding (both in quality and consistency) makes her a particularly powerful asset in a safety-focused, scientific environment.
By switching paths from scientist to manager, Elizabeth is able to address the core motivations that had always fueled her pursuit of scientific exploration: to help people. Her starting point contributes to her ability to develop, communicate and teach processes that respond to the actual pain points of scientists.
When not running around the lab or furiously typing on her laptop, Elizabeth enjoys listening to all kinds of podcasts and reading books to unwind.
Kevin is one of the first people you see at 400 N. Aberdeen – where he oversees front desk management, member support, and other aspects of Portal team support. Additionally, Kevin works on all content capture, design, editing, and audio production for Lab Rats to Unicorns (a podcast created by John Flavin).
Ashley Kim is a Director of Growth Strategy and Operations at Portal Innovations. She started her career in New York at a healthcare investment firm where she helped build a drug discovery and development group. She subsequently joined two start-up companies in the gene therapy and genome editing space with a focus on business development, corporate strategy, and alliance management. She hopes to bring her experience to help Portal expand into other regions by focusing on understanding life science ecosystems beyond Chicago and helping to implement the Portal playbook to cities of interest.
As Director of Operations for our Atlanta expansion, Suna is establishing and leading Portal Innovation’s platform in Atlanta at Science Square Labs. Previously, Suna held clinical R&D roles in pharma, across both early and late stage biologics development. She grew her specialty in pharmacovigilance (safety & efficacy) and immunogenicity assay development at scale—sourcing, developing, and integrating novel diagnostic technologies and robotics platforms—before moving into the early venture space. She has since served as a biomedical science consultant for early-stage startups, ultimately cofounding two VC-backed biotech and digital health startups. In addition to supporting diverse founders, Suna remains an active advocate for youth STEM outreach, having established hands-on afterschool programs in Greater Philadelphia, Washington DC, and a girls' science mentorship program in Kenema, Sierra Leone. Suna intends to continue supporting and building the pipeline of incredible life science founders and teams capable of bringing life-saving solutions to patients, and scaling innovative biomedical and healthcare ventures that will feed into the economic development in Atlanta and beyond.
Anna spearheads the growth of Portal's membership and partnership portfolio. Previously, Anna specialized in scaling growth-stage biotechnology companies with scientific talent. Her focus began in the Chicago ecosystem and quickly expanded into many other emerging biotechnology hubs. Anna is inspired by entrepreneurial motivation, disruption, and - most importantly - the patient who benefits from the scientific breakthroughs.
Gianina is a Biotech entrepreneur passionate about bringing scientific discoveries to patients. She has experience in developing biotech start-ups from the ground up, ranging from strategy to operations and project management, as well as direct involvement in seeking non-dilutive and private funding from institutional and strategic investors. The most recent startup she helped build was Pyxis Oncology. As a Technology Venture Fellow at the Polsky Center at The University of Chicago she worked closely with Pyxis’ founding team to develop the strategic and financial materials to support Pyxis’ formation and $22M Series A. As Pyxis’ first employee, she worked as project and alliance manager, and in business development. She also supported the $150M Series B, several partnerships, and the IPO in October 2021. Gianina obtained her Masters’ degree in Bioscience Enterprise (MBE) at The University of Cambridge and a B.S. in Molecular Biotechnology Engineering from The University of Chile.
Angie Gill is Portal's Event and Workplace Manager working on the Membership, Operations, and Ecosystem Team. Angie most recently was at Built In where she was a Workplace Operations and Experience Lead where she oversaw a variety of activities from space planning, creating a diverse and inclusive in-person and hybrid workplace, and systematization of processes for Built In’s fast-growing staff. Previously Angie was also a member of the CBRE team which helped to open 1375 W. Fulton and contributed significantly to large events such as Portal’s grand opening.
Angie is working to systematize and grow Portal’s presence in our existing and emerging ecosystems as we begin regularly doing events and other programming in more markets – working closely with Deonta and E.J. Additionally, Angie will be supporting Portal’s internal growth, working to support workplace culture, new processes for our growing team, and generally supporting a growing Portal team during our expansion.
Ritu Shah is joining Portal as Managing Director, focused on portfolio company development and value creation by providing interim leadership to position and accelerated seeded companies to the next round of funding.
She has a proven track record in the biopharma industry with success in leading four successful mergers & acquisitions along with new company formation and operations. Ritu has led several drug development campaigns with emphasis on strategic and therapeutic portfolio management across private and public pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. Ritu has spent over two decades in pharma drug development, of which the last five years were in biotech.
Nick is in charge of helping grow the Portal brand on a national level. He joins Portal with more than 10 years’ of experience in marketing and communications within a variety of industries, including financial services, commercial real estate development, and oil & gas, with his most recent role focused on building marketing campaigns at Northern Trust Asset Management. His background consists of public relations, email and web marketing, SEO/SEM, social media, and content development. Nick grew up in Austin, Texas, graduated from The University of Kansas, and still tries to fool himself into thinking Chicago winters aren’t that bad.
