Geoffrey von Maltzahn

Early life and education

Von Maltzahn was born in Arlington, Texas, and subsequently moved to Alexandria, Virginia, where he attended Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.

He was awarded his S.B. in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003, his master's degree in Bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego in 2005, and his PhD from the Harvard–MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2010. He completed his doctoral thesis with the support of Whitaker Foundation and National Science Foundation Fellowships in the laboratory of Sangeeta N. Bhatia.

Innovation and entrepreneurship

As an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, von Maltzahn developed a novel class of lipid-like peptides that self-assemble into bilayers, micelles, and other nanostructures in aqueous solutions. This work was recognized with multiple awards and von Maltzahn was named a “Whiz Kid” by The Journal of New England Technology, given the Randolph G. Wei UROP Award for “MIT’s most outstanding contribution at the interface of life sciences and engineering,” and awarded the MIT Robert Haslam Cup for “outstanding professional promise in Chemical Engineering”.

In his doctoral work at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, von Maltzahn studied examples in nature where interactions between multiple nanoscale components lead to emergent system behaviors. He invented the first therapeutics that can communicate in the bloodstream to more efficiently find and treat cancer and created novel parts for nanotechnology research, including the first ‘synthetic biomarkers’ for diagnosing and monitoring complex diseases, platelet-like nanoparticles for cancer imaging, nanoantennas for ultra-precise laser treatments, and nanoparticle logic gates. He authored over twenty peer-reviewed publications during his graduate work.

Drawing from his work in nanotechnology and plasmonic materials, von Maltzahn co-founded Sienna Labs to develop a new class of medical pigments for laser medical procedures. Sienna Labs is a clinical-stage medical device company developing medical pigments with up to 1,000,000X higher absorption than native skin chromophores and has products in development for acne and other dermatological indications. He also co-founded Nanopartz to develop highly reproducible parts for nanotechnology research.

In 2009, von Maltzahn joined Noubar Afeyan and David Berry at Flagship Pioneering, where he began studying the pharmacology of nutrition and devising systems to efficiently produce essential and performance nutrients for a variety of health needs. He founded Pronutria (later renamed Axcella), a company focused on developing performance nutrients, and co-invented its founding technologies. He led the company's Discovery team and was PI on a Gates Foundation grant. Axcella’s technology has the potential to produce enough protein to provide for the needs of millions of people in a land area the size of Rhode Island.

In 2010, von Maltzahn began studying the ecological nature of the human microbiome and devising ways to generate novel therapeutics. In 2011, von Maltzahn founded Seres Therapeutics to develop a new category of therapeutics to catalyze restoration of a healthy microbiome and was the company’s founding Chief Technology Officer.

Recognitions

National Inventors Hall of Fame Collegiate Inventors Competition Graduate Student Prize (2009)

Lemelson-MIT Student Prize, awarded to the single most innovate student at MIT (2009)

Randolph G. Wei Award for “MIT’s most outstanding undergraduate contribution at the interface of life sciences and engineering” (2003)

MIT Robert Haslam Cup for “outstanding professional promise in Chemical Engineering” (2003)