Bennett Shapiro MD is senior partner and chair of PureTech, a science & technology R & D company. Prior to joining PureTech, Dr. Shapiro was executive vice president of Merck Research Laboratories where he initially led all basic and preclinical research activities worldwide and then all of Merck's external research. Dr. Shapiro led the research program that resulted in FDA registration of approximately 25 drugs and vaccines. Prior to Merck, Shapiro was a professor and chairman of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Washington. He is the author of over 120 papers on the molecular regulation of cellular behavior and the biochemical events that integrate the cascade of cellular activations at fertilization. He has served on many institutional advisory boards and scientific review panels, and is currently a member of the board of the Drugs for Neglected Disease Initiative (Doctors Without Borders), and a co-founder and board member of Tal Medical (clinical stage medical device company developing a novel neurostimulation based treatment for psychiatric disorders), Vedanta Biosciences (a company developing a new class of drugs to modulate the human microbiome), and Akili (developing clinically-validated cognitive therapeutics, assessments and diagnostics that look and feel like high-quality video games).