Todd Zion

Biography

Dr. Zion was President and CEO of SmartCells, Inc., developer of SmartInsulin, from its founding through its sale to Merck & Co., Inc. in 2010. He earned his doctorate in Chemical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. At M.I.T., Todd won the Robert P. Goldberg Grand Prize in the 2003 M.I.T. $50K Entrepreneurship competition. Prior to enrolling at M.I.T., he worked as a polymer development engineer at Eastman Kodak. Todd graduated from Cornell University summa cum laude with a B.S. in Chemical Engineering. 

Research Interest

Akston is developing a subcutaneously administered therapeutic for preventing or delaying the onset of diabetes in pre diabetic patients who are at high risk those who display autoantibodies for insulin GAD IA and ZnT for developing Type diabetes T D The therapeutic is designed to delete a subset of B cells that likely play a role in disease development using a patient s own antibody directed cell cytotoxicity machinery