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 currently serves as Chief Executive Officer at Vividion Therapeutics, Inc., a private biopharmaceutical company focused on discovering and developing precision medicines that drug traditionally inaccessible targets. Mr. Hatfield has previously served as a chief executive officer in multiple other biotech companies, including Vitae Pharmaceuticals where he worked from 2004 to 2016. At Vitae, Mr. Hatfield successfully transitioned the company from a novel discovery platform start-up to a thriving clinical-stage, product-focused company with a robust pipeline of first-in-class programs 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 Vitae, Mr. Hatfield worked at Bristol-Myers Squibb in a number of executive positions, including: Senior Vice President, Immunology and Virology Divisions; President and General Manager, BMS-Canada; and, Vice President, U.S. Managed Health Care. In addition to his CEO role, Mr. Hatfield also currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of miRagen Therapeutics.  He previously has served as a Board member at Ambit Biosciences, before its acquisition by Daiichi-Sankyo in 2015; Zafgen, Inc., before its acquisition by Larimar Therapeutics in 2020; and, the Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), where he also was a member of the Board’s executive committee. Mr. Hatfield is an advisory board member for the Harvard Business School’s Blavatnik Fellowship in Life Sciences Entrepreneurship, and an adjunct professor for Purdue University’s College of Pharmacy where he teaches entrepreneurship.  Mr. Hatfield holds an M.B.A. from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, and a B.S. from Purdue University’s College of Pharmacy.

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.