Dr. Jain is a physician-scientist with nearly 20 years of expertise in physiology, biomedicine, engineering, computational biology, and mass spectrometry-based metabolomics. Prior to founding Sapient, he formed and was director of Jain Laboratory at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). There he led a multi-disciplinary research team of chemists, engineers, mathematicians, epidemiologists, and physicians to develop next-generation rapid liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (rLC-MS) systems to probe the non-genetic landscape of disease across population-scale human studies. His work was supported by the National Institutes of Health Outstanding New Environmental Scientist (ONES) Program grant and over $30M in federal, foundation, and industry funding. Dr. Jain founded Sapient in 2021 as a spinout of Jain Laboratory to expand upon the mission of accelerating human discovery and drug development through the nexus of high throughput analytical mass spectrometry, computational biology, and population-scale clinical studies. As CEO, he develops and directs the organization’s strategy and guides Sapient’s scientific, business, and technical operations.

Dr. Jain has held faculty positions at UCSD since 2013 and is currently a Professor of Medicine and Pharmacology. He obtained his MD and PhD from Boston University School of Medicine, and subsequently performed clinical residency and fellowship training in Internal Medicine, Cardiology, and Preventative Cardiology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. His postdoctoral work was performed at the Broad Institute and Massachusetts General Hospital in the HHMI laboratory, developing methods for large scale, mass spectrometry-based metabolomics and integrative computational analysis to define the role of bioactive metabolites in human disease.

Dr. Long is a senior bioinformatician and computational biologist with over a decade of experience in the handling and analysis of multi-dimensional complex human datasets, including genomics, metagenomics, proteomics, and metabolomics. Prior to co-founding Sapient, she was Head of Bioinformatics at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), where she led a team of interdisciplinary scientists conducting research on metabolite and microbial biomarkers for cardiovascular, renal, liver, and neurodegenerative diseases, diabetes, cancer, and mitochondrial disorders. She was also previously an assistant professor at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and a bioinformatics scientist at Human Longevity, Inc. where she led genome-wide association studies (GWAS) and rare variants discovery on blood metabolome. At Sapient, Dr. Long oversees data science, bioinformatics, and pharmacological modeling capabilities and is responsible for maintaining and expanding Sapient’s proprietary longitudinal human biology databases.

Dr. Long received her undergraduate degree in Physics from Peking University and her PhD in Physics from Princeton University. She completed her postdoctoral research at Stanford University School of Medicine and is receiving her Executive MBA from UCSD.

Sean is a mass spectrometry technologist with over 15 years of experience in the development, marketing, and sales of analytical technologies. Prior to co-founding Sapient, he was a mass spectrometry account manager for Agilent Technologies and supported clients across diverse life markets including universities, research hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies. In this role, he was the driving force behind the development of key scientific partnerships with several leading universities. In fact, cutting-edge life science tools, training, and expert support were made available to thousands of researchers through these collaborations, including at the University of Southern California Michelson Center for Convergent Bioscience Center of Excellence in Biomolecular Characterization. In addition, Sean directed several analytical ventures as a seed-stage angel investor and as founder and president of Analytical Laboratory Solutions, Inc. At Sapient, he leads operational strategies across functions such as finance, IT, customer management, compliance, and oversees the implementation of technology and infrastructure solutions throughout the organization.

Sean earned his degree in Electrical Engineering from California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.

Dr. Tiwari is a computational chemist with extensive experience in analytical chemistry and the generation and handling of spectral data. Prior to joining Sapient, she completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Jain Laboratory at the University of California San Diego (UCSD), where she spearheaded efforts for the development of rapid liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (rLC-MS) software including machine learning-based algorithms for large-scale spectral extraction and data alignment. Dr. Tiwari completed her PhD in Analytical Chemistry at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in the laboratory of Dr. Rohit Bhargava, during which time she developed new techniques for use of state-of-the-art spectroscopic imaging to elucidate chemical mediators of human disease. At Sapient, Dr. Tiwari works in close collaboration with the R&D team to enable biomarker discovery via automation in data extraction, analysis, and compound identification using a host of artificial intelligence, computational, and statistical tools.

Dr. Tiwari received her undergraduate degree in Biotechnology from the Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee, where she graduated with honors and President’s Medal. In addition to her PhD, she earned her MS in Bioengineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Dr. Tiwari has also been the recipient of a number of prestigious awards including the Beckman Fellowship, Nadine Barrie Smith Fellowship, and the Society for Applied Spectroscopy Award for Outstanding Research in the Field of Spectroscopy.

