Sixth Street Welcomes Amy Abernethy, Steve Jacobsen, and Jay Shendure to Expanded Scientific Advisory Board

Learn more about Sixth Street Healthcare and Life Sciences

San Francisco – November 30, 2022 – Sixth Street, a leading global investment firm, today announced the appointment of Amy Abernethy, M.D., Ph.D., Steve Jacobsen, Ph.D., and Jay Shendure Ph.D. to the firm’s Scientific Advisory Board (SAB).

Sixth Street’s SAB, which is led by Chief Science Advisor and Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna, Ph.D., assists Sixth Street’s Healthcare and Life Sciences team in its long-term efforts to identify, evaluate, and advance commercial development opportunities within the CRISPR and gene-editing ecosystem.

“Amy, Steve, and Jay are widely recognized leaders in their respective fields of health data, plant epigenetics, and genomics,” said R. Martin Chavez, Ph.D., Vice Chairman and Partner at Sixth Street. “We look forward to their expert advice and counsel as we deepen our understanding of the advancements within CRISPR and the growing intersections across gene-editing and data applications.”

“Our SAB is a group of accomplished scientists dedicated to solving big problems across human health, agriculture, and climate change, and we are proud to welcome Amy, Steve, and Jay,” said Jeff Pootoolal, Partner at Sixth Street. “Our team collaborates closely with our SAB as we seek to provide strategic capital and form long-term partnerships with companies creating and implementing technologies across the rapidly evolving health tech ecosystem.”

Sixth Street finances the development and commercialization of innovative therapeutics and invests in healthcare technology companies across all stages of growth. Sixth Street Healthcare and Life Sciences investments include Arsenal Biosciences, Biohaven, Blueprint Medicines, Caris Life Sciences, ConcertAI, Datavant, DrFirst, Immunogen, Ironwood, Mammoth Biosciences, and MDLIVE.

Dr. Amy Abernethy

Amy Abernethy is the President of the Clinical Studies Platforms of Verily, an Alphabet company focused on precision health. She oversees Verily’s clinical evidence generation product vision and related clinical research portfolio. Dr. Abernethy was most recently Principal Deputy Commissioner of Food and Drugs of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the agency’s acting Chief Information Officer. Prior to her role at the FDA, Dr. Abernethy was Chief Medical Officer, Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President of Oncology of Flatiron Health. Before joining Flatiron, Dr. Abernethy was Professor of Medicine at Duke University School of Medicine and directed the Center for Learning Health Care in the Duke Clinical Research Institute and Duke Cancer Care Research Program in the Duke Cancer Institute. Dr. Abernethy is a hematologist/oncologist and palliative medicine physician who has authored more than 500 publications. She holds a BA in Biochemistry from the University of Pennsylvania, an MD from Duke University School of Medicine, and a PhD in Evidence Based Medicine and Informatics from Flinders University in Australia.

Dr. Steve Jacobsen

Steve Jacobsen is the Principal Investigator in the Jacobsen Lab at UCLA, which studies the molecular genetics and genomics of DNA methylation patterning. He is also a professor of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology and a Professor of Biological Chemistry at UCLA. Dr. Jacobsen joined UCLA’s department of Molecular Cell and Developmental Biology in 1998. He has received two young investigator awards for his research, from the Searle Scholars and Beckman Young Investigator Programs, and was named a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator in 2005. He is also an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dr. Jacobsen completed his PhD at the University of Minnesota and postdoctoral studies at the California Institute of Technology with Elliot Meyerowitz.

Dr. Jay Shendure

Jay Shendure is an HHMI Investigator and Professor of Genome Sciences at the University of Washington. His research group broadly focuses on genomics technology development, e.g. pioneering exome sequencing and its earliest applications to gene discovery, methods for non-invasive diagnostics based on cell-free DNA, and multiplex strategies for functional genetics and developmental biology. Dr. Shendure is the recipient of the Curt Stern Award from the American Society of Human Genetics, the Richard Lounsbery Award from the National Academy of Sciences and the Mendel Award from the European Society of Human Genetics and is an elected member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). He serves or has previously served as an advisor to the NIH Director, the US Precision Medicine Initiative, the National Human Genome Research Institute, the Chan-Zuckerberg Initiative and the Allen Institute He received his MD and PhD degrees from Harvard Medical School in 2007.

About Sixth Street

Founded in 2009, Sixth Street is a global investment firm with over $60 billion in assets under management. The firm uses its long-term flexible capital, data-enabled capabilities, and One Team culture to develop themes and offer solutions to companies across all stages of growth. Sixth Street has more than 400 team members, including over 180 investment professionals operating around the world. For more information, visit www.sixthstreet.com, and follow Sixth Street on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram.