Jim Harper, Ph.D.

Dr. Harper is co-founder of Sonde Health and an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at PureTech, where he is involved in several new company formation initiatives. He was previously at MIT Lincoln Laboratory where he was a Senior Staff member and led a series of biotechnology prototype and system development teams that identified best-in-class technologies and transformed them from laboratory proofs-of-concept to prototypes and systems with real-world impact on applications in biodefense, human DNA identification and characterization, and human health and performance.

Dr. Harper completed his graduate work at MIT in the laboratory of Prof. Peter T. Lansbury Jr. where he helped redefine models for the molecular mechanisms of abnormal aggregate formation by proteins associated with Alzheirmer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease. His work identified previously unrecognized intermediate aggregate species that appear transiently and have distinct physical and biological properties from the end-stage fibrillar deposits that are pathologic hallmarks of those diseases.

Dr. Harper received his B.S. in Biochemistry from Furman University, his Ph. D. in Biochemistry from the MIT Chemistry Department, and was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School in the Center for Neurologic Diseases.