BOSTON– The Institute for Protein Innovation (IPI), a nonprofit research organization advancing protein science to accelerate biomedical research and improve human health, today announced the appointment of Kenneth Fasman, Ph.D., as President and Chief Executive Officer. Dr. Fasman comes to IPI from The Jackson Laboratory (JAX), where he served as Senior Vice President for Research.
IPI’s Board recognized that Dr. Fasman’s unique experience in the academic, industrial and nonprofit sectors would facilitate the Institute in fulfilling its mission and ambition. IPI aims to provide protein-based research resources and tools, advance protein science through investigator-driven research and augment the education of life scientists. Specifically, Dr. Fasman will lead IPI in:
- Scaling IPI’s synthetic recombinant antibody platform to widely serve scientific communities through collaboration and antibody distribution.
- Implementing a sustainable model of independent research conducted by IPI faculty and fellows that enhances the platform and applies protein tools and methods to understand human biology and disease more deeply.
- Developing an education program to promote and disseminate the leading edge of protein science.
“There aren’t many institutions aiming to be both a world-class academic research organization and a sustainable nonprofit provider of resources, tools and services for the life science community,” Dr. Fasman said. “I can bring my experience enhancing the creative partnership between these two components. Our goal is to have the same impact on protein science that institutions like the Broad or Sanger Institutes did for genomics.”
A leader in collaborative scientific research and management of technology platforms for biomedical research, Dr. Fasman directed R&D Informatics and Drug Development Strategy and Performance at AstraZeneca and served as Chief Scientific Officer at the Adelson Medical Research Foundation prior to joining JAX in 2015. Dr. Fasman holds a Ph.D. in biomedical engineering from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a B.S.E in electrical engineering and computer science from Princeton University.
His arrival at IPI comes at a fortuitous time of growth for the organization. The Institute was founded in 2017 by Harvard Medical School professors Timothy Springer, Ph.D., and Andrew Kruse, Ph.D., and launched by Dr. Springer’s philanthropy.
“Over the past two years, IPI has optimized its technology and more clearly targeted its antibody platform to serve scientific communities in fields like neuroscience, where traditional antibodies are lacking,” said Rob Meijers, Ph.D., Interim Executive Director of IPI and Director of the Antibody Platform. “On behalf of IPI and its Board, I welcome Ken to take us into the next chapter, expanding our faculty and setting us up for distribution of our antibodies.”
