Meet Our Team
Renee A. Reijo Pera, PhD
Chief Scientific Officer
Renee Reijo-Pera PhD is a world-renowned stem cell reproductive biologist and geneticist who has mainly focused her career on human gametogenesis. One of her earliest discoveries was the importance of the Azoospermia Factor (AZF) region on the Y chromosome and the DAZ genes in particular to human spermatogenesis. Subsequently, her work has furthered our understanding of both male and female human gametogenesis and embryogenesis. This work has led Dr. Reijo Pera to several distinctions including being honored as one of the “Twenty Influential Women Leaders in the US” (Newsweek, 2006) and behind one of the “Top 10 Biomedical Breakthroughs” (Time, 2010).
Constance M. John, RPh, PhD
Chief Executive Officer
Constance John PhD is trained as a pharmaceutical chemist. She is a Professor of Laboratory Medicine at UCSF and CEO of MandalMed, Inc., a biotechnology company developing treatments for cardiac fibrosis. She led research that resulted in the discovery of a population of proliferative progenitor human Sertoli cells. Through MandalMed, Dr. John also directs the BioScience Laboratories, a successful life sciences incubator in San Francisco that has hosted numerous start-ups, including Global Blood Therapeutics, PuraCath Medical, Shasqi, Notable Labs, 64-x bio, and CloudCath, that have received hundreds of million dollars in venture capital, have developed or are testing human products, and have had IPOs, including most recently Olema Pharmaceuticals in 2020.
Paul Turek, MD, FACS
Chief Medical Officer
Paul Turek MD is one of the world’s thought leaders in male reproductive health. Having retired from a position as a Professor with an endowed chair in the Department of Urology at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF), he is founder and director of The Turek Clinic located in San Francisco and Los Angeles, CA. Dr. Turek is a past President of the American Society of Andrology and the Society of Male Reproduction and Urology. He is the inventor of sperm “mapping”, an advanced alternative to microdissection procedures to find testicular sperm in sterile men. He also led the design and development of the first FDA-approved testicular prosthesis. He is also a founder of AlphaSperm, Inc., one of the first manufacturers of «prenatal» supplements for men that has become popular worldwide.