Centrillion Biosciences CEO and leadership

Dr. Wei Zhou is Founder, President and CEO of Centrillion. While a student at Stanford, he joined the pioneering genomic technology start-up Affymetrix (now NASDAQ: AFFX) where a generation of future industry leaders and scientists were inspired to change the world for the better through genomics. He continues to be fascinated by the profound and positive impact of genomic technologies in scientific research, health care, agriculture and other fields despite the severe limitations of current genomic technologies and is passionate about making genomic technology accurate and accessible. Prior to founding Centrillion, Dr. Zhou was a partner at the technology law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati where he advised life sciences, clean tech and digital media companies and venture capital investors. He also served as a senior advisor to the global law firm Covington and Burling. At Affymetrix, he was a vice president of intellectual property and advanced technology until 2008. He was also credited with building Affymetrix’ rapidly growing China business. Dr. Zhou received his PhD from Virginia Tech (John Lee Pratt Fellow), his postdoctoral training from Emory University Medical School and his JD from Stanford University Law School (Associate Editor, Stanford Law Review). He is also a graduate of Harvard Business School’s General Management Program.

Dr. James Zhang is the head of China operations at Formation 8. He began his career as the founding scientist at Mendel Biotechnology and led its business development. As an Entrepreneur in Residence at Khosla Ventures, James co-founded BioDiscovery Inc, a modern agriculture company, and led the China initiatives for a number of portfolio companies. Most recently, James is a Venture Partner at Softbank China Venture Capital and a Managing Director of Australian Government’s Renewable Energy Venture Capital (REVC) Fund. As a China native, James attended the University of Science and Technology of China. He has a PhD in Genetics from the University of California Davis and has completed his post-doctoral training at Stanford University and business training at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Recognizing the potential of Asian markets and being passionate about solving major IT and energy problems for China, James has returned to China to establish Formation 8’s presence in the region. James is a recipient of the Outstanding Young Scholar Award by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC). As a high school student, he had the highest college entrance examination score in his home province of 100 million people, which qualified him as one of the nerdiest high school students in all of China.

Dr. Wei Zhou is Founder, President and CEO of Centrillion. While a student at Stanford, he joined the pioneering genomic technology start-up Affymetrix (now NASDAQ: AFFX) where a generation of future industry leaders and scientists were inspired to change the world for the better through genomics. He continues to be fascinated by the profound and positive impact of genomic technologies in scientific research, health care, agriculture and other fields despite the severe limitations of current genomic technologies and is passionate about making genomic technology accurate and accessible. Prior to founding Centrillion, Dr. Zhou was a partner at the technology law firm Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati where he advised life sciences, clean tech and digital media companies and venture capital investors. He also served as a senior advisor to the global law firm Covington and Burling. At Affymetrix, he was a vice president of intellectual property and advanced technology until 2008. He was also credited with building Affymetrix’ rapidly growing China business. Dr. Zhou received his PhD from Virginia Tech (John Lee Pratt Fellow), his postdoctoral training from Emory University Medical School and his JD from Stanford University Law School (Associate Editor, Stanford Law Review). He is also a graduate of Harvard Business School’s General Management Program.