Better Together: Rebuilding Scientific Capacity in During and After Crisis

Sabune Winkler is a cross-border executive, entrepreneur, and attorney who is Principal and Founder of Saphan Pont Law Partners and serves as Chief Legal Officer and Co-Founder of NZUXA Enterprises, SARL in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Her 30-year career spans high-stakes legal practice, national policy leadership, and company formation across the United States and Africa. Through NZUXA, she oversees a diversified Congolese conglomerate and its U.S. partner, Vaizadi Global, Inc., a Delaware corporation active in IT, infrastructure, agriculture, health, and finance. The companies connect local opportunities with international capital, technology, and compliance standards. At Saphan Pont Law, she provides legal guidance to companies advancing “bench-to-bedside” research and development, including psychedelic therapies. The firm’s strategic alliances with Liance Legal, specializing in international business law from Amsterdam; Antithesis Law, advising startups in frontier industries including psychedelics, cannabis, hemp, and technology; and Outside GC, delivering fractional legal services with senior-level leadership, extend Saphan Pont’s reach across jurisdictions and industries, turning complex legal and regulatory requirements into practical growth strategies.

Through Saphan Pont Law, Ms. Winkler serves companies across the full spectrum—from early-stage ventures to mid-size and large organizations—through overflow or project-based engagements. Across dynamic markets, she helps business leaders, legal teams, and clinical teams navigate complex regulatory environments, bridge strategy and execution, and build productive partnerships. Her practice includes negotiating complex clinical trial, data-sharing, CRO, sponsored research, and technology-transfer agreements under U.S. FDA, EMA, HIPAA, and GDPR frameworks. Her work in psychedelics illustrates the complexity she navigates – a space subject to overlapping and sometimes conflicting federal, state, and international frameworks, multi-jurisdictional compliance requirements, IP considerations, and fast-moving commercial interests. She draws on her cross-border entrepreneurial perspective, leadership of nationally significant governance initiatives, and experience building institutional infrastructure to support business leaders advancing and scaling initiatives across U.S., African, and global markets.

Malwina (Maja) Carrion joined the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative in 2023, first as the Access Leader before transitioning to head of the Project Management Office (PMO) in addition to serving as an expert in implementation science for the organization. Maja has spent over 15 years leading and managing public health research and projects in Asia, Africa, South America, Europe, and the US. Her primary interests are neglected tropical diseases and their control, elimination, and eradication. She has also worked on health systems strengthening, improving access to primary care, and clinical trials.

Prior to joining DNDi, Maja served as a full-time lecturer at Boston University’s Sargent College in the Department of Health Sciences. At BU, Maja taught courses in epidemiology, global environmental health, NTDs, and health communication and advocacy. Before BU, Maja held positions at both public and private organizations including the International Society for Infectious Diseases (ISID), the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), and Quest Diagnostics. Maja holds Master’s in Public Health (MPH) and Doctor of Public Health (DrPH) degrees from the Boston University School of Public Health as well as a Bachelor of Arts from in Political Science and International Studies from Elon University. Her doctoral research focused on improving screening, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of Chagas disease in the United States. She is originally from Poland and speaks English, Polish, Spanish, and French. Maja’s passions, besides her family and work, include travel, languages, reading, and spending time outdoors.

The Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) is a not-for-profit medical research organization that discovers, develops, and delivers safe, effective, and affordable treatments for neglected populations. DNDi is developing medicines for sleeping sickness, leishmaniasis, Chagas disease, parasitic worm diseases, mycetoma, dengue, paediatric HIV, cryptococcal meningitis, and hepatitis C. Its research priorities include children’s health; gender equity and gender-responsive R&D; and diseases impacted by climate change. Since its creation in 2003, DNDi has collaborated with public and private partners worldwide to deliver 17 new treatments for six deadly diseases, saving millions of lives.

As Deputy Director, Partnerships and Administration Sarah Sceery oversees the impactful relationships with partners and funders that enable BHI’s unique healthcare infrastructure work, creating equitable and accessible healthcare worldwide. Sarah helped to develop and lead the strategy, advocacy, and scale up of BHI’s global medical oxygen team in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. She previously worked at Casa Hogar Juan Pablo, a mission-based youth home and community organization in Peru where she led their development efforts, operations, and external relations. She also has experience in Higher Education at Merrimack College and Brown University. Sarah holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Management from the University of New Hampshire and Masters of Science in Health and Management from Merrimack College.

