Leadership

Benoit Lehallier, PhD, is head of data science at Alkahest Inc., where he uses cutting-edge proteomics to understand the cause of diseases and to identify new drug targets and early biomarkers of disease. Before joining Alkahest, Dr. Lehallier was a faculty member in the department of neurology at Stanford, where he led research on the molecular changes associated with normal and abnormal aging. Benoit’s research, featured in top scientific journals like Nature and covered extensively by mainstream media, has reshaped our understanding of the plasma proteome. Dr. Lehallier has more than 15 years of experience in industry and academia in integrating complex molecular signals in a systems biology context and has worked on dozens of cross-sectional and longitudinal cohorts.

Chunmiao (Mia) Feng is the Associate Director of Biostatistics at Alkahest, where she leads efforts in preclinical and clinical proteomic analysis, leveraging cutting-edge technologies. She and her team combine biostatistical methods, advanced machine learnings techniques and biological insights to uncover the molecular basis of complex diseases, identify therapeutic targets, and discover biomarkers for innovative treatments. She brings over 15 years of cross-disciplinary research experience, with extensive expertise in analyzing cross-sectional and longitudinal preclinical and clinical data to advance cures for heterogeneous diseases such as Parkinson’s disease (PD) and Alzheimer’s disease (AD). Mia holds a PhD and MS from North Carolina State University and a BS from Fudan University in Shanghai. She completed her postdoctoral training at Duke University, where she also served as a lecturer. 

Idit Kosti is the Associate Director of Real-World Data Analytics, leading the annotations team at Alkahest. She leverages advanced computational approaches, including machine learning, to analyze real-world data (RWD), generating novel insights into complex diseases and shedding light on molecular signals from proteomics data. With over 15 years of experience in computational biology research, Idit possesses deep expertise in analyzing omics and RWD to advance knowledge and understanding across diverse disease areas. Idit earned her PhD from the Technion and completed postdoctoral training at the Bakar Computational Health Sciences Institute at University of California, San Francisco. Her research findings are published in leading journals, driving advancements in our understanding of disease and paving the way for future breakthroughs in precision medicine.

Nathan is the Associate Director of Genome Informatics at Alkahest, bringing nearly 20 years of experience in bioinformatics and genomics to his role. Specializing in highly scalable and reproducible research, Nathan excels at bridging scientific inquiry with technical excellence. He leads transformative initiatives at the intersection of data science, informatics and software engineering, driving innovation across Alkahest’s research programs. A key focus of Nathan’s work is ensuring that Chronos-PD is well-positioned to scale within the Parkinson’s disease project and expand to support future research initiatives. By integrating advanced computational tools with robust engineering practices, Nathan ensures the seamless, reproducible and scalable analyses within Chonos-PD and beyond. Nathan holds a PhD in Bioinformatics from University of York and a Master of Pharmacology from University of Bath.