Parsa Akbari, PhD

Associate Director, Genomics Discovery

Parsa Akbari is an Associate Director in the Genomics Discovery team at Foresite Labs. Parsa was previously at the Regeneron Genetics Center for 5 years.

Parsa Akbari is an Associate Director in the Genomics Discovery team at Foresite Labs. Prior to joining Foresite Labs, Parsa’s research on drug discovery in the cardiovascular, metabolic, and musculoskeletal therapeutic area led to multiple drug development programs (Akbari et al., Nat Comms, 2022, Verweij et al., NEJM 2022, Akbari et al., Science 2021), 4 granted patents, and 20+ research papers generating over 2,000 citations.

Furthermore, Parsa was involved in the technology entrepreneurship ecosystem at Cambridge, UK, supporting tech and biotech founders at an alumni Angel syndicate affiliated with Downing College, University of Cambridge, and joining a startup accelerator program at the Judge Business School.

Parsa’s work at Foresite labs is focused on computational analyses and data science to incubate new ventures, identify therapeutic targets, and create scalable computational platforms to accelerate drug discovery and health technology.

  • Genomics and drug discovery findings including discovery of GPR75 (Akbari et al., Science) and INHBE (Akbari et al., Nat Comms) which have led to clinical development programs.
  • Interdisciplinary background with a Doctorate in Statistical Genomics from the University of Cambridge, funded by the British Heart Foundation, and affiliated with the Sanger Institute and Cardiovascular Epidemiology Unit. Further work as a Postdoctoral Research Assistant at the MRC Biostatistics Unit.
  • Over 5 years of experience in industry, including at the Regeneron Genetics Center. In addition to supporting founders at an alumni Angel syndicate at the University of Cambridge.