Management

---

Jim is currently the CEO of MaraBioSystems Inc, an Autism diagnostic company.  He brings more than 25 years of pharmaceutical research and management experience to MaraBio. In addition to his duties as a consultant to LV where he served as a General Partner for 14 years, Jim is currently Chairman of Viracta Therapeutics, a company focusing on unique therapies for virally induced cancers. He was founding CEO of OncoMed Pharmaceuticals, a cancer therapeutic antibody company. He was the Board member for both ForteBio and Protein Simple, antibody detection companies founded by LVP, and both were successfully acquired. Jim was President and General Manager of Roche Bioscience (formerly Syntex) in Palo Alto, CA, where he was responsible for a wide range of bioscience research and development, ranging from genetics and genomics to clinical development of numerous new pharmaceuticals. Previously, Jim served as Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President of R & D for Centocor, where he was responsible for the discovery and early clinical development of antibody and peptide-based therapeutic products. While at Centocor, Jim, along with colleagues, developed Remicade, the first of the TNF inhibitor biologics, that have benefited patients with Rheumatoid Arthritis, Crohn's Disease and Psoriasis. He also helped develop ReoPro, a novel platelet blocking drug used in conjunction with angioplasty.

Prior to Centocor, Jim served as a Navy Medical Officer, and was Head of the Navy Transplant Research Program. With his colleagues and with both Navy and Congressional support, founded the National Marrow Donor Program, which has fostered over 80,000 transplants to date for patients in need of matched transplant donors. He was promoted to Commanding Officer and Director, US Naval Medical Research and Development Command in Bethesda Maryland. In that role, he was responsible for a wide range of medical research and development activities ranging from transplantation research to infectious diseases. He was responsible for the surveillance, detection and therapy for all Biologic Warfare Agents and Infectious Diseases in the first Gulf War and was awarded the Marine Corps/US Navy Legion of Merit for his service.

Jim previously served as Chairman of the Board of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group representing over 120 Silicon Valley Companies.  He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Lucille Packard Children's Hospital (Stanford Children’s Hospital). He chaired the LPCH Quality, Service, and Safety Committee for over 10 years.

Jim holds an M.D. from Loma Linda University, trained in Pediatric Immunology at Duke University and Children's Hospital in Boston (Harvard), and holds a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of London, England. He was Professor of Pediatrics and Microbiology at Georgetown University School of Medicine 1982-1996. Jim has authored or co-authored over 140 publications.

Dr. Van de Water joined the faculty in the Department of Internal Medicine at the University of California, Davis in 1999. In 2000, she also joined the faculty of the newly formed UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute when she began her research on the immunobiology of autism. Dr. Van de Water’s laboratory pursues research programs pertaining to autoimmune and clinical immune-based disorders including the biological aspects of autism spectrum disorders. This includes understanding the role of the maternal immune system during pregnancy in healthy and altered neurodevelopment. The application of Dr. Van de Water’s immunopathology background has been instrumental in the dissection of the immune anomalies noted in some individuals with autism, and in the differentiation of various autism behavioral phenotypes at a biological level. Dr. Van de Water was Director of the NIEHS funded Center for Children’s Environmental Health at UC Davis, investigating potential environmental risk factors contributing to the incidence and severity of childhood autism. In addition, she is associate director of biological sciences of the M.I.N.D. Institute, and deputy director of the UC Davis M.I.N.D. Institute Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center. Dr. Van de Water holds both a B.S. in Biologic Sciences, and a Ph.D. in Immunology from the University of California at Davis.  

Marnin has spent his career providing leadership in a variety of capacities. He worked as a board member, was the founder and president of a mergers and acquisitions company and is an investor and advisor to selected technology companies. In each of these arenas, Marnin brings the combination of a strategic view, a practical eye toward achieving goals, a collaborative approach to problem solving and the ability to work with others in both short and long time frames. 

Marnin is on the Board of Directors, SmartEdTech, a special education Saas system that delivers a professional grade dedicated and collaborative tool for special education focused on language and communication development, generating better outcomes for special education students. He is also on the board of Coincident.tv, a company that delivered software to create, distribute and track rich, interactive web-based video experiences. Customers like Fox Broadcasting, ABC Family, MTV Networks, Fox Sports, CBS, Audi and Travelocity deployed Coincident.tv software to deliver “interactive, social TV”. Marin was on the board of Rulespace, a software company that managed web content categorization products and services. Microsoft acquired the business in 2003. 

Marnin’s employment history includes Founder & President, Sequoia Partners, a boutique mergers and acquisitions consulting firm that specialized in maximizing return for sellers of mid-size technology companies. Sequoia completed transactions to a range of acquiring companies including Microsoft, Business Objects/SAP, Oracle, Macromedia/Adobe, Documentum/EMC, Spirent, Reuters, Inktomi and Panasonic. He was also director of Business Development and Strategic Product Acquisitions at Integral Systems, Inc. where they evaluated hundreds of software products on all hardware platforms and ultimately negotiated for and acquired several strategically important new software products.