Spring (Bahareh) Behrouz, PhD, is the Co-founder and CEO of Vincere Biosciences, where she leads development of novel therapeutics targeting mitochondrial quality control and mitophagy. Her work focuses on translating advances in mitochondrial biology into disease-modifying medicines for Parkinson’s disease and other disorders driven by impaired cellular energetics. During her PhD training at Michigan State University, Dr. Behrouz helped demonstrate that disruption of parkin-mediated mitophagy rendered otherwise resistant dopamine neurons vulnerable to mitochondrial toxins in vivo, helping establish the importance of mitochondrial quality control in neuronal survival. She later completed postdoctoral training at the Mayo Clinic, where she helped characterize mitochondrial abnormalities in LRRK2 disease models and contributed to research identifying pathogenic VPS35 mutations linked to Parkinson’s disease. Dr. Behrouz later co-founded Neuroinitiative, where she developed computational and AI-enabled drug discovery platforms that ultimately catalyzed the creation of Vincere Biosciences. Over her career, she has led multidisciplinary programs spanning biology, chemistry, and computation from early discovery through IND-enabling studies, securing more than $20 million in funding from the NIH, Michael J. Fox Foundation, and strategic investors.