Michael Jacobson was appointed President & CEO of the Greater Arlington Chamber of Commerce in February 2016. The Greater Arlington Chamber of Commerce represents the interest of 1,000+ businesses and nonprofits in the greater Arlington area, championing economic and community prosperity. Michael also currently serves as the Chair of the Arlington Economic Development Corporation. Michael currently serves in many capacities throughout the greater Arlington nonprofit community. He is a board member of the Arlington Convention and Visitors Bureau, the Downtown Arlington Management Corporation Advisory Council, the Tarrant County College Foundation, the Texas Research Alliance (chair), Arlington Sister Cities, the Arlington-Mansfield YMCA, the Dallas Wings Foundation, Arlington Police Foundation and many more. 

Dr. Solomon is an accomplished research scientist and biotech co-founder with demonstrated success in biomedical R&D, healthcare innovation, and Master's-level teaching. Currently, Dr. Solomon is the co-founder and Chief Scientific Officer of D-10 Therapeutics Inc., bridging her deep understanding of academic research with the healthcare research industry. She leads the strategic engagement with academic and industry research collaborators for meaningful outcomes in Sickle Cell Disease research. Her aim is to achieve this by bringing the influences of real-world evidence in design solutions to improve treatment effects and outcomes. 

Joe Loy leads a mission-driven company committed to developing first-in-class therapeutics for both metastatic and primary breast cancer. With more than 25 years of experience spanning Biotech and Medtech, Joe has helped bring breakthrough technologies to market—many of which have become standard of care. His leadership experience spans corporate strategy, fund raising, global regulatory navigation, GMP drug manufacturing, and clinical trial design & execution. Joe has played key roles in IPOs, M&A transactions, and continues to serve as an Advisor and Board Director for a range of Biotech, Medtech, and Robotic companies focused on transformative healthcare solutions.

Laura O’Donnell is the Chief Legal Officer & Corporate Secretary at Verily Life Sciences, LLC (an Alphabet company) where she leads the company’s legal, compliance, privacy and government affairs functions to enable the company’s precision health strategy.  Previously, Laura held SVP+ legal roles with McKesson, GE Healthcare, and Zimmer.   Laura began her legal career at Baker & Daniels (now Faegre Drinker) as a medical device products liability litigator. Laura holds a Juris Doctor from Indiana University Maurer School of Law and a BA from James Madison College at Michigan State University.

Nikolaos Louros, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor at the Center for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases and the Department of Biophysics at UT Southwestern Medical Center. His research investigates the molecular mechanisms that govern protein folding, misfolding, aggregation, and amyloid formation, with a particular emphasis on their roles in neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Dr. Louros is also a Thomas O. Hicks Scholar in Medical Research and an Investigator in UT Southwestern’s Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute.

As a researcher, she has published over eighty journal articles that investigate the aging process, age-related diseases, and modifiable factors that promote brain health, including in Alzheimer’s and Dementia, Biological Psychiatry, JAMA Psychiatry, the Journal of Neuroscience, Lancet Public Health, Nature Human Behaviour, Nature Neuroscience, Neurology, and Sleep. Claire is currently the National Executive Programs Lead, Brain Health at the American Heart Association, where she works with external research and advisory committees, fosters robust research, develops business and programmatic strategies, and drives best practices for an integrated approach to all domains of the Brain Health Initiative’s strategic priorities.

Dr. Andreas (Andy) Bader is a cancer biologist, biotech executive, and serial entrepreneur with more than 20 years of industry experience in oncology drug discovery and development. He is Co-Founder and CEO of Nemea Therapeutics, Inc., an oncology startup he recently launched from the Texas Medical Center (TMC) through its Entrepreneur-in-Residence program. Nemea develops NEM-101, a first-in-class oral small molecule inhibitor targeting mitochondria-dependent cancers. 

Dr. Bader has contributed to 29 patent families and over 40 peer-reviewed publications with more than 13,000 citations. 

Heather M. Snyder, Ph.D., is senior vice president, Medical & Scientific Relations, at the Alzheimer's Association. In this role, she oversees the Association's funding initiatives that accelerate innovative Alzheimer's and dementia research and provides opportunities for the global dementia community to connect and collaborate. Dr. Snyder leads the Association's International Research Grant Program and other strategic funding initiatives that accelerate promising investigations into our understanding of Alzheimer's and dementia. As the world’s largest nonprofit funder of Alzheimer's research, the Association currently has more than $490 million invested in over 1,220 active projects in 59 countries spanning six continents.

Dr. Omid Veiseh, Ph.D. is a Professor in the Department of Bioengineering and Director of the Biotech Launch Pad at Rice University, where he leads a research program aimed at engineering next-generation treatments for a wide range of human diseases by leveraging the latest techniques in synthetic biology, immunoengineering, and materials science to develop innovative cell-based platforms for real-time production of biologics. He is also a serial entrepreneur who has co-founded multiple biotechnology companies. These companies collectively have attracted ~ $500M in private and public investment capital.