Luke Esposito leads strategy and operations for Brain Health. He joined the Allen Institute in 2017 and previously served as the executive director of scientific operations for Brain Science. His work lies at the interface of science and business, with the goal of creating a clear path from actionable scientific discoveries to next generation therapies for human disease.

Luke comes to the Allen Institute after spending a decade in the Seattle area biotechnology industry, much of this time at ProteoTech, Inc. (later ProtaMed, Inc.) where he last served as vice president of product development and led a team of scientists developing small molecule therapeutics targeting misfolded proteins as potential treatments for neurodegenerative disease. These programs included a variety of target molecules and disease indications, with a specific emphasis on Parkinson’s disease and its pathological hallmark, α-synuclein.

Prior to this, as a postdoctoral fellow at the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease at the University of California, San Francisco, Luke studied how cellular stressors, such as mitochondrial oxidative stress and p53-dependent pro-apoptotic signaling, synergize with the amyloid-beta (Aβ) peptide to accelerate neurodegeneration in models of Alzheimer’s disease. Peer recognition of his expertise in the field of neurodegeneration and Parkinson’s disease includes his service as a journal review editor, invited author, and scientific advisor.

Luke received his PhD in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology from Emory University, studying the role of genetically-induced bioenergetic deficits in mitochondrial disease and aging; and he earned his BS in Chemistry from Boston College, where he purified proteins for use in x-ray crystallography studies