Zach Gerhart-Hines
Chief Technology Officer Embark Laboratories
Zach Gerhart-Hines, PhD, is a translational scientist bridging fundamental metabolism research and therapeutic innovation. As Associate Professor at the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research (University of Copenhagen) and Chief Technology Officer of Embark Laboratories, he uniquely combines academic rigor with biotech entrepreneurship to advance obesity therapeutics.
His research deciphers molecular mechanisms of metabolic regulation, particularly nuclear receptor and circadian control of energy metabolism. Prior to founding Embark, Zach trained as a postdoctoral fellow at UPenn’s Perelman School of Medicine and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, following his PhD in Biochemistry at Johns Hopkins. This cross-disciplinary foundation informs his work translating basic discoveries into targeted therapies.
A recipient of the EMBO Young Investigator Award, Zach has published seminal studies in Cell Metabolism and Nature, and now drives Embark’s pipeline of precision metabolic medicines.
Seminars
- Examining neuronal expenditure pathways to complement appetite suppression for increased therapeutic alternatives
- Understanding emerging targets of mitochondrial activators for improved treatment of low-metabolic rate phenotypes
- Targeting novel receptor pathways to enhance therapeutic efficacy in obesity with comorbid diabetes, addressing a key unmet clinical need
- Expanding the therapeutic arsenal to target neuronal and metabolic pathways for more effective obesity treatments
- Demonstrating superior fat-loss preservation and GI tolerability in next-gen incretin therapies with brain-specific mechanisms to enable personalised obesity treatment
- Innovating delivery systems from DNA-encoded therapies to oral formulations for sustained peptide delivery
