Dr. Anne Urfer-Buchwalder is a pioneer in mammalian gene expression and genetics with more than 25 years of experience in biotechnology start-ups, pharmaceutical companies and premier academic institutions. She holds a PhD from the University of Strasbourg (France) and is the founder and president of Selonterra, Inc., a San Francisco Bay Area-based biotechnology company focused on the discovery of novel therapies for complex neurodegenerative disorders with strong genetic links, notably Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s diseases. Selonterra’s unique innovation is that genetic variants linked to neurodegeneration act at the DNA level by dysregulating the expression of nearby genes. Prior to Selonterra, she was among the first employees of Transgene SA (France), was a scientist at Sandoz (Novartis), at the Biocenter of the University of Basel, at the Beckman Research Center of the City of Hope and later joined Spectra-Biomedical Inc.