Venture Partners

Tuvia Barak
Aerospace & Technology Consultant

In 1982, Mr. Barak joined Tadiran, Inc., the North American subsidiary of Tadiran, the largest electronics conglomerate in Israel. During his 12-year tenure, over $3 billion in revenue was achieved under his direction, and Tadiran became one of the major suppliers of tactical communications to the U.S. Army. Mr. Barak developed strategic alliances and partnerships with some of the largest aerospace and defense companies. In 1993, Mr. Barak established his own marketing and consulting practice, advising U.S. and international companies on business development, marketing strategies, technology assessment, and mergers and acquisitions in the aerospace and technology fields.

Mr. Barak is a member of the Board of Directors of Skyline Software, Arinc Corp., Fairchild Imaging, Detto Technologies, GeoData Technologies and Atair Aerospace, and is a senior advisor to Lux Capital.

His many clients have included The Carlyle Group, L-3 Communications, ITT, General Dynamics, AAI/Textron, BAE, EDS,DRS, Elbit Systems, Schott, Selex, Ness Technologies, Vought Aircraft, SanDisk, United Defense, Mantech International, NanoSys, MapInfo, Rockwell Collins and Raytheon. Mr. Barak has a M.Sc. in E.E. from the Technion Institute of Technology, Israel.

Herb Goronkin
Former Vice President & Director of the Physical Research Labs, Motorola

Herb Goronkin was most recently VP and Director of the Physical Research Labs at Motorola. Following research assignments in compound semiconductors, silicon ICs, optical sensors, and microwave semiconductor devices, he joined Motorola in 1977 to establish their GaAs electronics program. He led the development of Motorola’s early versions of heterostructure transistors for low power, low noise wireless applications and high efficiency power transistors for cellular telephones. He teamed to develop the high power, low voltage heterostructure power transistor for the StarTac phone. In the mid-90s, his lab developed a new class of high density DNA biochips for analysis of genetic mutations and spun the effort into a newly formed division in 1998. The lab focused on development of microfluidic chips and achieved biological sample preparation and analysis in a single small cartridge. He focused significant attention of his labs on the field on nanoelectronics beginning in 1998 while contributing to efforts that led to creation of the National Nanotechnology Initiative. The nanoelectronics effort focused on fabrication and utilization of carbon nanotubes for field emission displays and electronic devices intended for future logic, wireless and biosensor applications. The lab synthesized and evaluated numerous organic electronic molecules for potentially useful device properties.

Herb started background investigations of MRAM in 1993, kicked off the formal program in 1995, and continued to spearhead development of MRAM in Motorola until it was transferred from the labs to manufacturing in 2000 for commercialization in 2003. His labs continued to explore radical scaling of MRAM memory elements as well as new device applications of spintronic structures and materials. Herb became well respected within Motorola for his ability to choose superior leaders who carried out these programs. Herb is a Fellow of the IEEE and member of the American Physical Society and Sigma Xi. He has served on numerous conference committees and professional organizations. He has over 65 patents and numerous publications. He received Motorola’s Distinguished Innovator Award in 1992 and the Master Innovator Award in 1995. He was a member of Motorola’s Science Advisory Board Associates and was selected as Senior Engineer of the Year in 1993 by the Phoenix Section of the IEEE. Herb was a Motorola Dan Noble Fellow. He received the BA, MA and Ph.D. in physics from Temple University. Herb serves on boards of companies, university research centers and national laboratories.

David Sinclair, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pathology, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Sinclair is a co-founder of both Sirtris Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: SIRT) and Genocea Biosciences, and is Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School and Director of the Glenn Laboratories for the Biological Mechanisms of Aging. He has made key contributions to the scientific understanding of aging, making him one of the most highly published and respected scientists in biology. In 1997, Dr. Sinclair identified the cause of aging in yeast, a first for any species, and in 2003 reported the discovery of a conserved master regulatory gene controlling this process. His laboratory at Harvard is currently focused on slowing diseases of aging in mammals using genetic and pharmacological means. In 2004, Dr, Sinclair co-founded Sirtris Pharmaceuticals and helped grow it into one of the most successful biotech companies in recent years.

Dr. Sinclair has authored over 50 peer-reviewed scientific publications, including several seminal papers in Nature, Cell and Science. His work has been reported in most of the leading news media including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, TIME and Newsweek. He has received numerous awards and honors for his research. Dr. Sinclair performed his post-doctoral work with Dr. Leonard Guarente at M.I.T. and holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics from the University of New South Wales, Australia. Dr. Sinclair was honored by Genzyme with the Outstanding Achievement in Biomedical Science Award for 2004. Dr. Sinclair will remain an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School and is currently a Director at Sirtris Pharmaceuticals.