Larry is an expert in biotechnology, a field that he has worked in commercially for over 27 years. In 1981, he was a founding scientist of Genetics Institute (acquired by Wyeth), one of the earliest biotechnology companies. Prior to joining USVP, Larry was a leading scientist at Genentech for 20 years where he worked in various disciplines including vaccinology, immunology, stem cell biology, cellular signaling mechanisms, and monoclonal antibody therapy of tumors. Two of the vaccines that he worked on, for herpes simplex virus and HIV infection, entered Phase III clinical trials. He is a coauthor on over 135 publications and a co-inventor on 37 issued and pending patents. He was a standing member of the Research Review Committee that directed research across all product development areas at Genentech. Larry attained the company’s highest scientific position, Genentech Fellow, before he retired in 2002.
Larry has also served on numerous NCI and NIH scientific review panels and has reviewed many papers for a number of prestigious journals. As a general partner of Latterell Venture Partners from 2002 to 2007, Larry was instrumental in the founding of Proteolix, Oncomed, Cellective (acquired by Medimmune), Tetralogic and Bioverdant. In addition to sitting on the boards of these companies, he was also involved with the Bayhill and CellBio boards as well. Larry holds B.A. and Ph.D. degrees in molecular biology from UCLA and completed his post-doctoral studies at The California Institute of Technology.