Zafi Avnur

Dr. Avnur is the Chief Scientific officer at Quark Venture LP, a venture capital investment firm. Quark Venture LP is focused on equity financing of innovative biotechnology and health sciences companies with breakthrough technology platforms and projects. Prior to Quark, Zafi was the Global Head of Academic Innovation for Roche Partnering, responsible for creating relationships with the world’s leading academic institutions and world class innovators, gaining early access to innovation. In that role, she created nine startup companies. Preceding her academic innovation leadership role, Ms. Avnur was based in Basel, Switzerland, working in both diagnostics and pharmaceutical research, progressing from scientist and manager to assuming global responsibilities. At Roche, she contributed to the PHC (Personalized Health Care) initiative and oversaw the advancement of a number of compounds from the bench to clinical studies, to characterize the pharmacodynamics and clinical effects. Ms. Avnur was named Distinguished Scientist, the highest scientific appointment at Roche, holds a post doctorate (Cancer Biology) from Stanford University, and a Ph.D. from Weizmann Institute (Cell Biology).