Our People

Jim Gilbert, MD, is co-founder and CEO of Guardian. Jim has nearly 30 years of industry experience in clinical development in companies such as Bayer, Boehringer Ingelheim, and Millennium, and across a wide range of therapeutic areas. He previously served as CMO in the private biotech sector prior to Guardian, where he also serves in this capacity. He has been working with aptamer therapeutics since 2006.

Email: jim.gilbert@guardian-rx.com

Shuhao Zhu, PhD, is co-founder and CSO of Guardian. Shuhao has more than 20 years of industry experience in Discovery sciences in multiple therapeutic areas including Oncology, Autoimmune, Infectious Diseases, and Cardiovascular. He has been working to advance aptamer technology since 2005.

Email: shuhao.zhu@guardian-rx.com

George Montgomery is the Chief Financial Officer for Guardian. George has over 30 years of life sciences industry experience in capital raising, business development and M&A. He has served in investment banking leadership roles at JPMorgan, Cowen and CSFB, startup roles in CFO/finance roles and PE/VC principal investing at Gurnet Point Capital and West River Management, LLC.

Tia DeFeo-Fraulini, MS, heads Clinical & Regulatory Operations and Program Management for Guardian. She began her career in clinical research as a project coordinator for the TIMI Group more than 30 years ago. Since then she has held positions of increasing responsibility in Clinical Operations and Project Management in Academic Research Organizations (TIMI, BIDC, Baim), private biotech, and public pharma companies. She began working with aptamer therapeutics in 2006.

Peter Cahill, JD, is General Counsel for Guardian. Peter is a Partner in the law firm, FisherBroyles, and is affiliated with their Boston area office. Peter is a seasoned transactional lawyer with a practice focused on the representation of life science and other technologies. Over the past 20 years, rapidly growing start-up and emerging technology clients have engaged Peter to serve as “outside general counsel”. and he guides them on corporate governance, corporate finance, financing strategy, etc. Peter has been supporting Guardian in this manner since its earliest days.

Bob Schaub, PhD, is the Chairman of Guardian’s Scientific Advisory Board. Bob has an illustrious career of nearly 40 years’ duration in biopharma R&D with senior positions in Discovery and pre-clinical Development in Oncology, Hematology, Immunology, and Cardiovascular. Bob has been contributing to the field of aptamer therapeutics since 2006.

Kristin Thompson, PhD, heads Aptamer Discovery is one of the 4 founding employees of Guardian. Kristin began working in aptamer discovery 20 years ago at Archemix Corp., immediately after getting her PhD in Molecular Biology. She has broad experience in related science and technology including work in Next Generation Sequencing and Genomics Platform Informatics while at the Broad Institute.

Paul Hatala, PhD, is a retained, independent consultant who heads CMC for Guardian. Paul is a synthetic organic chemist who has been in the industry for 20 years. An independent consultant since 2012, Paul has helped to direct CMC programs in diverse modalities including RNA, glycolipid, vaccine, small molecule, protein, and monoclonal antibody therapeutics. Paul began working on aptamer therapeutics at Archemix Corp. in 2005.

Peter Antoniuk, BS, is a retained, independent consultant who designed the Quality System and heads Quality Assurance for Guardian. Peter has been a QA professional for over 30 years, and proprietor of Antoniuk Consulting Services, LLC, for more than 20 years. As a consultant, he has provided services for pharmaceutical, biologics, and vaccine development companies. Since 2000, Peter has conducted between 20 and 40 compliance inspections per year in the areas of cGMP, GLP, and GCP. He has also assisted over 30 early phase companies with implementing their quality systems. Peter specializes in collaborating with emerging companies to help achieve compliance and prepare for early phase clinical efforts.