Speakers

Dr. Morag Grassie is the Executive Director of the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale, and has supported the Fund for eight of its ten annual cycles to date. Morag has over 30 years of experience in the pharma industry, entrepreneurship, and academic research. After graduating from Glasgow University with a BSc in Molecular Biology and Ph.D. in Virology, she held a research fellow position in intracellular signaling before moving to preclinical drug development in the pharmaceutical industry, serving as VP of Research for a Yale biotech startup before formally joining Yale in 2018. Prior to her current appointment, she was the Director for the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale and the Associate Director of Business Development. She has advised, expanded, and advanced the portfolio of Blavatnik proposals and projects and, using her passion for people and curiosity for knowledge, extended her role in 2022 to include business development. She has a special interest in under-represented groups and in seeking out faculty working on breakthrough innovations who have not previously considered translating their research beyond the lab. Morag is also a dedicated advocate for women's health, actively championing the advancement of research and innovation in this critically under-resourced field, and working to ensure that women's health priorities are meaningfully represented within the broader landscape of translational science and early-stage discovery.