Dr. Blair has been a partner of Domain Associates since the company’s founding in 1985.  Present board memberships include Astute Medical, Cadence Pharmaceuticals, Cell Biosciences, Clovis Oncology, CoDa Therapeutics, Five Prime Therapeutics, GenVault, IntegenX, Meritage Pharma, NeuroPace, and Zogenix. Dr. Blair has more than 40 years experience with venture and emerging growth companies. In the course of his experience, he has been involved in the creation and successful development at the board level of more than 40 life sciences ventures, including Amgen, Aurora Biosciences, Amylin Pharmaceuticals, Applied Biosystems, Dura Pharmaceuticals, GeneOhm Sciences, Molecular Dynamics, Nuvasive, Pharmion and Volcano. A former managing director of Rothschild, Dr. Blair was directly involved at a senior level with Rothschild/New Court venture capital activities. He was also associated with F.S. Smithers and Co. and White, Weld and Co., two investment banking firms actively involved with new ventures and emerging growth companies. Dr. Blair was an engineering manager with RCA Corporation, during which time he received the David Sarnoff Fellowship. Dr. Blair currently serves on the board of directors of the Prostate Cancer Foundation and on the advisory boards of the Department of Molecular Biology at Princeton University, the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of Pennsylvania, the USC Stevens Institute for Innovation, and the Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology.

Mr. Clarke is managing general partner of Cardinal Partners. He entered the venture industry in 1982 with DSV Partners, a pioneer venture capital fund formed in 1968. John led DSV’s health care and life sciences efforts and was a co-founder and served as interim CEO of numerous successful companies including Alkermes, Arris Pharmaceuticals, DNX and Cubist Pharmaceuticals. As managing partner at DSV in later years, Mr. Clarke led the firm’s evolution into Cardinal Partners. Building on two decades in venture capital, he co-founded Cardinal Partners in 1997. He currently serves on the Board of Directors of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Momenta Pharmaceuticals, Rib-X Pharmaceuticals and Verastem . He has also served as a director for Sirtris Pharmaceuticals (acquired by GlaxoSmithKline), TechRx (acquired by NDCHealth) and Visicu (acquired by Phillips Electronics). Mr. Clarke is also a Trustee of Hands Together, a non-profit organization that provides health care and education support to the needy in Haiti. Prior to his venture capital career, John worked for the General Electric Company in various sales and marketing positions. Mr. Clarke received his A.B. in economics and biology from Harvard University and his M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

Timothy P. Coughlin has served as a director since April 2017. Mr. Coughlin served as Chief Financial Officer of Neurocrine Biosciences, Inc. from September 2006 to February 2017, where he previously served as Vice President, Controller. Prior to joining Neurocrine in 2002, he was with Catholic Health Initiatives, a nationwide integrated healthcare delivery system, where he served as Vice President, Financial Services. Mr. Coughlin also served as a Senior Manager in the Health Sciences practice of Ernst & Young LLP and its predecessors from 1989 to 1999. Mr. Coughlin currently serves on the board of directors of Retrophin, Inc. and Fate Therapeutics, Inc., two biotechnology companies where he chairs the audit committees and is also a member of the compensation committee and nominating committee. Mr. Coughlin holds a master’s degree from San Diego State University and a bachelor’s degree from Temple University. Mr. Coughlin is a certified public accountant in both California and Pennsylvania.

Jeffrey S. Hatfield has served as a director since April, 2017. Mr. Hatfield most recently served as President, Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors of Vitae Pharmaceuticals from 2004 to 2016. As CEO, Mr. Hatfield successfully transitioned Vitae from a novel platform technology start-up to a thriving product-focused company with a robust pipeline of multiple first-in-class clinical stage and pre-clinical stage assets generated from the company’s internal discovery engine. Mr. Hatfield took the company public in 2014, and in October 2016, Vitae Pharmaceuticals was acquired by Allergan plc for approximately $639 million in cash. Prior to joining Vitae Pharmaceuticals, Mr. Hatfield worked at Bristol-Myers Squibb in a variety of executive positions, including: Senior Vice President of BMS’s Immunology and Virology Divisions, where he was responsible for all aspects of the $1 billion business; President and General Manager, Canada; and, Vice President, U.S. Managed Health Care. He previously served as a Board member of Ambit Biosciences before its acquisition by Daiichi-Sankyo in 2015, and as a member of the Board of Directors of the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), serving on the Executive Company Section. Mr. Hatfield currently serves as a Board member of InVivo Therapeutics, a biotechnology company, and as a member of the Advisory Committees for: Purdue University’s College of Pharmacy, where he is a Distinguished Alumni and is on faculty; Drexel University’s LeBow College of Business; and the Chapman-KGI School of BioPharmacy. Mr. Hatfield holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor’s degree in Pharmacy from Purdue University.

