Meet the Team
Xiaoxi (Sofie) Wei, Ph.D
CEO & Co-founder
is an award-winning American entrepreneur and inventor in the area of biomimetic nanoscience and biopreservation in Regenerative Medicine. Being persistent in her life vision to enable “on-demand organs” from a very young age, she pursued her scientific endeavor in biomimetic Chemistry at SUNY Buffalo, earning her doctorate.
Inheriting the entrepreneurial spirit from her family, she successfully managed $8M in engineering projects while completing her Ph.D. Then she founded X-Therma in the San Francisco Bay Area in Oct 2014 to bring lab innovation to patients.
Dr. Wei is the inventor of X-Therma’s core technologies based on biomimetic hyper-effective ice prevention materials and devices, resulting in 17 issued global patents. She has served as principal investigator or co-PI of 12 national and international innovation research grants with accumulated value exceeding $14M USD from DoD, NSF, NIH, CIRM, EU etc. She has led the X-Therma research endeavors at The Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory 2015-2024. She serves as a healthcare advisor for the UC Regents working group on innovation transfer and entrepreneurship, is a scientific advisor for Life Extension Foundation, and was the Vice Chair of the Younger Chemists Committee of the American Chemical Society (ACS), and Cal ACS Executive Committee Member. She is currently a distinguished member of the RULEBREAKER Society, in Germany.
Mark Kline, Ph.D.
CTO & Co-founder
Mark Kline has been continuously involved in research at the interplay of chemistry and biology and is an expert in supramolecular systems and peptidomimetic polymer synthesis. As a Materials Postdoctoral Fellow at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, US, he played a critical role in a DARPA Fold F(x), making large strides in biomimetic nanoscience. As Vice Chair of the Berkeley Postdoctoral Entrepreneur Program, he guided UC-Berkeley postdocs and graduate students to begin their entrepreneurial journey. He also served as the point of contact on $7.5 million in procurement projects while completing his Ph.D. study and served as boxing club president at Allegheny College for 3 years.
Johannes Weggemann, CFA
Chief Financial Officer
From 2021, Johannes has been an active member of the Board of Directors at X-Therma and joined our executive team as CFO in August 2024.
With 14 years of leadership experience in corporate development (restructuring, venture, midcap), M&A, family office management, and capital markets, Johannes has a proven track record of investing, driving growth and value. In his previous roles, Johannes led several strategic exits as CFO, including a venture exit to a FTSE 100 company. As Managing Director, he oversaw a diversified asset portfolio with assets under management in the three-digit million USD range.
Johannes currently serves on the board of LOREA AG and is an advisory board member of BHS Technologies GmbH. His extensive international experience spans across North America, Southeast Asia and the Middle East, where his analytical approach and strong negotiation skills have been critical to success.
Michael Osborne, MBA
SVP Commercialization
Mike brings 20+ years of executive leadership and business development expertise to X-Therma as Senior Vice President, Commercial. Prior to X-Therma, Mike served as Vice President at Andelyn Biosciences, an affiliate organization of Nationwide Children’s Hospital in Columbus, OH. Mike has also led commercial efforts at the Boston Institute of Biotechnology, served as Director at Trupanion pre-IPO through post-IPO (now a $3B market cap org), and helped build a veterinary healthcare finance portfolio at GE Capital.
Mike resides in Connecticut with his wife, children, and family pets and looks forward to commercializing X-Therma’s breakthrough cryopreservation and organ transport technologies
Zachary Betts, MBA
Vice President Program Management
Engaging business and people leader, investor, and management consultant with 25+ years working with startup, growth stage, and large enterprise/global programs focused on capital planning, program risk governance, organizational performance, mergers and acquisitions. Achieved early career IPO exit, transitioning into startups, management consulting, pivoting into VC, specializing in biotechnology, medical devices, and national healthcare organizations, enterprise cloud (Saas) technology, GMP, and program delivery. Past leadership roles include working with Rio Tinto, Answerthink (Hackett), Deloitte, Accenture Consulting, Fortive (Danaher), and VU Venture Partners.
Andreas Beer
Sr. Director Medical Devices
Andreas has been involved in more than 200 product concepts, industrial design and development projects over the last 20 years and in his former position as managing director of HYVE – the innovation company he has accompanied start-ups, SMEs as well as global corporations from various industries. As a product designer by heart, he gained knowledge and experience in packaging, consumer goods, capital goods and medical devices, is (co-)inventor of more than 25 patents, (co-)originator of 28 award-winning industrial designs and shares his thought leadership in “phygital product development” as lecturer and faculty member. Andreas lives in Munich and orchestrates business, technological and human factors in the development of our hardware products.
