Leadership

Xiling Shen, PhD
Xiling Shen, PhD
Scientific Founder

Dr. Shen is Scientific Founder at Xilis. He has 13 years of industrial and academic experience as a design engineer and faculty member at Cornell University and Duke University. His work focuses on combining engineering, computational and biological techniques to study patient models of cancer and precision medicine. Dr. Shen is currently the Hawkins Family Associate Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Duke, the Director of the Woo Center for Big Data and Precision Health (DAP) and a core member of the Center for Genomics and Computational Biology (GCB). He received his BS, MS, and PhD from Stanford University.

David Hsu, MD, PhD
David Hsu, MD, PhD
Founder

Dr. Hsu is co-founder of Xilis. He is a medical oncologist and is currently Associate Professor of Medicine at Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Hsu’s clinical interests include gastrointestinal malignancies and colorectal cancer. His lab focuses on using patient models of cancer, high-throughput genomic and proteomic technologies to develop new therapies and diagnostics for cancer. He received his MD and PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and completed his medical training at UT Southwestern Medical Center and Duke Medical Center.

Thomas Duke, PhD, JD
Thomas Duke, PhD, JD
Interim Chief Executive Officer

Dr. Duke is Interim CEO at Xilis. He has extensive experience as an executive leader, attorney, and board member, guiding strategy for life sciences companies ranging from startups to multi-billion-dollar pharma companies. Dr. Duke received his B.S. in Microbiology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, his Ph.D. in Molecular Biochemistry and Biophysics from Illinois Institute of Technology, and his J.D. from Loyola University Chicago School of Law.

Elena Helman, PhD
Elena Helman, PhD
VP, Data Science and Bioinformatics

Dr. Helman is Vice President of Data Science and Bioinformatics at Xilis. She has over 10 years experience in the cancer genomics and diagnostic space, bringing together data analytics and computational tools with a deep knowledge of cancer biology. She has developed diagnostic products across the regulatory landscape, led algorithm design, and biopharma partnerships. Dr Helman was previously Director of Bioinformatics at Guardant Health. She received her PhD in Bioinformatics and Integrative Genomics from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology.

Michal Ayalon
Michal Ayalon
VP, Translational Science

Dr. Ayalon is Vice President of Translational Science at Xilis. She has over 20 years of experience in drug discovery and drug development, leading R&D projects and teams in the early development of Biologics in multiple therapeutic areas including Immunology, Oncology, Metabolic diseases, and GI/Liver diseases.

Prior to joining Xilis Dr. Ayalon was Vice President of R&D of Kamada where she led all early therapeutics programs overseeing non-clinical and CMC as well as life cycle management of Kamada’s FDA-approved products. Previously, Dr. Ayalon served as Head of R&D at 89bio, where she had a leading role in the company establishment as a spin-out of Teva Pharmaceutical and in substantial fundraising and managed all R&D functions: non-clinical, translational science, early clinical development, CMC, regulatory and project management. Prior to that, Dr. Ayalon had leading R&D roles in several small and mid-size biotech companies. Dr. Ayalon received her Ph.D. in cell biology and Immunology from Tel-Aviv University and completed her postdoctoral research in molecular cancer biology at the Weizmann Institute of Science.