Jennifer A. Johnston, Ph.D.
Cofounder and CEO

Jennifer is the creative force behind NysnoBio, responsible for the business and scientific focus of the company as CEO. She has over 20 years of experience in the biopharmaceutical industry, including 13 years in neurodegenerative diseases at Elan Pharmaceuticals.

As VP, Head of Discovery Research at Elan, Jennifer delivered multiple novel molecules for Parkinson’s disease from initial discovery to candidate selection. In 2015, she co-founded An2H Discovery, focused on ubiquitin pathway enzymes, and successfully led the company to identification of lead candidates with potent in vivo activity.

In 2019, Jennifer co-founded NysnoBio to focus on the development of small molecule and gene therapy approaches for Parkin E3 ligase. She has studied the Ubiquitin pathway throughout her education, from her Ph.D. at Dartmouth, to subsequent work on E3 ligases at Caltech with Alex Varshavsky, and to her discovery of Aggresomes at Stanford with Ron Kopito, resulting in more than ten patents and over 40 publications. She has served as a reviewer for multiple scientific journals, and on the SAB of the Michael J. Fox Foundation for over 15 years.

Outside the office, Jennifer has been a member of the USA Track & Field 100Km Team, earning bronze and silver medals in the national championships, as well as holding the record for the most wins in the Angeles Crest 100-mile trail race.