Charles Lin

Charles Lin joined Illumina Ventures in 2022, and he brings 15 years of a wide range of experience in the life-science and genomics sector.

Most recently, Charles was Vice President of Business Development and Marketing at Element Biosciences, a venture-backed startup developing new sequencing technology and solutions. He helped Element raise $80M in Series B financing and lay down the significant groundwork for its critical supplier relationships, go-to-market, and partnering strategy.

From 2007 to 2019, Charles served in several R&D and business roles at Illumina, Inc. He led cross-functional teams to develop microarray and sequencing applications for research or clinical purposes including genetic testing, oncology, transplant medicine, pharmacogenomics, microbiology, single-cell analysis, etc. In 2017, Charles transitioned to Corporate Development to focus on M&A, emerging business areas, and corporate investment opportunities. He led the $100M acquisition of Edico Genome and played a key role in the proposed acquisition of Pacific Biosciences (later blocked by the FTC).

Charles graduated from National Taiwan University with a B.Sc. in Chemistry. In graduate school, Charles studied gene regulation in the antiviral innate immune response with Tom Maniatis and received his Ph.D. in Chemistry and Chemical Biology from Harvard University. During his postdoctoral training with Scott Emr at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and UC San Diego School of Medicine, Charles discovered a new family of arrestin-related ubiquitin-ligase adapters that regulate endocytosis and protein turnover at the cell surface.

Charles is based in San Diego, California.