Fred E. Cohen
Dr. Fred E. Cohen was a Professor of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, Medicine, and Biochemistry and Biophysics at the University of California, San Francisco, and is currently a Partner and Managing Director at TPG, a private equity group. Cohen is best known for his work in computational biology. He has used the computer as an experimental tool to explore the relationships between protein sequence and structure, going on to use these relationships as a starting point for drug design efforts. More recently, Cohen and Dr. Stanley Prusiner have collaborated to investigate the molecular basis of prion replication. This work has led to our understanding of the prion diseases as diseases of protein folding. Cohen has been the recipient of many awards, including a Rhodes Scholarship, a Searle Scholars Junior Faculty Award, the Louis Vuitton-Moet Hennessey Prix d'Honneur Award, recognition as one of 40 Under 40 in the Bay Area by San Francisco Focus Magazine, and the Burroughs Wellcome New Initiatives in Malaria Award. Cohen has been elected as a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and as a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Western Association of Physicians, the Association of American Physicians, and the National Academy of Medicine, in addition to his American Academy of Arts and Sciences membership. Cohen has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles in journals including Nature Medicine and Science, participated as a co-inventor on over 10 patents.
For the last 15 years, Dr. Cohen has been at TPG where he has been responsible for co-leading the Biotechnology investment effort. The Biotechnology team has invested in over 50 companies covering areas of Drug Discovery and Development, Personalized Medicine, Allied Pharmaceutical Services, Industrial Biotechnology and Medical Technology. The group was formed in 2002 and is investing its fourth fund. Currently, TPG Biotechnology manages over $1 Billion in assets and is an integral part of the firm’s larger healthcare efforts.
Dr. Cohen currently serves on the Board of Directors of several biotechnology and pharmaceutical organizations including Intellia (NTLA), CareDx(CDNA), Genomic Health(GHDX), Progyny, UroGen (URGN) and Veracyte(VCYT).