dr. Jernej Godec is a Principal at Atlas Venture where he focuses on finding innovative technologies and building impactful therapeutics companies to address significant medical gaps.

Prior to joining Atlas, he was a senior associate at Apple Tree Partners in New York City. In that role, he worked on investments across therapeutics areas and companies with a focus on early stage technologies and company formation. He was intimately involved in building Elstar Therapeutics, an ATP-founded company developing next-generation multifunctional immunomodulatory antibodies for cancer, where he also served as a board observer.

Jernej completed his doctorate in immunology at Harvard University. He was jointly mentored by Arlene Sharpe and Nicholas Haining, where he studied how co-inhibitory receptors and transcriptional programs orchestrate differentiation of cytotoxic T lymphocytes and published in top peer-reviewed journals. While in graduate school, Jernej co-founded Mifcor, a company developing new therapies for cardiorenal disease. Concurrently, he completed the Flagship VentureLabs fellows program and continued working with Flagship during the last year of his doctorate.

Jernej received his B.A. with honors in molecular and cell biology at the University of California at Berkeley where his research focused on innate immunity and bacterial pathogenesis. During his time at Cal, he was an All-American student-athlete in swimming and competed in two Olympic Games for his home country of Slovenia. Outside of work he tries to keep up a swimming routine to offset his culinary indulgences. He also enjoys exploring the world through many adventures with his wife and two sons.