Larry Bock

Larry Bock is the founder and organizer of the USA Science & Engineering Festival, and a former founder of the San Diego Science Festival. Mr. Bock is a Special Limited Partner to Lux Capital, a $100M nanotechnology-focused venture capital fund. He is a member of the Board of Directors of FEI Corporation (NASDAQ: FEIC), the leading supplier of tools for nanotechnology research. He is a General Partner of CW Ventures, a $100M life sciences venture capital fund. Mr. Bock was the founder and former executive chairman and initial CEO of Nanosys and the founder and initial CEO of Neurocrine Biosciences (NASDAQ: NBIX), Pharmacopeia (NASDAQ: PCOP), GenPharm International, which was acquired by Medarex for $100 million; Caliper Technologies (NASDAQ: CALP); Illumina Technologies (NASDAQ: ILMN), among numerous other firms. He was also a seed or early-stage investor in variety of firms, including Acceleron Pharma, Aurora Biosciences, Biosym Technologies, ekoVenture. Gen-Probe, Gensia Pharmaceuticals, Genocea Biosciences, IDEC Pharmaceuticals Magen Biosciences, Oclassen Pharmaceuticals Plexikon Pharmaceuticals, Poland Partners, Sequana Therapeutics, Sapphire Energy, Siluria, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, Software Transformation, and Viagene. Mr. Bock started his career as a researcher in the early days at Genentech, the field of infectious diseases, where he was on the team that received the AAAS Newcomb Cleveland Prize for demonstrating the world’s first recombinant DNA vaccine. He was a Venture Capital Associate with Fairfield Ventures (now Oxford Bioventures). Larry and his wife, Diane, established the Larry and Diane Bock Chair in Nanotechnology at the University of California, Berkeley. They also founded Community Cousins, a non-profit foundation focused on breaking down racial barriers, that was selected by former Vice President Al Gore as one of 10 outstanding grass root efforts nationally. Larry is organizing the San Diego Science Festival with BioBridge of UCSD. He works extensively with the Sudanese and Burmese refugee’s networks in San Diego and is a tutor in math and sciences for Sudanese refugee children in St. Lukes Sudanese Refugee Network and a Mentor for Burmese refugee families through Jewish Family Services. Larry received his B.A. in Biochemistry (summa cum laude) from Bowdoin College and his M.B.A. from the Anderson School at UCLA.