Shelly Meeusen is the Chief Scientific Officer of Velia. She brings deep expertise in early target discovery and the development of novel therapeutics across a broad range of disease areas and modalities. Shelly previously served as Vice President and Head of Biology at Inception Therapeutics, a biotech incubator aimed at translating early discoveries into transformative biotech companies. Prior to Inception, Shelly was the Executive Director of General Medical Biology at Novartis, where she led a team of ~120 scientists including 40 Ph.D.’s focused on novel therapeutic discovery in auto-immunity, regenerative medicine (including lung, musculoskeletal, neuro, cardiac, liver, and kidney biology) as well as initiatives focused on novel drug targeting methods and RNA therapeutics. As an NIH-funded graduate student, Shelly was the first to reconstitute the process of mitochondrial fusion in vitro, uncovering the function of genes responsible for multiple neurodegenerative diseases.