X-Therma logo

Meet the Team

Xiaoxi (Sofie) Wei, Ph.D​

CEO & Co-founder

LinkedIn

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 

LinkedIn

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.

Michael Osborne, MBA

SVP Commercialization

LinkedIn

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

Sr. Director of Operations

LinkedIn

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

LinkedIn

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.

Board Members

Xiaoxi Wei, Ph.D.

Chair, Chief Executive Officer

Mark Kline, Ph.D.

Member, Chief Technology Officer

Hon. Jim Greenwood

Board of Advisors

Johannes Weggemann

Preferred Director, CFA; Managing Director and Board of Directors of LOREA AG

Science Advisors

Ronald N. Zuckermann, Ph.D.

LinkedIn

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

LinkedIn

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

LinkedIn

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

LinkedIn

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

LinkedIn

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

LinkedIn

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.

NORTH AMERICA

625 Alfred Nobel Drive
Suite B
Hercules, CA 94547
USA

EUROPE

Kaiserjägerstraße 30
6020 Innsbruck
Austria