Dr. Yosef Refaeli

Purpose Bio, a UCLA spin-out in the life sciences and drug discovery field, has announced the appointment of Dr. Yosef Refaeli as Scientific Advisory Board Member. Dr. Refaeli joins PurposeBio's SAB to advise on discovery, research and development, clinical and commercialization efforts, in developing our innovative medicines.

Dr. Refaeli comes to PurposeBio with more than 30 years of experience working across diverse disciplines of R&D and clinical trials. Dr. Refaeli has led drug discovery and development in multiple therapeutics areas, including immunology, oncology and infectious diseases. He has taken 3 cancer cell therapy programs from inception to 3 active clinical trials across the globe. Dr. Refaeli also led a team that successfully took a cell therapy program for cancer in dogs from inception to commercial launch.

Dr. Refaeli earned his Ph.D. at the Harvard Medical School in Dr. Abul Abbas’ laboratory under the aegis of the Committee on Immunology. He then went on to pursue postdoctoral training at the laboratory of Dr. J. Michael Bishop at the G.W. Hooper Foundation at the University of California San Francisco. His B.A degree is from the University of Pennsylvania.  In 2003 he joined the faculty at the National Jewish Medical Center, and joined the University of Colorado in 2009, where he is Associate Professor, Charles C. Gates Program in Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Biology, Department of Dermatology, University of Colorado Denver School of Medicine.  In 2006 he Co-Founded Taiga Biotechnologies and served as the CEO until 2022. He has since transitioned to an advisory role in that organization.

We are extremely humbled in welcoming Dr. Refaeli to our SAB team.