Peter S. Distefano

Pete is Chief Scientific Officer at Zebra Biologics, Inc. He has over 25 years of experience in pharma and biotech including discovering and developing sirtuin modulators as CSO & Sr. Vice President of R&D at Elixir Pharmaceuticals. Elixir’s selisistat (licensed to Siena Biotech) is the only 1st generation synthetic sirtuin modulator still actively pursued in the clinic for the treatment of Huntington’s. Pete founded and currently serves on the Board of Directors of Acylin Therapeutics, a biotech start-up focused on histone acetyltransferases. He received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse and performed his post-doctoral training at Washington University in St. Louis. He has co-authored over 100 manuscripts, reviews, and book chapters and is a co-inventor on 12 issued patents.