Johan Wikstrom, CEO of Tolka AI Therapeutics, combines personal experience with *M. abscessus* and eight years at Google in machine learning to drive breakthroughs in phage therapy. Under his leadership, Tolka’s lab achieved the first discovery of lytic phages for smooth *M. abscessus*, positioning the company as a leader in tackling antibiotic-resistant infections.
Fractional Chief Medical Officer of Tolka AI, is board-certified in internal medicine and infectious disease and has held clinical and product development positions over 30 years at FDA, Merck, Aeras, BARDA and multiple biotech companies. Prior to Tolka AI, he was the Chief Medical Officer at Adaptive Phage Therapeutics and Ocugen, where he led clinical development and medical affairs activities. He has approved multiple therapeutic and prophylactic products in the infectious disease space. He is passionate about finding solutions to difficult-to-treat infections, including those due to non-tuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) and mycobacteria tuberculosis (TB).
Dr. Waqas Chaudhry is an interdisciplinary scientist specializing in bacteriology, virology, immunology, and phage therapy. With a PhD in Phage Therapy and four years of postdoctoral training in Phage Ecology and Evolution at Emory University, he has honed expertise in phage biology, drug discovery, and medical microbiology. His groundbreaking work includes developing phage therapies to address multidrug-resistant infections and advancing GMP-grade phage manufacturing. As Principal Scientist at Adaptive Phage Therapeutics, Dr. Chaudhry played a pivotal role in developing a phage bank for ESKAPE pathogens, process development, analytical testing, and phage drug production. His academic journey has yielded peer-reviewed publications and significant contributions to phage ecology, evolution, and therapeutic applications. A skilled mentor and project manager, he combines scientific innovation with team leadership to advance biomedical science and tackle urgent global health challenges.
Thomas is a seasoned biology researcher, entrepreneur, and Thiel Fellow with extensive lab and leadership experience. At 17, he was awarded a $100K Thiel Fellowship, one of its youngest recipients, to develop a novel cancer detection method that dramatically reduced testing costs. His work spans cancer research, age-related diseases, and automated microbiology workflows. At Parallel Health, he built a comprehensive phage-bacteria library, automated assays, and developed high-throughput systems that accelerated research efficiency.
A co-founder at Tolka AI Therapeutics, Volodymyr combines expertise in software engineering, machine learning, and bioinformatics. Formerly a Senior Software Engineer at Google, he specialized in large-scale NLP systems. At Tolka, he develops software pipelines for genome analysis, protein structure prediction, and machine learning applications in phage therapy. His passion for big data and bioinformatics drives innovations in leveraging bacteriophage genomes, nature's largest dataset.
