William Kohlbrenner

Dr. Kohlbrenner is currently Chief Scientific Officer at Life Science Nation (LSN), a Boston-based company that provides a uniquely differentiated suite of services for emerging life science companies. His role at LSN involves technical vetting of potential clients and working with established clients to best position their early-stage companies for successful transactions with investors or large technology/pharma companies. He serves on the LSN Advisory Board and is Consulting Scientist for Boston Innovation Capital, an advisory firm that was spun out of LSN in 2014 to address an unmet need among early-stage scientist-entrepreneurs for hands-on assistance in helping them execute fundraising campaigns in the biotech and MedTech arenas.

Prior to joining LSN in 2014, Dr. Kohlbrenner was a director at AbbVie (Abbott pharma) where he was involved in identifying and pursuing external research opportunities and early-stage assets around the globe. This work included leading a global scouting team and conducting strategic assessments of early- and late-stage pipeline opportunities in multiple therapeutic areas. Earlier in his career, Bill led drug discovery research programs in several areas, including oncology, antivirals, and antibacterials. As a director in the Cancer Research area, he was involved in the exploration of novel anti-cancer therapies and the identification of novel cancer targets. A major emphasis of this work was on the RNA therapy space and he led a major in-house research effort that was focused on the identification of nanotechnology-based carriers for the delivery of novel RNA cancer therapies. Bill was extensively involved in setting up and managing external collaborations with universities, research institutes, and biotechs worldwide to support the projects he was leading.

Bill has co-authored numerous research articles (~60) examining the fundamental aspects of various drug targets and the molecular basis of drug action. In 2014 he was an invited member of a working group assembled by the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) to conduct the fifth legislatively mandated strategic assessment of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. He received his Ph.D. from the State University of New York (SUNY) and completed postdoctoral training at the Molecular Biology Institute at UCLA.