Dr. Tartaglia serves as partner at Third Rock Ventures, a venture capital fund dedicated to building transformational life science companies. Dr. Tartaglia is a recognized thought leader in the field of obesity and has authored more than 50 scientific publications. Prior to joining Third Rock Ventures, Dr. Tartaglia was senior vice president and general manager at Gene Logic, a business unit he founded at Millennium when he was vice president of new ventures, in addition to serving as vice president of metabolic diseases.

Dr. Rupnick is a co-founder of Zafgen, cardiologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Rupnick leads a research program focused on the control of tissue remodeling, particularly pathways that coordinate vascular and tissue responses. Her laboratory discovered that adipose tissue gain and loss can be regulated through the vasculature, introducing a novel avenue of treatment for obesity. Long-term applications of her research also include new therapeutic targets for cardiac remodeling in heart failure. Her work has received numerous awards, including the American Heart Association Katz Award. Dr. Rupnick received a Ph.D. in physiology/cell biology from Thomas Jefferson University and an M.D. from Harvard Medical School. She completed her postdoctoral training at MIT in biomedical engineering and residency/fellowship training at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

Dr. Seeley is professor of psychiatry and associate director of the Obesity Research Center at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. His work has focused on the actions of various peripheral hormones in the central nervous system that serve to regulate food intake and body weight. He has published over 150 peer-reviewed articles including articles in Science, Nature, Nature Medicine, Nature Neuroscience Reviews, The Journal of Clinical Investigation and the New England Journal of Medicine. Dr. Seeley received his B.A. from Grinnell College and his Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Smith serves as assistant executive director of clinical research at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center, the largest academically based nutrition research center in the world. His research focuses on adipocyte cellular biology, preadipocyte differentiation and the links between fatness and disease risk. Dr. Smith holds an M.D. from the University of Texas.

Louis J. Aronne, M.D., F.A.C.P. is a clinical professor of medicine at Weill Medical College of Cornell University adjunct associate professor of clinical medicine at Columbia University, and an assistant attending physician at the New York Presbyterian Hospital. He developed and has served as director of the Comprehensive Weight Control Program, a multidisciplinary obesity treatment and research center since 1986. Dr. Aronne received his medical degree from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland. He completed an internship and residency in medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Bronx Municipal Hospital Center in Bronx and was a Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation Fellow at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, New York, New York. A fellow of the American College of Physicians and the New York Academy of Medicine, Dr. Aronne has been president of the Obesity Society (formerly NAASO). He edited the NIH Practical Guide to Obesity Treatment, has served as a consultant for the Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission, and advised the Veterans Health Administration on their MOVE weight management program, the largest such program in the country.  He has authored or co-authored more than 40 papers and book chapters and is a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha honor societies.