Chan Zuckerberg Biohub Names Chief Legal Officer

SAN FRANCISCO (May 2, 2022) – The Chan Zuckerberg Biohub has named Melinda Griffith as its new chief legal officer (CLO). Griffith joins CZ Biohub from the Parker Institute for Cancer Immunotherapy, where she has served as chief legal counsel since January 2016. 

Griffith has held several senior executive roles at public and private biotech companies, including global head of licensing and law for Roche’s PCR diagnostic businesses; head of strategic portfolio development for GE Healthcare’s In Vitro Cancer Diagnostics business (Clarient Cancer Laboratories); and general counsel and business development head at Genelabs Technologies, CardioDx, Tethys BioSciences, and Arris Pharmaceuticals.

Melinda Griffith

“We’re thrilled to bring Melinda on board at the Biohub,” said Joe DeRisi, president of CZ Biohub. “She brings deep experience working across all the sectors touched by our work – from industry to academia to nonprofit. Her expertise in the biotechnology industry and in the global public health sector will be a major asset to the researchers and Investigators at CZ Biohub and our partner institutions.”

Griffith also volunteers as the chair of the Board of Directors of Thrive Networks, a charity implementing clean water and sanitation projects in Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Additionally, she is a strategy advisor to the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, and, through the University of Santa Clara, she has been a mentor to social enterprises in Kenya, Uganda, and India.

Griffith received a J.D. from the University of California Hastings College of the Law and a B.S. in business administration from the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

“CZ Biohub has forged an innovative model of open and deeply collaborative science that is accelerating both basic research and the discovery of new therapies,” Griffith said. “I look forward to joining the Biohub and its partners in this exciting and much-needed work.”