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Dylan Kornbluth
Corporate Life Cycle Attorney, Cooley LLP
Dylan is a corporate life cycle attorney, with experience ranging from guiding clients on incorporation and private financing matters to advising private and public companies and their boards of directors on corporate governance, public offerings, and mergers & acquisitions. His clients cover a number of industries, including life sciences, technology, venture capital funds and consumer products. Dylan prides himself on forming long-term partnerships with his clients by providing reliable and pragmatic legal advice.
Prior to joining Cooley, Dylan was an associate in the M&A and corporate finance group at another global law firm.
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James Mackay, PhD
Co-Founder, President and Chief Executive Officer, Crystalys Therapeutics Inc.
James co-founded Crystalys Therapeutics in 2024 and led the successful $205m Series A financing in September 2025. Prior to Crystalys Therapeutics, James founded Kateran Consulting, Inc in 2023 a consultancy business that provides drug development and organizational leadership consulting to a biotechs and large pharma. Prior to founding Kateran Consulting, James was CEO and Co-Founder of Aristea Therapeutics, an immunology focused company developing treatments for rare inflammatory disorders and was instrumental to the company raising $138m between 2018 and 2023. James was previously President & CEO of Ardea Biosciences from 2013 to 2018 following a 30 year career at AstraZeneca working across the agrochemical, industrial chemical and pharmaceuticals. James led project teams that took 6 drugs through to approval and commercialization across multiple therapy areas.
James has played a pivotal role in the San Diego Ecosystem since his arrival in 2013 and has been a member of the Board and Executive Committee of CONNECT since 2014, was Chair of CONNECT Board of Directors from 2021 to 2023/2025-2026 and has been a Board member of BIOCOM since 2016. James is also a member of the Board of Advisors of Life Science Cares – San Diego and a member of the angel investor group, NuFund. James is a former Board member of the San Diego Economic Development Corporation (EDC), Arthrosi Therapeutics and a past President and Chairman of Ardea Biosciences.
James is an independent Board member for Privo Technologies and MatriSys Biosciences, and independent Board Chair of Curadh MTR, Nuvig Therapeutics and Resolute Science. James also hold several biotech Board Advisor roles and is a co-founder of Lipidio Pharmaceuticals.
James has a BSc in Genetics and PhD in Medical Genetics from Aberdeen University, Scotland.
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Magda Marquet, PhD
Co-CEO of ALMA Life Sciences, LLC
Dr. Magda Marquet is a pioneering biotech entrepreneur, investor, and board leader with a distinguished record of building and commercializing transformative biotechnology companies. She co-founded Althea Technologies, later acquired by Ajinomoto, and AltheaDx, which became part of Castle Biosciences—demonstrating her ability to translate scientific innovation into successful commercial enterprises. She is also a co-founder of Acurion, an AI-driven precision oncology company advancing next-generation approaches to cancer treatment.
Dr. Marquet currently serves as Co-CEO of ALMA Life Sciences, LLC, an investment firm dedicated to supporting early-stage healthcare and biotechnology companies. Through ALMA, she partners with visionary founders and scientific teams to advance breakthrough technologies in precision medicine, immunotherapy, and molecular diagnostics. She brings deep expertise in company formation, capital strategy, corporate governance, and scaling scientific enterprises from discovery through clinical development and commercialization.
She serves on the boards of several public and private biotechnology companies, including Arcturus Therapeutics, AnaptysBio, TransCode Therapeutics, and Immix BioPharma, providing strategic oversight in financing, growth, and long-term value creation.
A respected leader in San Diego’s life sciences community, Dr. Marquet has been actively involved with BIOCOM, UC San Diego Moores Cancer Center, Scripps Research, Curebound, and now serves as an Advisor to Sanford Laboratories, supporting translational research and academic-industry collaboration.
She earned her Ph.D. in Biochemical Engineering from INSA/University of Toulouse, France. Her leadership has been recognized with the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year award, Athena Pinnacle award, Director of the Year recognition, and induction as the first woman into the CONNECT Entrepreneur Hall of Fame. -
Deborah G. Nguyen, PhD
Operating Partner, Red Tree Venture Labs
Deb is a drug hunter, connector and biotech executive, who is hardwired to deliver results. After earning her PhD from Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, Deb went to GNF / Novartis where she spent a decade leading programs and teams in pre-clinical drug discovery for infectious diseases, autoimmunity / inflammation and metabolic disease. Deb then made the move to biotech, leading efforts to create more predictive 3D tissue culture models and build the commercial service organization at Organovo before shifting back to drug discovery the Avalon Ventures-backed incubator COI Pharmaceuticals. As VP of Research at COI, Deb guided the discovery and development of novel therapeutics to combat bacterial infections, bone regeneration and neurodegenerative diseases, ultimately participating in the acquisition of Calporta by Merck in 2019. Deb then headed back into pharma, serving as Head of GI2 Inflammation Research and San Diego site head at Takeda Pharmaceuticals, where she led a team finding novel approaches for GI and other immunological diseases including helping acquire key clinical assets Zasocitinib (Nimbus TYK2 inhibitor) and the Zedira / Dr. Falk TG2 antagonist (TAK-227). Deb is excited to now be back in venture-backed company creation mode with the Red Tree team as Operating Partner of Red Tree Venture Labs, and continuing to contribute to the local San Diego biotech ecosystem she calls home.