Dr. Velicelebi brings 24 years of research and management experience in biotechnology. Before founding CalciMedica in December 2006, Vice President of Research and Drug Discovery at TorreyPines Therapeutics. During her tenure at TorreyPines since its inception as Neurogenetics, Inc. in 2000, Dr. Velicelebi was a member of the executive team and played a key role in its maturation from a start-up to a public company. Her responsibilities included oversight and direction of the entire discovery staff and discovery programs, including genetics-based target discovery, discovery and preclinical development of gamma-secretase modulators and the discovery of CCE modulators and STIM1.
Before joining TorreyPines Therapeutics, Dr. Velicelebi was Vice President of Research at MitoKor and Director of Cell Biology at SIBIA Neurosciences. Dr. Velicelebi has published extensively in peer-reviewed journals and is an inventor on numerous patents. In 1998, she received the prestigious Science Career Achievement Award in Health Sciences given by the Scientific and Technical Research Council of the Turkish Republic (TUBITAK). Dr. Velicelebi received her BA summa cum laude in chemistry at Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, her PhD in biophysical chemistry from Yale University, and completed her postdoctoral fellowship in biochemistry and molecular biology at Harvard University.