Science Advisors
Ronald N. Zuckermann, Ph.D.
Researcher Emeritus, Molecular Foundry, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Dr. Zuckermann is a world-class biomimetic chemistry expert and the inventor of peptoid polymers, with over 180 publications and 37 patents.
Kenneth Storey, Ph.D.
Canada Research Chair in Molecular Physiology and Professor of Biochemistry at Carleton University, Canada. World’s leading expert in hibernation and biological stasis and creator of new approaches to gene therapy that allow organisms to survive extreme frozen states. Advisor to European and Japanese Space Agencies.
John Schloendorn, Ph.D.
Founder and CEO of Gene and Cell Technologies. Previously, CEO of ImmunePath, a venture capital-backed regenerative medicine startup where he oversaw the development of immune cell therapies from embryonic stem cells (2009 to 2012). Director of SENS Foundation’s intramural Research Center 2006 to 2009.
Medical Advisors
Gerald Brandacher, M.D., FAST
Professor of Surgery and of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Vice Chair of Research and Scientific Director, John Hopkins Reconstructive Transplantation Program; Director of Interdisciplinary Research and Innovation for the Surgical Sciences; Director of Center for Advanced Physiological Modeling (CAPM); Director Vascularized Composite Allotransplantation (VCA) Research Laboratory, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine; Immediate Past President American Society for Reconstructive Transplantation (ASRT). A world-renowned expert in VCA transplantation.
David H. Ledbetter, Ph.D., FACMG
Previously Geisinger’s Executive Vice President & Chief Scientific Officer (2010-2020), a leading integrated healthcare system, where he built one of the largest and most advanced genomics/Precision Medicine programs in the world. Previously, he was the Robert W. Woodruff Professor and Director of the Division of Medical Genetics, at Emory University School of Medicine, and held academic and leadership positions at the University of Chicago, the National Center for Human Genome Research (now NHGRI) at NIH and Baylor College of Medicine. He is an internationally-renowned expert in human genetics and genomics.
David C. Mulligan, MD, FACS, FAASLD, FAST
Previous President of UNOS/OPTN; Previous Chair of the Advisory Council on Transplantation to the Secretary of HHS; Chair and Professor of Transplantation and Immunology at Yale UniversityBuilt the Multiorgan Transplant Program at Mayo Clinic in Arizona from 1998-2013. Liver, kidney, Pancreas transplantation, hepatobiliary surgery, and immunology. He also served as Councilor at Large for the Board of Governors of the AASLD and Chair of the Business Practice Services Committee and the Wellness Committee of the ASTS.
Business Advisors
Mark Klopp, MBA
Former Board Member of the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) and served as Chairman and founding member of the Corporate Venture Group. Former Managing Director of Eastman Ventures, a top-quartile corporate fund.
Rodney W. Turner
An experienced executive in life science tools companies, Mr. Turner has spent most of his career in leadership roles, with a focus on corporate development and M&A, as well as an advisor to private equity and venture capital groups. He has served and continues to serve as a director on the boards of companies in the US and Europe. He is currently the Head of Global M&A for Fortis Life Sciences. His past roles have included Vice President of Corporate Business Development for Life Technologies Corporation, and CEO of AYOXXA Biosystems GmbH.
Stefano Buono
A nuclear physicist and successful entrepreneur, Stefano started his career working for 10 years with Nobel laureate Carlo Rubbia at CERN and CRS4, in the field of Accelerator Driven Systems and nuclear waste transmutation. In 2002, he founded Advanced Accelerator Applications, listed on NASDAQ until its acquisition by Novartis for $3.9 bn. He is the Chairman of various organisations, and the founder of Elysia Capital, his single family office. He is the founder and CEO of Newcleo. He is the author of numerous scientific publications, and received his Master’s degree in Physics from the University of Turin.
Giovanni Tesoriere
Giovanni is a Managing Director with over 15 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Before leading LIFTT S.p.A., he held key management positions at Advanced Accelerator Applications, a Novartis company that develops and provides radioligand-based, targeted therapies and precision diagnostic solutions for oncology. He served as Managing Director for both the Italian and the Spanish affiliates of the company and his earlier roles included Operations Manager, Site Manager, R&D Project Manager, and Qualified Person/R&D Manager. His educational background comprises a Master’s degree in Medical Chemistry, an Executive MBA and an Executive Master in Finance.