Build Health International (BHI) is a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving access to dignified, affordable, and high-quality healthcare through the design, construction, and strengthening of healthcare infrastructure in resource-constrained settings around the world. BHI has worked on over 250 projects across nearly 80 countries. The organization works alongside local partners, governments, and communities to deliver high-quality, durable facilities and systems that expand access to care in low-resource settings, guided by a commitment to dignity, sustainability, and long-term partnership. For more information, visit www.buildhealthinternational.org.

Anmar Homeida, MD, MPH, MSCO, is a physician and health systems leader. He directed the Sudanese American Physicians Association (SAPA)’s humanitarian health operations during Sudan’s conflict, sustaining a network of more than 90 facilities, and currently supports technical advancement and business development at SAPA. He previously led national primary health care planning at Sudan’s Federal Ministry of Health in partnership with UNICEF, serving as the National Health System Strengthening consultant at UNICEF Sudan. A Harvard graduate in Clinical Services Operations and a DrPH candidate at NYU. His research on health system recovery and conflict-driven malnutrition has been published in The Lancet Regional Health (Africa), BMJ Global Health, and Conflict and Health.

The Sudanese American Physicians Association (SAPA) is a humanitarian, nonprofit organization founded in 2019 by Sudanese American physicians and registered in the United States, Sudan, Uganda, and Chad. SAPA’s mission is to advance the health and well-being of Sudanese communities through the delivery of essential health and nutrition services, medical education and workforce development, humanitarian assistance, and global health advocacy. Working at the intersection of humanitarian action, early recovery, and health system strengthening, SAPA maintains essential health services during crisis, strengthens the resilience of Sudan’s health institutions, and supports long-term recovery and sustainability. Its model pairs locally embedded Sudanese teams, who bring community trust and access to the country’s hardest-to-reach areas, with one of the world’s largest organized networks of Sudanese medical diaspora professionals, who contribute clinical expertise, mentorship, and innovation. Across all its programs, SAPA champions localization and community ownership, guided by the conviction that Sudan’s health system will be rebuilt by Sudanese institutions, health workers, and communities. Learn more at sapa-usa.org.

Hiba A.M. Gafar is a lecturer of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Gezira’s Faculty of Pharmacy in Sudan and a Graduate Teaching Assistant at King’s College London, where she is completing a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences on a Schlumberger Foundation Faculty for the Future Fellowship. Her research focuses on lipid nanoparticle drug delivery, with a particular focus on aptamer-functionalized nanoparticles for targeted cardiac regeneration following ischemic heart disease. She holds a Master of Pharmacy in Pharmaceutical Technology (2019) and a Bachelor of Pharmacy with Honours (2013), both from the University of Gezira, where she also served as Head of the Department of Pharmaceutics before beginning her PhD in 2022.

Hiba moved to London in 2022 to begin her PhD, months before war broke out in Sudan in April 2023. While she was not herself displaced by the conflict, she has lived its consequences from a distance – watching her institution and community absorb the damage. She hopes to bring the technology and experience gained abroad back to her institution and her country. She has published in journals including Small Science and presented at the Oxford Aptamers Conference and the Controlled Release Society Annual Meeting. She is a member of the Royal Society of Chemistry, the Controlled Release Society, and Mothers in Science.

Outside the lab, she enjoys gardening and crocheting and is a mother to a lovely 2-year-old boy.

Dr. Bruce D. Walker is a physician-scientist and T cell immunologist, the founding Director of the Ragon Institute of Mass General Brigham, MIT and Harvard, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, a Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and Professor of the Practice of Medicine at MIT.  

Dr. Walker received a BS in chemistry in 1980 from the University of Colorado, Boulder, also attending the Swiss Federal Technical Institute (ETH), and his MD from Case Western Reserve University. He performed his internship and residency training in internal medicine at MGH and Harvard Medical School, where he also completed an internship in pathology and specialty training in infectious disease. He is a native of Boulder, Colorado, and is board-certified in both internal medicine and infectious disease.  Together with Arlene Sharpe, he is also the co-director of the Massachusetts Consortium on Pathogen Readiness (MassCPR), a collaboration among more than 800 local scientists focused on pandemic preparedness from Harvard, MIT, BU, Tufts, UMass, the academic teaching hospitals, and the Department of Health in Massachusetts. He is a member of the National Academy of Medicine and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Walker’s laboratory studies T cell responses to chronic viral infections, using HIV as a model system.  His lab focuses on learning from patients to determine how the body fights back against viral infections using HIV as a highly relevant example, trying to uncover mechanisms by which it succeeds and, importantly, why it usually fails.  They study blood samples from persons with chronic HIV infection as well as from elite controllers, persons who are able to control HIV infection to undetectable levels without the need for antiretroviral therapy (ART).  His work extends to international collaborations, particularly with investigators at the Nelson Mandela School of Medicine at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in Durban, South Africa, where Dr. Walker helped catalyze the creation of two research institutes.  