Mike joins Portal to help build consistency in the firm’s day-to-day logistical operations. His background has been dedicated to helping organizations and campaigns manage extreme growth, while thinking through problems before they occur. Mike’s prior roles include Director of Corporate Business Development and Licensing at Shinola where he led a national growth through new market opportunities, Personal Aide to former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, and served as National Advance Coordinator for President Obama in The White House and '08 Presidential campaign. Mike is originally from Michigan, graduated from Michigan State University and has resided in Chicago since 2010 with his wife and two children.
Shahila Christie is the Vice-President of Growth Strategy and Operations at Portal Innovations. Over her 20 yr career Shahila spent the first decade as an academic researcher and then moved into the startup space where she enjoyed driving scientific strategy from a business perspective. She has held various roles including founding two startups as spinouts from universities, consulting for startup companies, followed by leading the clinical efforts for a medical device company in the oncology diagnostic space. In her current role Shahila ties these varied experiences together to help Portal Innovations grow and expand. Her role focuses on understanding life science ecosystems in cities beyond Chicago and building and implementing the Portal playbook to launch the platform in cities of interest nationwide.
In addition to her professional role, Shahila is an active Women In Bio member functioning in leadership roles over the years and also served as the Chicago Chapter President in 2020. Shahila has a PhD in Biochemistry from Loyola University in Chicago and did her postdoctoral work in drug discovery and development at University of Illinois.
Parth Rao is the Portal's Director of Lab Operations in Chicago. He will ensure everything will run smoothly and succinctly in our labs at both 400 N Aberdeen and 1375 W Fulton. Parth's background includes positions with Novartis and Sartorius where he had hands-on experience with the latest biotech products.
John is a proven leader with a track record of bringing valuable corporate, academic, and civic enterprises from concept to reality, including Advanced Life Sciences, Chicago Innovation Mentors, MATTER, and the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago. John is Co-Founder and Chairman of Pyxis Oncology, Executive Chairman of ClostraBio, and Board member at Grove Biopharma. Over the course of his career, John has successfully raised more than $345 million of private and philanthropic capital to fund the development of transformative organizations.
Dr. Porter joins Portal with more than 25 years of experience in strategy, operations, global commercialization, corporate development, and clinical development. He is currently founder and CEO of Cellevolve Bio, and his career includes executive leadership positions at Gilead Sciences, AbbVie, and Amgen. Dr. Porter earned his MD from the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and his MBA from The Wharton School. He completed his BS in psychobiology and neuroscience at UCLA.
Dr. Miller is currently a consultant in the field of biotechnology and clinical nutrition. In 2017, he was CSO for the microbiome startup, CadenaBio, which later merged with Kaleido Biosciences. Today he continues to work with startups in the Boston area. Dr. Miller had a successful 30-year career at Abbott Nutrition where he was ultimately responsible for global pediatric, adult, and performance nutrition product development, new ventures, medical affairs, and clinical and preclinical research. He holds a PhD in Nutritional Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and completed a staff fellowship at the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Gajewski is the AbbVie Foundations Professor for Cancer Immunotherapy at the University of Chicago and Co-Founder of Pyxis Oncology, a company that focuses on developing new antibody-based immunotherapies. He has a special interest in the development of immunotherapies against melanoma. Dr. Gajewski is immediate past president of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer and has served on the program committees for the American Society for Clinical Oncology (ASCO) and the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR).
As one of four women in the biopharma sector to have founded a venture capital group, Dr. Vemuri is a trailblazer. Following her role as a Managing Partner at Baxter Ventures and Baxalta Ventures where she managed $300 million in capital, she founded Agent Capital, a healthcare venture capital firm focused on novel, differentiated therapeutics and treatments that address unmet patient needs in areas such as oncology and immunology. At Agent Capital, Dr. Vemuri has led investments in 14 companies, four of which have already gone public.
Dr. Prasad is a biotechnology analyst at William Blair focused on therapeutics. He previously worked as a research associate with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Gillings School of Global Public Health and as an independent consultant with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Dr. Prasad has a BA in cell biology and neuroscience from Rutgers University, an MS in exercise physiology from the University of Delaware, and a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill with a focus in genetic toxicology and mutagenesis.
Partner and co-group head of the technology, media, and communications sector, Bhavan joined William Blair in 2007 and specializes in the IT services and enterprise software industries. Previously, he worked in venture capital and early stage technology commercialization and co-founded and managed a Boston-based enterprise software company. In 2010, Bhavan was named in the Financial Times/StarMine “World’s Top Analysts” listing as the No. 1 stock picker in IT services. He received a BSc in physics from Brown University and an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.