A Company Built on Decades of Promise

BrainChild Bio was launched out of Seattle Children’s and founded on the work of Dr. Michael Jensen, a pioneer in the cancer immunotherapy field, and leverages over a decade of translational research, including FDA-authorized INDs covering four CNS CAR-T cell products. Our clinical pipeline will be accelerated by this foundational work, as we build a platform that integrates synthetic technologies to optimize the application of CAR-T cell therapies for CNS tumors.

Deploying CAR-T cell technology in the CNS requires deep expertise, creativity, and dedication to create safe and effective therapies for patients.

The three key pillars of BrainChild Bio’s platform are aimed at addressing the critical elements of therapeutic targeting of CNS tumors.

Multiplexed Targeting

Potency Enhancement

Remote Control

Our initial clinical focus is on diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), an incurable type of childhood cancer that forms in the brainstem—with plans to expand to other pediatric and adult brain tumors, including brain metastases.

Our Expansive Platform

Brainchild Bio Expansion Diagram Brainchild Bio Expansion Diagram

17k

People are diagnosed per year with a primary brain tumor.

Brain tumors are the

Most Common Solid Cancer in Children.

And the leading cause of childhood cancer-related deaths.

150-200k

People with cancer are diagnosed with brain metastases per year.

Our Founding Team

Everyone at BrainChild Bio is motivated by our common purpose—to develop safe and effective therapies, so children with cancer can grow up and thrive. We are building a best-in-class team across many disciplines including immunology, synthetic biology, manufacturing sciences, and translational medicine to advance this promising technology, creating more therapeutic options and most importantly, more hope for patients and their families.

Michael Jensen, MD Founder, Chief Scientific Officer
Show Michael Jensen's Bio
Steven Brugger Chief Executive Officer
Show Steven Brugger's Bio
Nicholas A. Vitanza, MD Founding Chair,
Scientific Advisory Board
Nicholas Vitanza's Bio

Michael Jensen, MD Founder, Chief Scientific Officer

Michael C Jensen, MD is a physician-scientist specializing in pediatric oncology and cellular immunotherapy. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and has most recently served as the Sinegal Endowed Professor at the University of Washington School of Medicine. He has authored over 130 peer-reviewed scientific articles and is an inventor of over 200 patents in cell and gene therapy. Dr. Jensen co-founded Juno Therapeutics and Umoja Biopharma. Over the last 13 years at Seattle Children’s he has served as the founding director of the Ben Towne Center For Childhood Cancer Research and the founding Chief Therapeutics Officer and leader of Seattle Children’s Therapeutics.

Steven Brugger Chief Executive Officer

Steven Brugger brings over 40 years of R&D and business experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry to BrainChild Bio. He most recently served as Founder, Chief Executive Officer and Board Director at Affinivax, Inc., a private biotech company which was acquired by GSK plc for $3.3B in 2022. Prior to Affinivax, Mr. Brugger held senior positions across multiple private biotech companies including Chief Executive Officer and Board Director at Visterra, Chief Operating Officer at Momenta Pharmaceuticals, and Vice President of Strategic Product Development at Millennium Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Brugger began his career spending 20 years in the large pharma industry, holding various leadership and management positions at Novartis, Ayerst (Pfizer), and Hoechst (Sanofi) Pharmaceuticals. Mr. Brugger received his BA in Biology from Susquehanna University and his MBA from the Rutgers Graduate School of Management.

Nicholas A. Vitanza, MD Founding Chair, Scientific Advisory Board
CNS CAR T-cell Lead and DIPG Research Lead at Seattle Children’s
Associate Professor, University of Washington Department of Hematology/Oncology

Dr. Nick Vitanza is a physician-scientist who completed fellowships in oncology (at New York University) and neuro-oncology (at Stanford University). At Seattle Children’s, he directs a lab focused on the biological and immunological targeting of fatal pediatric tumors of the central nervous system (CNS), including diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) and diffuse midline glioma (DMG), and is the Research Lead for all DIPG studies. In addition, Dr. Vitanza serves as the CNS CAR-T cell Lead and has directed multiple repeatedly intracranially dosed CNS CAR-T cell trials (including BrainChild-01 targeting HER2 published in Nature Medicine, BrainChild-03 targeting B7-H3 published in Cancer Discovery, and BrainChild-04 using quad-targeting CAR-T cells). Ultimately, his focus is rapidly advancing novel therapeutics for children with fatal CNS tumors.