Jonathan M. Spector MD MPH has practiced pediatrics and public health for 20+ years. His clinical activities span fieldwork with Médecins Sans Frontières in remote Africa to intensive newborn care at Massachusetts General Hospital. His interest in health systems fueled a portfolio of research at Harvard School of Public Health to support maternal and newborn health in low resource settings. As part of that work, he led the design and early testing of the World Health Organization’s Safe Childbirth Checklist. Jonathan later directed the opening of Lao Friends Hospital for Children, the first comprehensive pediatric medical center in northern Lao PDR. Now at Novartis, he leads portfolio strategy, partnering, and access-to-medicine solutions for the Novartis Global Health research unit—helping to bring novel therapies “bench-to-bedside” to address major unsolved health challenges.

Aravinda Souza is a communications and content marketing leader for high-growth, agile technology companies who value customer experience as paramount. She thrives on being a player-coach in high-performing, nurturing teams and prioritizing both speed and quality simultaneously. As a writer, speaker, researcher, and storyteller, and Vinda is passionate about communicating across all platforms.

Al Ozonoff, PhD, CPPS is Senior Advisor to Dr. Pardis Sabeti and Chief of Staff of the Sabeti Lab. In these roles, he provides administrative leadership and senior scientific expertise across the full range of lab activities and research. He provides further programmatic support as the U.S. Director for the Sentinel Program. Al is Associate Professor of Pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and a faculty scientist within the Precision Vaccines Program at Boston Children’s Hospital.

Al applies his training in mathematics, statistics, epidemiology, and data science in pursuit of population-based improvement in the health of children and adults. His research focuses on the development and application of methods for surveillance of health and disease. As a surveillance methodologist, he is most engaged in areas of public health surveillance, infectious disease surveillance, and hospital-based surveillance with an emphasis on patient safety and healthcare quality.

Al’s graduate and post-doctoral training was in mathematics (University of California, Santa Barbara, under D. Darren Long) and biostatistics (Harvard School of Public Health, under Marcello Pagano). He has co-authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications throughout more than 20 years of research experience. He was Principal Investigator of two R01 grant awards: a 3-year project funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) BioSense Program, “Improving syndromic surveillance by data integration” (R01 PH000021-02), and a 5-year project funded by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), “Patient safety surveillance using machine learning and free text clinical” (R01 HS026246-01A1).

As a leading expert during the early phases of the pandemic, Al led the Clinical and Data Coordinating Center for IMPACC, a national immunophenotyping study of COVID-19 funded by the National Institute for Allergies and Infectious Disease (NIH/NIAID). In 2016-17, he was one of 12 Harvard Medical School Fellows in Bioethics.

Outside of work, Al enjoys spending time with his family and learning from teachers in contemplative traditions. He has played semi-professional football for over 25 years, most recently with the Randolph Oilers of the East Coast Football League.

Michelle Niescierenko, MD, MPH is a Pediatric Emergency Medicine physician, director of the Global Health Program at Boston Children’s Hospital and Health Specialist with Avenir Analytics. The Boston Children’s Global Health Program works to improve child health globally through partnerships for clinical quality improvement, education, research and advocacy in over 30 countries around the world. ??Avenir Analytics health focus on high quality humanitarian health systems interventions.

She has experience in pediatric care and program development in China, Bolivia, Lesotho, Guatemala, Liberia, Indonesia, Uganda, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Syria. In Liberia she provided pediatric humanitarian aid in the immediate post-conflict setting partnering local remaining infrastructure to US academic institutions for the last 10 years. Through these partnerships, sustainable programs for health system rebuilding including physician education and care for vulnerable children were developed in Liberia. During the 2014-2015 Ebola outbreak she lead the Liberian hospital public health response utilizing a rapid deployment of training done by local healthcare workers. This work continued into Liberia’s recovery phase with implementation of a national program for hospital quality improvement and emergency care training. Her particular areas of interest are in the provision of healthcare in humanitarian settings through system development, the development of emergency care systems for children as well as the role of children in humanitarian crises.

