Francis Lee

Advise early-stage techbio and deeptech founders on platform strategy, bio R&D software, data/compute infrastructure, fundraising, and technical diligence; act as fractional CTO to jumpstart ML and data pipelines for pre-seed through Series A.

Led development of Peptilogics' platform at Series B, growing the team from 2 to 55 and designing a scalable peptide synthesis platform with real-time ML analytics; authored three patents and supported a $20M Series B raise.

Delivered inference and deep learning solutions for pharmaceutical and biomedical clients (e.g., Alexion, Novartis), built production-scale models for biologics QC, and led a 15-person engineering team.

Designed and built core data assets and ML models for antimicrobial peptide design, contributed to three patents, and assisted in securing Series B funding.

Built web-based RNA-seq pipelines delivering differential expression, coexpression networks, and variant discovery; led a team of six data engineers and developed tumor classification and dynamic metabolic models from multi-omics data.

Co-founded startup developing functional biopolymers for industrial use, raised $850K seed funding, developed cost models and go-to-market strategy; assets later acquired privately.

Developed deep generative models for anti-fouling biopolymers; oversaw manufacturing and testing of ~200 candidates, producing three successful designs with desired properties.

Led build-out of a mammalian biofoundry and implemented algorithms for synthetic DNA construct design; supported collaborations with Pfizer on CHO cell engineering tools.

Developed higher-level protocol descriptor language for OT1 prototype, authored the first OT1 white paper, and delivered early software to customers at a Series C biotech automation startup.

Optimized and scaled proprietary DNA assembly pipelines, developed QC measures, cost models, and operations strategy for the Build pipeline, and created engineering tools for minimal genome projects.

Activities and societies: Teaching assistant (MIT courses), BOSLab co-founder and director, iGEM advisor/instructor/judge

Completed the Advanced Studies Program in Systems and Computational Biology, focusing on computational and systems approaches to biological problems.

Activities and societies: Teaching assistant (MIT courses), collaboration with industry partners

Graduate coursework in Biological Engineering as part of continued training in synthetic and systems biology.

Activities and societies: BOSLab co-founder and director, iGEM involvement

Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry with coursework and projects in molecular biology and bioengineering.