Lieber Institute for Brain Development Welcomes Emily Conley, Ph.D. to Board of Directors
Baltimore, MD (April 10, 2026) —The Lieber Institute for Brain Development is pleased to announce the appointment of Emily Conley, Ph.D. to its Board of Directors.
Dr. Conley is a highly accomplished biotech executive and board leader with extensive experience building and scaling innovative life science companies from early-stage discovery through critical scientific and corporate milestones. Her work spans drug development strategy, corporate growth, and the formation of strategic partnerships that advance transformative therapies.
She currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of Renasant Bio, a venture-backed biopharmaceutical company developing first-in-class small-molecule therapies for autosomal dominant polycystic kidney disease (ADPKD). Under her leadership, Renasant Bio has advanced from stealth to a fully operational company, raising $55 million in financing, building a world-class team, and advancing multiple programs toward development candidate nomination.
Previously, Dr. Conley served as Chief Executive Officer of Federation Bio, where she raised over $70 million in funding, built and led a multidisciplinary organization spanning R&D, regulatory, clinical, and legal functions, and guided the strategic sale of the company’s assets to Kanvas Bio. Her leadership helped advance engineered microbial therapeutics into clinical development and expand the company’s pipeline across immunology and renal disease.
Earlier in her career, Dr. Conley spent more than a decade at 23andMe, where she played a key role in transforming the company from a consumer genetics pioneer into an integrated therapeutics organization. As Vice President of Business Development, she led and executed landmark pharmaceutical collaborations that helped establish and scale the company’s therapeutics division.
Dr. Conley also brings extensive board experience. She served on the Board of Directors of Nuvalent (NASDAQ: NUVL), guiding the company from the preclinical stage through its first NDA submission. She currently serves on the board of TMRW Life Sciences and has held additional board and advisory roles across both private companies and nonprofit organizations.
In recognition of her leadership and impact in biotechnology, Dr. Conley has been named among SF Business Times’ Most Influential Women in Business, Endpoints’ 20 Biopharma Leaders Under 40, Business Insider’s 30 Biotech Leaders Under 40, and Google Ventures’ 25 Women Shaping the Future of Technology.
Dr. Conley began her career as a research fellow at the National Institutes of Health. She holds a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from Stanford University and graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt University.
We are thrilled to welcome Emily to our Board, her deep expertise across biotech innovation, company building, and strategic development will be invaluable as we continue advancing our mission.
The Lieber Institute looks forward to her contributions as it continues its work to uncover the biological foundations of brain disorders and translate scientific discovery into meaningful advances for patients.
About the Lieber Institute for Brain Development
The mission of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development and the Maltz Research Laboratories is to translate the understanding of basic genetic and molecular mechanisms of schizophrenia and related developmental brain disorders into clinical advances that change the lives of affected individuals. LIBD is an independent, not-for-profit 501(c)(3) organization and a Maryland tax-exempt medical research institute affiliated with the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. The Lieber Institute’s brain repository of nearly 5,000 human brains is the largest collection of postmortem brains for the study of neuropsychiatric disorders worldwide.
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Media Contact: Oluwaseyi Abujade, media@libd.org