Management Team

Rich Lee is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine in cardiovascular disease and is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology. He is Leader of the Cardiovascular Program of the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.  He is a member of the Editorial Boards of the journals Circulation Research, Journal of Clinical Investigation, and Circulation.   Dr. Lee has published over 180 peer-reviewed articles based on his research, which combines approaches in biotechnology and molecular biology to discover new avenues to manage and treat heart disease and diabetes.  Dr. Lee is a 1979 graduate of Harvard College in Biochemical Sciences and received his M.D. from Cornell University Medical College in 1983.  Dr. Lee completed his residency in 1986 and cardiology fellowship in 1989, both at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, and performed post-doctoral training at MIT in Bioengineering.   Dr. Lee is an active clinician; he regularly treats patients as a cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, teaches physical diagnosis to Harvard Medical students, and volunteers his time for medical care to the homeless at a Boston-area shelter.

Tony Sandrasagra is a drug discovery scientist with leadership experience in large pharma and early stage biotechnology companies. Dr. Sandrasagra’s  background includes the advancement of discovery programs in multiple disease areas from target identification through preclinical development. Tony held multiple senior roles at Aventis/Hoechst Marion Roussel (now Sanofi) including Head of Molecular Neurobiology, Head of Gene Expression, and Head, Global GPCR Program where he was responsible for multidisciplinary target validation and lead generation programs. In roles as Director of Biology at XTL Pharmaceuticals and Chief Scientific Officer at Epigenesis Pharmaceuticals, Tony initiated and managed research operations leading to the advancement of clinical candidates for Respiratory Disease and Hepatitis C Virus (HCV). At XTL Biopharmaceuticals, Dr. Sandrasagra invented novel small molecule HCV inhibitors that target the NS5A structural protein. Leads derived from this program have been demonstrated to dramatically reduce viral load in patients and have advanced to clinical proof of concept studies in Phase IIa. Dr. Sandrasagra is a biochemist/molecular biologist by training and has a PhD from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He also completed post-doctoral training in molecular neurobiology at UCLA.

Vincent Segers is a co-founder of Provasculon, and until recently, Senior Director at Provasculon responsible for protein biochemistry, protein characterization and in vivo pharmacology. Dr. Segers received his MD degree at the University in Antwerp, Belgium in 2002. He completed his residency at the University of Antwerp and undertook post-doctoral research on the biology of cardiac regeneration and strategies for cardiac regeneration in Dr. Rich Lee’s lab at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Antwerp in 2008. Together with Richard Lee, Dr. Segers invented a protease-resistant variant of Stromal Cell Derived Factor-1, a chemoattractant factor for progenitor cells, leading to highly cited publications and the formation of Provasculon. Currently, Dr. Segers is a fellow in cardiology at Middelheim hospital in Antwerp and continues his relationship with Provasculon as a consultant.