We’re shaping the next era of medicine with first-principles design

Chris Bahl is the President, CEO and Founder of AI Proteins. Prior to founding AI Proteins, Chris was one of the founding faculty members at the Institute for Protein Innovation in Boston, with co-appointments at Boston Children's Hospital and Harvard Medical School. Chris pioneered the ability to computationally design miniproteins de novo as a postdoctoral fellow with Nobel Laureate David Baker at the Institute for Protein Design in Seattle. Chris is dedicated to spreading knowledge in computational protein design through initiatives that he founded such as the Boston Protein Design and Modeling Club and The Latin American Workshop on Artificial Intelligence for Protein Design. Chris sits on the Executive Council of The Protein Society, the Executive Board for Rosetta Commons, and he serves as a Technical Advisor for IMPRINT Labs, and a Scientific Advisor for Applied Photophysics and BioLoomics.

James W. Bowman, Ph.D., is a member of the founding team and Chief Technology Officer at AI Proteins, where he helped build the framework powering the company’s discovery engine.He previously trained as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Protein Innovation, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, developing novel miniproteins for cancer therapeutics that led to multiple patents and licenses.With more than a decade of protein engineering experience, James has contributed to projects ranging from GPCR stabilization for nanobody discovery during his Ph.D. to the creation of a miniprotein tumor antigen binder now in clinical trials. While at AI Proteins, he has been named on patents covering immune cell engagers for oncology, inhibitors for autoimmunity, and agonists for metabolic disease.James earned his Ph.D. in Genetics, Molecular, and Cellular Biology from the Keck School of Medicine of USC and his B.A. in Neuroscience from the University of Southern California.

Julia Novina, Esq. joined AI Proteins as a founding executive and serves as Chief Legal Officer for the company. Julia provides and oversees legal operations for the company including corporate formation, financing, board management, equity management, technology licensing, contracting and general company administration.Julia also serves as founder and Chief Legal Officer to two other preclinical biotechnology companies, Dynamic Cell Therapies, Inc. and Microbial Machines, Inc. She has formerly served as Chief Legal Officer and founder to two other start-up biotechnology companies, NextRNA Therapeutics, Inc. and Courage Therapeutics.Julia earned her J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and graduated magna cu laude from Connecticut College.

Phil Brandish joined AI Proteins in February 2025 and serves as Chief Development Officer. He brings 25 years of drug discovery, research and development experience from large pharma and biotech.Prior to joining AI Proteins, Phil was VP and then SVP of Immuno-Oncology at Bicycle Therapeutics, where he built a US-based science team focused on immunology, advanced a Nectin-4/CD137 immune engager (BT7480) into the clinic, and helped build a robust internal pipeline of consisting of toxin conjugates (BTCs), targeted radiopharm programs, and IO agonist programs. At the culmination of a long career at Merck, spanning basic research to clinical POC, across therapeutic areas and across therapeutic modalities, Phil led a cancer immunology research team in Boston, and co-led three first-in-class clinical stage oncology programs.Phil received a B.Sc. in Biochemistry (1st class) from the University of Southampton, England, and gained his Ph.D. in mechanistic enzymology in the Chemistry department. Phil completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Michigan before moving to industry.

Wendy Dwyer joined AI Proteins in November 2022 and serves as Chief Business Officer. She brings deep industry and transactional experience in the pharmaceutical, biotech, and enabling technology fields.Prior to joining AI Proteins, Wendy spent 25 years providing Business Development leadership at companies including Surface Oncology, Portal Instruments, AstraZeneca, Ipsen BioScience and Endo Pharmaceuticals (formerly Indevus Pharmaceuticals). She has worked across multiple therapeutic areas with a key focus in oncology at Surface Oncology, AstraZeneca and Ipsen. She began her career at Indevus pharmaceuticals and over the years has led many strategic initiatives and transactions including various licensing partnerships, collaborations, co-promotions and M&A deals.Wendy received her Masters in Management from Lesley University, and BS in Psychology from Endicott College.