Harvey Lodish has been a leader in molecular cell biology as well as a biotechnology entrepreneur for over five decades. Much of his early research focused on the regulation of messenger RNA translation and the biogenesis of plasma membrane glycoproteins. Beginning in the 1980s, his research focused on cloning and characterizing many proteins, microRNAs, and long noncoding RNAs important for red cell development and function. His laboratory was the first to clone and sequence mRNAs encoding many hormone receptors, mammalian glucose transport proteins, and proteins important for adipose cell formation and function. He went on to identify and characterize several genes and proteins involved in insulin resistance and stress responses in adipose cells. Over the years, he has mentored hundreds of undergraduates, PhD and MD/PhD students, and postdoctoral fellows, and continues to teach award-winning undergraduate and graduate classes on biotechnology. 

Chad Jackson, PhD is a translational science executive focused on developing breakthrough therapies for inherited retinal diseases (IRDs), dry age-related macular degeneration (AMD), and other vision disorders. With a background in visual neuroscience (Ph.D., Emory) and over a decade of experience spanning the nonprofit, federal, and academic sectors, he specializes in advancing complex therapeutics—like gene therapies and regenerative approaches—from lab to clinic.

At the Foundation Fighting Blindness, Dr. Jackson leads a $50M+ portfolio of preclinical and early clinical-stage programs, including a first-in-kind $46M whole eye transplant effort funded by ARPA-H. His role blends scientific strategy, regulatory readiness, funding acquisition, and multi-site team leadership. He has conducted scientific due diligence for promising biotech startups, advised C-suite leadership on go/no-go decisions, and forged partnerships across academic labs, CROs, and government agencies.

Previously, he supported national R&D priorities through roles at DARPA, the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and the U.S. State Department. These experiences sharpened his ability to navigate federal innovation ecosystems and scale novel technologies for societal impact.

Ina Jamuna Breuer is Executive Director of NEID Global, which is a national peer-to-peer learning community of global donors, social investors, and family foundations. NEID Global’s mission is to convene and empower donors to help address the world’s big problems and does so through 50 events per year, two Giving Circles focused on core issues of international development, and a bi-annual Symposium.

NEID offers its members a journey that helps them learn, connect, inspire, and act. This journey entails providing members access to experts, to other global philanthropists and to safe spaces to learn from each other.

Previously Ina was the Executive Director of Beyond Conflict, where she worked for 17 years to help leaders in the Middle East, Central America, Northern Ireland, the Balkans, and South Asia address difficult challenges relating to reconciliation and change. At Beyond Conflict Ina launched the Neuroscience and Social Conflict Initiative in 2008, which now forms the core of Beyond Conflict’s work and has led to a new area of inquiry at the intersection of brain science and conflict resolution. Prior to BC, Ina was the Assistant Director of the Transregional Center for Democratic Studies at the New School for Social Research in New York. In the early 1990s TCDS was a hub for dissidents from Eastern Europe and was focused on helping rebuild civil society and the political culture needed for democracies to flourish in the former communist region. Ina began her career at the Foundation for Civil Society, where she was involved in educational and environmental programming in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. She completed her studies at Northwestern University, the Free University of Berlin and the New School for Social Research.  Ina is a German citizen that was born and raised in India and South Korea. She recently also became a US national. 

Paul is responsible for individual outreach to increase philanthropic support for Seeding Labs. He is an experienced fundraising professional with broad knowledge and understanding of resource development and advancement in major research universities and public trusts. 

In previous roles at The University of Massachusetts, MIT, Harvard University, and the Pew Charitable Trusts, Paul cultivated relationships within the philanthropic community, garnering support for programs and priorities spanning nuclear engineering, global health, climate science/energy, and demographic and survey research.

Paul’s educational background includes a bachelor’s degree in political science and history from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. He is active in his alma mater, serving on the Department of Political Science Advisory Board, and was a former board member of the UMass Alumni Association. 

Additionally, he has completed professional certificate programs at the T.H. Chan Harvard School of Public Health and MIT, enhancing his expertise in policy, politics, and innovation.

Jennifer builds and stewards Seeding Labs’ partnerships with corporations and other life science institutions. Our partners’ financial and lab equipment contributions help support universities and research institutions in under-resourced settings.

When these talented scientists, researchers, and educators have the resources they need to create and maintain strong scientific institutions, new solutions are created for both local development needs and global challenges.

Before joining Seeding Labs, Jennifer raised funds and engaged constituents for

the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and Brandeis University. She graduated from Wellesley College with a BA in French studies.