Lata Jayaraman brings a wealth of drug discovery experience from her successful career in the biopharmaceutical industry. She is passionate about bringing together diverse teams of scientists to drive innovation for the discovery of new molecules that may lead to the development of novel medicines and improved patient care. Throughout her career she has championed a culture of diversity and inclusion, and is deeply committed to mentoring the next generation of leaders in R & D.

Lata joined LifeMine from Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS), where she built and led the oncology drug discovery group at their new Mechanisms of Cancer Resistance (MoCR) Thematic Research Center in Cambridge. Focused on understanding tumor-mediated mechanisms of resistance to therapy, she and her team of experienced drug hunters progressed tumor intrinsic targets through the drug discovery process. Prior to working at BMS, Lata held leadership roles at Seres Therapeutics, a microbiome company where she built and led the immuno-oncology group and delivered one of the first microbiome drugs to the clinic, and Cerulean Pharma, a nanoparticle technology platform biotech. Before Cerulean, she was at Merck Research Laboratories (MRL) in Boston, where she led a team working on multiple oncology and immuno-oncology drug discovery programs. Lata started her industry career in the oncology drug discovery group at BMS in Lawrenceville, NJ where she spent over a decade in roles of increasing responsibility. An overarching theme in her industry career is the focus on data-driven decisions made in a timely fashion to deliver a robust portfolio of high-value targets. Lata also served for several years as a grant reviewer for the American Cancer Society.

Lata earned her Ph.D. at Columbia University and completed her post-doctoral fellowship at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center.