Dominic Jaikaran, Ph.D., MBA | President & CEO

Dominic Jaikaran is the President and CEO of Bright Angel Therapeutics.  He joined the company in 2018 after playing an instrumental role in the company’s formation.  He has over fifteen years of experience in biotechnology and finance. Prior to Bright Angel Therapeutics, Dominic held leadership positions at MaRS Innovation and Diversa Corporation (now BASF), a NASDAQ-listed company in San Diego.  He was also a Principal at BDC Venture Capital, focusing on early-stage life science investments.

Dominic holds a PhD in Biological Chemistry and a BSc in Chemistry and Biochemistry, both from the University of Toronto. He also holds an MBA from the Rotman School of Management.

Leah Cowen, Ph.D. | Co-founder and CSO

Leah Cowen is Vice President, Research at the University of Toronto (UofT), Professor in the Department of Molecular Genetics, co-Director of the CIFAR Fungal Kingdom: Threats & Opportunities program, and co-Founder and CSO of Bright Angel Therapeutics, a company that leverages state-of-the-art technologies for development of novel antifungal therapeutics. She received her undergraduate degree from the University of British Columbia, a PhD from UofT, and pursued postdoctoral studies at the Whitehead Institute. She has an outstanding track-record of excellence in research, scholarship, and education. She has published >110 high impact research articles and been recognized with many awards including a Burroughs Wellcome Fund Career Award, Grand Challenges Canada Star in Global Health Award, Merck Irving S. Sigal Memorial Award, E.W.R. Steacie Award, and Canada Research Chair in Microbial Genomics & Infectious Disease. She has been elected as Fellow of the American Academy of Microbiology and American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Luke Whitesell, MD | Co-founder and Consultant

Dr. Luke Whitesell is a co-founder of, and consultant to, Bright Angel Therapeutics and an oncologist and molecular pharmacologist within the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Toronto. Board-certified in pediatric oncology (inactive status), he has over two decades prior experience in cooperative group clinical trials and the clinical management of children with invasive fungal infections, especially in the bone marrow transplant setting. He currently helps guide translational drug discovery and development efforts within the Cowen laboratory. His research has led to publication of well over 100 peer-reviewed manuscripts, 3 issued patents and 2 pending applications. Prior to joining the Cowen lab in 2017, Luke was a principal investigator at the Whitehead Institute for over a dozen years where he led or helped lead multiple high throughput screening and pre-clinical development efforts performed in conjunction with the Broad Institute, MIT Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research, Harvard ICCB and NIH NCATS program.