Irene Gonzalez, Ph.D.

President and Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Irene Gonzalez, Founder, President and CEO of Valens Therapeutics, a privately held company, is a biotechnology professional with more than 23 years experience in the business, management and development of biotech based products including peptides, protein-based therapeutics and nucelic acid-based diagnostics. Prior to establishing Valens Therapeutics, Dr. Gonzalez was Senior Vice President of Process Development of Alseres Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a public biotechnology company headquartered in Hopkinton, MA. While at Alseres, Dr. Gonzalez directed for seven years its laboratory facilities in Baltimore and was responsible for all operations and the development of protein-based therapeutic products. Prior to joining Alseres, Dr. Gonzalez held several senior positions. At the NIH-NIAID, she managed a portfolio of research grants and contracts in infectious diseases and clinical trials, and directed their scientific review. Dr. Gonzalez was the Director of Molecular Biology at BTRL-Boston Biomedica, Inc. where she managed the Molecular Biology services and the R & D programs on nucleic acid diagnostics of infectious pathogens, gene discovery for neurological disorders, and HIV vaccines. Dr. Gonzalez was the Director of Genetic Engineering at Biotrax, Inc. where she managed the R & D projects in recombinant proteins and transgenic animals. Dr. Gonzalez has also extensive experience in Quality Control, GMP manufacturing of biologics, technology transfer from the academic to the private sectors, and in matters of intellectual property. She has been the recipient and principal investigator of numerous NIH-funded research grants and contracts, serves on the editorial boards of several scientific journals and as a NIH peer-review panel member. She has been a consultant to the Department of Defense, the NIH, and private corporations. Dr. Gonzalez held the positions of Assistant Professor and tenured Associate Professor at the University of Mexico (UNAM). Prior to working in the private and government sectors, Dr. Gonzalez was a Research Scientist in the Department of Biology of Johns Hopkins University. She carried out her doctoral research in Biochemistry, and post-doctoral training in Molecular Biology in the Department of Biology of Johns Hopkins University. Dr. Gonzalez has published numerous peer-reviewed scientific articles, book chapters, and abstracts, and is the inventor of a method to produce biologically active polypeptides, and co-inventor of a nucleic acid-based assay for the detection of multiple blood-borne pathogens and the construction of transgenic fish.