When Stead Impact Ventures Board Chair Jerre Stead sat down with Dr. Stella Sarraf, founder and CEO of Spinogenix, their discussion centered on one shared belief: patients deserve more than incremental progress. They deserve treatments that can truly change their lives.

For Stella, that mission is deeply personal. As a daughter and caregiver, she’s seen firsthand how devastating battling diseases can be. As a scientist and entrepreneur, she’s determined to build new solutions where few exist.

That determination became Spinogenix, a company developing small-molecule therapeutics that target “ground zero” of brain disease — the synaptic connections that enable memory, cognition, and motor function. By repairing these connections, Spinogenix is advancing therapies designed not just to slow decline, but to help patients regain function and independence.

Highlights from the conversation include:

• Hope for ALS and Alzheimer’s: Transforming ALS into a chronic condition and restoring memory for Alzheimer’s patients.
• Broad therapeutic potential: Advancing programs in Fragile X syndrome and schizophrenia to improve daily function and quality of life.
• Innovation with impact: Small-molecule therapeutics that can be delivered as oral tablets, improving compliance and enabling global access.
• Facing challenges head-on: Bridging the gap from preclinical research to human trials, made possible by critical support from NIH, the Department of Defense, and the Michael J. Fox Foundation.
• A mission rooted in urgency: Every clinical trial participant, every family email, fuels the drive to keep moving forward.

As Jerre reflected: “When I look at what you’re building, Stella, it feels like a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to change the world.”

Read the full conversation here: https://steadimpact.com/making-brain-diseases-like-alzheimers-and-als-not-only-treatable-but-reversible/