Team

Co-Founder

CEO

Ananya is passionate about using exciting science to bring life-changing therapies to market for patients. 

Her experiences in the contract manufacturing and development side of the pharma/biotech industry in roles across Operations, Engineering, Business Development, and Project Management, have given her a holistic view of a complex industry. 

Ananya has earned a BSE in Biomedical Engineering from Duke University, a MS in Engineering Sciences and an MBA from Harvard. Prior to founding Guardian Bio, she was a Blavatnik Fellow at Harvard Business School. 

Co-Founder

CSO

Driven by a love of science and the ocean, Ricky started his career as a marine biologist and research diver at Florida Atlantic University with a focus on marine natural products and drug discovery.   

Increasingly interested in therapeutic applications, he pursued a PhD at University of Central Florida, focused on immunology. During his postdoctoral fellowship in cancer immunology and tumor microenvironment at the University of Pennsylvania, he worked on academic/industry partnerships , published papers, and was awarded academic grants including the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (T32).   

Ricky is a prolific science communicator and frequently appears on podcasts and creates educational science content for an audience of over a quarter million followers across various social media platforms. 

 Academic Co-Founder

Chair, Scientific Advisory Board

Dr. Palucka is a world-renowned clinical oncologist and cancer immunologist. Her group pioneered the development of dendritic cell-based therapy for cancer and HIV patients.

Dr. Palucka is Professor and Edison T. Liu Endowed Chair in Cancer Research at The Jackson Laboratory, and is the Director of the JAX Cancer Center, a National Cancer Institute-designated Cancer Center. Her lab is focused in understanding how vaccines work and precisely defining the immune mechanisms that underpin successful vaccination.

Dr. Palucka previously served as the director of the Ralph M. Steinman Center for Cancer Vaccines and was the Michael A.E. Ramsay Chair for Cancer Immunology Research at the Baylor Institute for Immunology Research. She has authored 100+ papers on dendritic cells.