Dr. Watrous is an analytical chemist and engineer with more than a decade of experience using mass spectrometry for small metabolite measures and associated informatics, both in academia and industry environments. Prior to co-founding Sapient, he was a postdoctoral researcher and subsequently an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Jain Laboratory at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). During this time, he was responsible for developing fully automated, high throughput mass spectrometry-based workflows for global small molecule analysis in biological fluids. Dr. Watrous was also previously a scientist at Watson Pharmaceuticals, where he developed cGMP analytical testing methods for emerging generic drugs. At Sapient, Dr. Watrous is responsible for the generation, optimization, and standardization of Sapient’s rLC-MS systems and other innovative instrumentation and lab automation infrastructure.

Dr. Watrous earned his undergraduate degree in Bioanalytical Chemistry from California State University-San Bernadino and received his MS and PhD in Bioanalytical Chemistry from UCSD.

Vinay is an attorney and biomedical engineer with robust expertise in the pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. He has over a decade of experience in working with companies across their life cycle and a proven track record of successfully commercializing technology and services. Prior to joining Sapient, Vinay was a healthcare and life sciences partner at Sheppard Mullin where he helped build a team of diverse attorneys and supported clients across corporate, regulatory, and other legal matters. At Sapient, Vinay serves as general counsel, leading the organization’s legal department and also acts as a business and strategic partner to the executive team on Sapient’s growth and evolution.

Vinay received his undergraduate degree in Biomedical Engineering from the University of California at Los Angeles and his Juris Doctorate from Columbia University – Columbia School of Law where he was a Stone scholar.

Janine is a certified public accountant with close to a decade of experience working in both the private and public sectors of accounting. Prior to joining Sapient, Janine led the technical accounting, financial reporting, and clinical finance functions at Fate Therapeutics, helping support the company’s growing product platform and research collaborations. From October 2015 to June 2018, Janine was part of the GenMark Diagnostics accounting team and was responsible for the financial reporting function and international accounting operations, including the successful launch of the ePlex platform in the European market. Janine began her career at the public accounting firm of BDO, LLP in the audit practice where she supported various public and non-public clients in the biotechnology/life sciences, financial services, and manufacturing industries. At Sapient, Janine leads the finance and accounting functions as the Head of Accounting / Controller, helping drive the company’s strategic goals and business strategy.

Janine holds a B.S. in Accountancy from San Diego State University and is a certified public accountant in the state of California.

Dr. Gauglitz is an analytical chemist with deep expertise in small molecule mass spectrometry and its application in chemical analysis. Prior to joining Sapient, she performed her postdoctoral scientific training at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution under a National Science Foundation (NSF) postdoctoral research award, and subsequently at the University of California San Diego. There she founded and served as leader of the Global FoodOmics project to map nutritional chemistry and microbiology on a global scale, and worked to enable tool development for investigating untargeted mass spectrometry data. At Sapient, Dr. Gauglitz oversees key customer relationships and serves as scientific liaison for clients.

Dr. Gauglitz earned her undergraduate degree in Biology from Macalester College and her PhD in Marine Science from University of California, Santa Barbara as an NSF graduate research fellow. 

Dr. Nguyen is a clinician-scientist that brings over 13 years of experience in research to her role as Head of Scientific Operations. She joined Sapient from the University of California San Diego (UCSD) where she maintains a faculty appointment as an Associate Professor of Psychiatry. She has been principal investigator on several National Institutes of Health (NIMH, NIAAA) and national/local foundation grants, including the NIMH K23 Career Development Award to investigate the gut microbiota in schizophrenia. She also has extensive experience designing and implementing multi-site clinical trials. Dr. Nguyen has served as Program Director of the Senior Behavioral Health (SBH) Intensive Outpatient Program and Attending Neuropsychologist on the SBH Inpatient Geropsychiatric Unit. With her multi-disciplinary background, Dr. Nguyen oversees development of key customer relationships and partnerships at Sapient and holds a key role in successful project execution as a liaison between clients and our scientific, business, and operational teams.

Dr. Nguyen earned her undergraduate degree in Neuroscience from the University of Southern California and her PhD in Neuropsychology from the SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology. She completed her clinical internship at the VA Palo Alto and her postdoctoral fellowship at the VA San Diego in the Mental Illness Research, Education, and Clinical Centers (MIRECC).