Alice Zhang (Past Speaker)

Alice Zhang is CEO of Verge Genomics, a next-generation therapeutics company using machine learning and human genomics to accelerate drug discovery for neurodegenerative diseases. She co-founded the company in 2015 with the vision that convergent advances in computation and neurobiology have created an unprecedented opportunity to rapidly unlock multiple breakthrough therapies at scale across human disease. The Verge team is 14 people uniquely combining top talent in computation and drug development, including 12 PhDs in machine learning, applied math, and neuroscience, two former professors, and two pharma veterans responsible for commercial successes such as Abilify.  

Zhang has received numerous awards for her work as a scientist and entrepreneur, including the Featured Honoree in Forbes' 30 under 30 2017 and the prestigious Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship for New Americans. Prior to starting Verge, Zhang has been at the forefront of systems biology research for over a decade at the National Institutes of Health, the Lewis-Sigler Institute for Integrative Genomics at Princeton University, and UCLA. She graduated from Princeton University magna cum laude with high honors in Molecular Biology and subsequently trained for five years in the UCLA-Caltech MD/Ph.D. program investigating gene networks involved in neuro-regeneration.