it takes a special
kind of character

Character partners with patients, providers, payers, and scientists to create deeply-phenotyped patient cohorts to enable clinical genomic research. Our approach integrates genomics, longitudinal clinical and imaging data, machine learning, and novel experimental approaches to identify the genetic drivers of disease progression and develop innovative targeted medicines.

Since inception, we have built Character to be a patient-driven therapeutics company. Our commitment to patients comes through in the high standards we set to ensure privacy, data security, ethics, scientific rigor and meaningful impact to patient health.

Our Values

We're for people
Safety and privacy always
Ethical transparency in our science
Patient diversity matters
Focus on diseases of aging
Make the greatest health impact
We're for people
Safety and privacy always
Ethical transparency in our science
Patient diversity matters
Focus on polygenic diseases
Make the greatest health impact

our team

We are experts from the worlds of drug discovery and development, data science, and clinical research.

Cheng Zhang
CEO, Co-Founder
Laura Carter, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Erik Karrer, PhD
SVP, Drug Discovery
Ben Glicksberg, PhD
VP, Data Science
Maria Avrutsky, PhD
Senior Scientist
Julia Barber
Data Specialist
David Buchholz, PhD
Senior Scientist
Erin Burke, PhD
Strategic Partnering Lead
Ryan Campbell
Senior Research Associate
Brendan Curran
Software Engineer
Dinah Chen
Medical Director and Clinical Innovations Lead
Joe Davis, PhD
Director Data Science
Sumra Farooq
Clinical Data Manager
Adria Frazier
Senior Research Associate
Jonathan Gumucio, PhD
Associate Director
Florence Lantan
Operation Analyst
Laura Macri
Senior Clinical Research Manager
Tejasveeta Nadkarni
Senior Research Associate
Andrea Neeranjan
Associate Director, Clinical Research
Amy Park
Senior Clinical Research Coordinator
Aakriti Singh
Research Associate
Kaila Smilen
Senior Director,
Business Development and Corporate Strategy
Geraldine Taveras
Senior Clinical Research Coordinator
Wedward Wei
Machine Learning Engineer
Anita Wong
Clinical Research Associate
Yunju Yang, PhD
Human Genetics Lead
Ishan Paranjpe, MD
Data Science Consultant
Marcel van der Brug, PhD
Scientific Advisor,
Co-Founder
Nick Johnson
Technology Advisor,
Co-Founder

our board

Joel Dudley
Innovation Endeavors
Peter DiLaura
Lifeforce Capital
Vivek Garipalli
Clover Health
 Cheng Zhang
Character

we're hiring!

Come work with us and make a transformative impact on patient lives.

our investors