Our Team

Michaelle Jinnette ~ President

Cure KCNH1 Foundation Board

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Michaelle is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, and mother of four young boys.  Michaelle received an undergraduate degree in Human Development from UC San Diego and a Master's in Marital and Family Therapy from the University of San Diego.  Michaelle founded the Cure KCNH1 Foundation after her youngest son, Tristan, was diagnosed with a KCNH1 gene mutation when he was 15 months old.  Michaelle is determined to do whatever it takes to improve the lives of Tristan and all other kids with KCNH1-related disorders.  

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Kevin Witt ~ Director

Cure KCNH1 Foundation Board

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After the diagnosis of his son Tristan, Kevin helped form the Cure KCNH1 Foundation and currently serves as director. He received his undergraduate degree at UC San Diego and his Master's at San Diego State University, and is a high school teacher at San Dieguito Academy in Encinitas, California.  Kevin has a background in finance and oversees the business operations of the organization. He also brings invaluable community support to the cause, thanks to his years of dedicated service in education.

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Noreen Haider ~ Director

Cure KCNH1 Foundation Board

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Noreen has worked in the financial services industry for 15 years with a focus in fixed income and is currently Head of Sales for a global investment bank. She received her BA in Economics from Tufts University and her MBA from NYU Stern School of Business.  With her background in business and her invaluable network, Noreen is dedicated to using all her resources to help raise money and find treatments for all children with KCNH1, especially her eldest son Rafi. She currently lives in NYC with her husband and two wonderful boys. 

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Meg Stacker King ~ Director

Cure KCNH1 Foundation Board

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Meg joined the board after her baby girl was diagnosed with a KCNH1 mutation at just 5 weeks old, and brings a wealth of experience in project-management, production, and event-planning. With a degree in applied arts, Meg has a proven track record for producing award-winning events by blending creativity and logistics, and placing an emphasis on developing strong team, client, and customer relations. Meg has a demonstrated commitment to service, having volunteered her time and talent in underserved communities and nonprofit leadership, and continues to drive positive change as a rare-disease mother and advocate.

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Josh Yelsey ~ Treasurer

Cure KCNH1 Foundation Board

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Josh is the Chief Growth Officer for Caravel Autism Health, where he has worked for the past two years, focusing on expanding access to treatment for children on the Autism spectrum.  Prior to this, he spent four years at ATI Physical Therapy overseeing M&A strategy and execution, and health system partnerships.  He received his M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, and undergraduate degree from Yale University.  Josh and his wife, Nicole, live in Chicago with their two young boys.  

James Pearson ~ Secretary

Cure KCNH1 Foundation Board

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Dr. James Pearson, M.D., J.D. graduated from the University of Southern California Gould School of Law in 2009 and was the honored recipient of the Gould School of Law's Non-Profit Graduate Grant. Dr. Pearson's passion for helping others led him to pursue a second career in medicine and he is currently an attending physician at Emanate Health in Southern California's San Gabriel Valley. Dr. Pearson is the father of three young children, and is dedicated to advocating for research towards treating KCNH1-related disorders to help improve the lives of patients and their families. 

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Amy Finnigan ~ Director

Cure KCNH1 Foundation Board

 

Amy is a senior Information Technology (IT) leader for a pharmaceutical company that specializes in developing and manufacturing therapies for rare and ultrarare genetic disorders. Amy promotes strong partnership and collaboration across IT and functional stakeholders, as it has proven to promote speed and efficiency in pre-clinical drug development and clinical trial execution. With a background in International Public Health, Amy combines deep analytical approaches with a desire to save the world one patient at a time.

 

Hans Schumann ~ Senior Development Advisor

Cure KCNH1 Foundation

 

Hans Schumann has a  background in Immunology & Microbiology and has spent 35 years in drug development from Discovery through Regulatory Submissions - across a wide variety of therapeutic modalities.  His background includes decades in preclinical, clinical & regulatory development -  working alongside some of the best and brightest in the industry.  Hans utilizes his creative problem- solving plus an in depth knowledge of cutting edge technologies to help accelerate therapeutics from the clinic to patients.  

 

Luis Pardo ~ Scientific Advisor

Cure KCNH1 Foundation

 

Luis A. Pardo leads a research group on ion channels in cancer at the Max Planck Institute for Multidisciplinary Sciences in Göttingen, Germany. His group studies the biophysical properties of potassium channels and their roles in controlling crucial cellular functions such as proliferation or migration, with particular attention to those leading to malignant transformation and tumor progression. The main target of his research has been the channel encoded by KCNH1; he studies the properties and functions of this potassium channel in health and disease and looks for possible therapeutic interventions against excessive or extemporary functions of the channel.

 

Alfred George ~ Scientific Advisor

Cure KCNH1 Foundation

 

Dr. George is the Alfred Newton Richards Professor and Chair of the Department of Pharmacology, and Director of the Center for Pharmacogenomics at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. He has been a pioneer in elucidating the genetics and pathogenesis of channelopathies with a focus on genetic disorders caused by voltage-gated ion channel mutations associated with disorders of membrane excitability including epilepsy. He currently directs the NINDS-funded Channelopathy-
associated Epilepsy Research Center without Walls.

 

Tracy Gertler ~ Scientific Advisor

Cure KCNH1 Foundation

 

Dr. Gertler is an Attending Physician (Neurology) at Lurie Children's Hospital, a Founders' Board Chair in Neurocritical Care, and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics (Neurology) at the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.  The goal of her basic science research is to understand the mechanisms by which genetic ion channel variants identified in patients with early-onset epilepsy translate to altered channel biophysics when isolated in an expression system, to abnormal intrinsic neuronal excitability when studied in patient-derived neurons (made from induced pluripotent stem cell lines), and to circuit-level disruption resulting in epileptogenesis in transgenic animal models. 

 

Niklas Schwarz ~ Scientific Advisor

Cure KCNH1 Foundation

 

Dr. Schwarz is a research fellow at the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research at the University of Tübingen, in the research group of Prof. Holger Lerche, head of the Department of Neurology and Epileptology.  After his MD training, Dr. Schwarz completed his PhD in Neuroscience there, focusing on human model systems to study human neuronal function. Currently, his focus is on various genes that can cause epilepsy, including KCNA2, KCNH1 and STX1B, and analyzing the functional consequences of genetic mutations with the goal of identifying new, precision treatments. 

 

Helen Chen ~ Scientific Advisor

Cure KCNH1 Foundation

 

Dr. Chen is a senior scientist in Dr. Heather Mefford’s research group at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. Dr. Chen's research is focused on investigating rare, pediatric neurodevelopmental disorders and testing novel precision therapies. Dr. Chen is a cell biologist with 13 years of research experience, specializing in stem cells, neurobiology, and translational precision therapy.  She has extensive experience in disease modelling, assay development, high-throughput screens, stem cell and organoid cultures, and fluorescence microscopy.

 

Sarah Streicher ~ PhD Research Collaborator

Cure KCNH1 Foundation

 

Sarah is a PhD student in the Lerche Lab at the Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research.  Sarah's research focus is studying the cellular and network pathophysiology of KCNH1- and 
KCNA2-related DEEs via patch-clamp and MEA, with the goal of identifying precision treatments by screening drug candidates in iPSC-derived neural networks. Sarah received her undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Konstanz, her Master's in Molecular and Translational Neuroscience at the University of Ulm, and she spent a year working in the field of Connectomics at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research.

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