Celgene R&D vet jumps to biotech: 'It’s about shortening the cycle'; Novartis exodus continues as William Chou takes the helm at Aruvant
Jorge DiMartino has been turning over the same question in his head since he was a kid: How does every human cell start out the same, with the same wiring, yet end up so different?
It’s a question that brought him to Berkeley and Stanford, Genentech, the upper echelons of Celgene and now, as Celgene is swallowed by Bristol-Myers Squibb, Kronos Bio. The small molecule biotech has hired DiMartino to be their CMO.
“I’m chomping at the bit,” he told Endpoints News.
To ask about why liver or stomach cells are the way they are is really to ask about transcription: How does the cell read the code and why? Which in turn is to ask about RNA and epigenetics. When DiMartino first considered these questions, he was thinking as a kid fascinated by nature.
“It’s hard to wrap your head around,” he said. “How do you go from a single fertilized zygote to developing multiple tissues?”
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