Jing-Ke Weng is Co-Founder of Double Rainbow. Currently, he is a member of the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and an Associate Professor of Biology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Dr. Weng’s work explores plant chemistry and biochemistry to tackle human diseases, including cancer, metabolic syndromes and neurode­gen­er­a­tive conditions. His research focuses on understanding the origin and evolution of plant specialized metabolism at enzyme, pathway, and systems levels, as well as how plants exploit discrete small molecules to interact with their surrounding biotic and abiotic environments. As of May 2021, his work has been featured in over 120 publications, and cited more than 5,000 times.

He has won numerous awards including the Beckman Young Investigator Award (2016), Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellow (2016), Searle Scholar (2015), Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences (2014), American Society of Plant Biologists Early Career Award (2014), and Tansley Medal for Excellence in Plant Science (2013).

Dr. Weng received his B.S. (2003) in Biotechnology from Zhejiang University, China, and his Ph.D. (2009) in Biochemistry from Purdue University. He was a pioneer postdoctoral fellow at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Howard Hughes Medical Institute between 2009 and 2013. Dr. Weng has served as a scientific advisor for Galixir, Inari Agriculture, BGI and Phylos Bioscience.

Tian Xu is Co-Founder of Double Rainbow. Since 2018, he is Chair Professor of Genetics and Vice-President at Westlake University. Dr. Xu’s work focuses on mechanisms of growth control and new genetic and biotech methods. His studies have not only elucidated fundamental principles of developmental biology, but also revealed pathogenic mechanisms, and contributed to the development of multiple drugs and to cancer and rare disease diagnosis.

Dr. Xu is an AAAS Fellow, and the recipient of the Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellowship, the Pew Scholar Award, the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance Rothberg Courage Award, TSC Achievement Award, Distinguished Scientist and SCBA Service Award, Shanghai Science and Technology Award (1st class), and the Magnolia Silver Award.

He was a postdoctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley from 1990 to 1993, and an Assistant Professor, Associate Professor (tenured in 2001), and C.N.H. Long Professor of Genetics at Yale University from 1993 to 2018. In addition, he served as Special Advisor to the President of Yale University from 2002 to 2013, and as Vice-Chairman of the Department of Genetics at Yale from 2003 to 2018.

From 1997 to 2018, Dr. Xu served as an Investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, as well as an Adjunct Professor and Director of the Institute of Developmental Biology, and Director of the International Collaboration and Research Center for Development and Disease at Fudan University.

He received his B.S. degree (1982) from Fudan University and Ph.D. degree (1990) from Yale University. Dr. Xu has served as a scientific advisor for CuraGen, Butterfly Network, Hyperfine Research, Quantum-Si, Yiviva, and Fosun Pharma, and is the inventor of more than 20 international patents.

In addition to Double Rainbow, Dr. Xu is a Co-Founder of LAM Therapeutics (now AI Therapeutics), Drug Farm, and Fosun Lead.

With over 20 years in the biophar­ma­ceu­tical industry, Kevin is considered an agile and accomplished leader. He has held diverse roles across the research, business, and operational channels, offering comprehensive scientific and commercial experience to Double Rainbow. His proven track record in business development, corporate strategy, new product planning and private and public fundraising, is key to Double Rainbow’s growth strategy.

Prior to joining Double Rainbow, Kevin was the Senior Director of Business Development and Licensing at Pulmatrix where throughout a 12-year tenure, he played an integral role in taking the company public. His leadership responsibilities included corporate strategy, valuation, accretion/​dilution modeling, commercial and market assessment evaluations, in-licensing and out-licensing, and research collaborations.

Prior to joining Pulmatrix, Kevin was a Scientist at Alkermes and was responsible for early preclinical testing of the company’s lead development programs for pharmaceuticals and pharmacodynamic evaluations of proprietary pulmonary drug delivery technology. He began his career as a Researcher at The Harvard School of Public Health.

Kevin holds a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Saint Michael’s College, and an MBA, Global Management from Babson F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business.

His very accomplished 25-year career encompasses leadership and advisory positions in both scientific and commercial operations in startup biotech and medium-sized pharma companies.

Philip began his career as a Senior Staff Scientist in Molecular Oncology, before holding several Director of Oncology positions, (Pharmacology), at Ipsen where he was also the research representative on the Governance Board for the Ipsen Life Sciences Program at the Salk Institute.

Due to his distinguished scientific career in oncology, Philip’s advisory positions include a role as Scientific Advisor, Sales and Marketing Assistance at OncoVet Clinical Research, (OCR) in Lille, France, where he advised on the technical and scientific accuracy of published documents, as well as assisted in the design of animal studies. His expertise was also sought by the Montréal based Oncodesign, where he managed Business Development and Pharmacology Operations for North America, and for the US-based Fenney Law Group, where Philip served as advisor for scientific patents, relative to biology and oncology. His commercial experience also includes partner and asset evaluation, alliance management, in-licensing and out-licensing, and therapeutic area company direction.

Inspired by collaboration, Philip has been consistently recognized by leadership for promoting cross-functional partnership, a hallmark of the Double Rainbow culture. He enjoys working with enthusiastic teams and spearheading effective collaborations to accelerate the drug development process.

Philip received his B.S. from Utica College of Syracuse University, and his Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University, followed by postdoctoral fellowships at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), first in the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, (NHLBI Branch) and then at the National Cancer Institute, (NCI).

Sheng Ding is the Head of the PRISM Platform for Double Rainbow. Currently, he is leading the development of our cutting-edge drug discovery pipeline. Dr. Ding’s work explores the intersection of plant chemistry and biochemistry to tackle human diseases, including cancer, metabolic syndromes, and neurodegenerative conditions.

Before joining Double Rainbow, Dr. Ding was a Research Specialist with the Yale School of Medicine, where his research focused on developing novel mouse models for human diseases by transposon-mediated mutagenesis and systematic phenotyping. Dr. Ding completed his Ph.D. at Fudan University in China, where he received the Chinese National Excellent Doctoral Dissertation Award in 2009 for his work focused on study mammalian development and human disease using genetically modified mouse models.

Christopher Vickery is the Head of the HARMONY Platform for Double Rainbow and the Acting Head of Research for Landkind, Double Rainbow’s consumer wellness subsidiary. Currently, he is leading the development of our novel bioceutical pipeline. Dr. Vickery’s work explores the intricacies of plant chemistry to sustainably recreate valuable natural products with pure essential bioactive ingredients.

Before joining Double Rainbow, Dr. Vickery was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with Harvard Medical School, where his research focused on microbiological techniques and the manipulation of membrane proteins. Dr. Vickery completed his Ph.D. at the University of California, San Diego and the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, where his work focused on post-translational modification of natural product biosynthetic enzymes in bacteria and plants.