Jill A. Helms

Jill is a co-founder and the founding CSO of Ankasa. The core technology for stabilizing WNT proteins for in vivo use was developed in her laboratory and exclusively licensed to Ankasa. She was instrumental in raising Ankasa’s $19M Series A financing to support Ankasa’s goal of bringing a WNT-based therapeutic into clinical development.

Jill is a Professor in the Department of Surgery at Stanford University’s School of Medicine. She has led the development program at Stanford to understand the role of Wnt signaling in bone repair and the seminal work directed to the use of hydrophobic WNT proteins as therapeutic agents. Both endeavors have been supported by over $10M in funding from the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM).

Jill received her DDS from the University of Minnesota and her PhD and residency certificate from the University of Connecticut Health Sciences Center. She has published over 200 scientific papers, and currently serves on several scientific and global advisory Boards. She served as the President of the Society for Craniofacial Genetics and Developmental Biology (2006-2008) and has been awarded several prestigious awards including; the International Association for Dental Research Craniofacial Biology award (2013) and the Distinguished Scientist Award – Isaac Schour Memorial Award (2016).