John D. Mendlein, Ph.D. served as aTyr’s Chief Executive Officer from September 2011 to November 2017. Dr. Mendlein has served as a member of our Board of Directors since July 2010. Dr. Mendlein served as our Executive Chairman of the Board of Directors from July 2010 to December 2015. Dr. Mendlein is Vice Chairman of the Board of Fate Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, and also holds board positions with Editas Medicine, Inc., Moderna Therapeutics, Inc. and Axcella Health, Inc., which are all biopharmaceutical companies. Dr. Mendlein also serves on the Biotechnology Industry Organization (“BIO”) emerging companies board. Dr. Mendlein previously served as the Chief Executive Officer of Adnexus Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, from 2005 to 2008, which was purchased by Bristol-Myers Squibb Company in 2008. Dr. Mendlein also served on the board of directors of Monogram Biosciences, Inc., an HIV and oncology diagnostic company that was acquired by Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings in 2009. Before that, he served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Affinium Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. (acquired by Debiopharm Group) from 2000 to 2005, and as a board member, General Counsel and Chief Knowledge Officer at Aurora Bioscience Corporation (acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals), a biotechnology company, from August 1996 to September 2001. Dr. Mendlein holds a Ph.D. in physiology and biophysics from the University of California, Los Angeles, a J.D. from the University of California, Hastings College of the Law, and a B.S. in biology from the University of Miami. Dr. Mendlein is the co-author or co-inventor of over 210 publications and published patents, including a number of patents associated with our company.

Dr. Nashat is a general partner in the Boston office of Polaris Partners where he focuses on investments in the life sciences. He also serves on the board of directors of Athenix Corporation, Avila Therapeutics, Bind Biosciences, Fate Therapeutics, Living Proof, Pervasis Therapeutics, Promedior Pharmaceuticals and Selecta Biosciences.  Dr. Nashat played an instrumental role in the inception of Living Proof, and Pervasis, serving as the founding president of both companies. He previously served as a director of Adnexus Therapeutics (acquired by Bristol Myers Squibb) and Hydra Biosciences and as an observer of GI Dynamics and Advion.  Prior to joining Polaris, he was a Hertz fellow in chemical engineering with a minor in biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where he completed his Ph.D. under the guidance of Dr. Robert Langer.  During his time at MIT, Dr. Nashat also completed an internship in the London office of Goldman, Sachs & Company.  He received his M.S. and B.S. in materials science and mechanical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley.

Dr. Schimmel is an Ernst and Jean Hahn Professor at The Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology at The Scripps Research Institute. He was formerly the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics in the Department of Biology at MIT. The Schimmel laboratory’s major research activities have concentrated on the decoding of genetic information, with emphasis on the rules of the universal genetic code which are established through aminoacylation reactions catalyzed by a group of enzymes known as aminoacyl tRNA synthetases. The latter are believed by many to be among the first enzymes to arise on this planet in the early stages of the evolution of life.  In addition to founding aTyr, Dr. Schimmel has founded or co-founded a number of groundbreaking biotechs including Alkermes, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Cubist Pharmaceuticals, Metabolon, Repligen Corp., Sirtris Pharmaceuticals.  He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences.  Dr. Schimmel graduated from Ohio Wesleyan University, holds Ph.D. at Cornell University and MIT and did post doctoral work at Stanford University.

Sanjay S. Shukla, M.D., M.S. has served as our President and Chief Executive Officer and as a board member since November 2017. Dr. Shukla served as our Chief Medical Officer from March 2016 to November 2017. From April 2015 to March 2016, Dr. Shukla worked in an advisory capacity for a number of companies, including as a consultant to aTyr from January 2016 to March 2016. Prior to that, from October 2012 to April 2015, Dr. Shukla served as Vice President and Global Head of Integrated Medical Services for Novartis, a biopharmaceutical company, where he led global medical affairs operations, with oversight for all pharma general medicines therapies, both inline and in development. Dr. Shukla served as Chief Executive Officer of RXMD, a clinical development consultancy that assisted in advancing proof of concept for early stage drug candidates, from April 2009 to September 2012. Prior to that, Dr. Shukla served in a variety of clinical development, data analytics and drug safety roles at Vifor Pharma, a biopharmaceutical company, and Aspreva Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Vifor Pharma). Dr. Shukla received his M.D. from Howard University College of Medicine and his Bachelors of Science in Microbiology and Master of Science in Epidemiology and Biostatistics from the University of Maryland.