Alexandre Zanghellini, PhD is a scientist, entrepreneur, and
computational biology pioneer at the cutting edge of protein design. As
Co-Founder and CEO of Arzeda, he leads one of the world's foremost companies
applying AI-driven tools to engineer proteins from the ground up. By combining
deep learning, structural and synthetic biology, Arzeda designs, develops, and
manufactures novel commercial enzymes and proteins at scale — up to
100,000+-liter fermentation — and has made history as the first company to bring
AI-designed enzymes to market, with commercial launches in food ingredients and
detergents.
Beyond Arzeda, Alexandre co-founded OpenFold, the
open-source consortium democratizing access to state-of-the-art protein
structure prediction tools. He also serves as Executive Fellow at St. Jude
Children's Research Hospital, where he established the Center for Protein
Design to apply AI-driven protein design to some of the most catastrophic
pediatric diseases.
Alexandre trained in protein design under 2024 Nobel
Laureate David Baker, earning his PhD in Biochemistry from UW Seattle. He holds
an MS in Computer Science and AI from the University of Paris and an MS in Computer
Engineering from ENSTA/Paris Tech. His scientific contributions have been
recognized with the 2025 Synbiobeta Pioneer Award and published in the
scientific journal Science & Nature.