Avak Kahvejian

Avak Kahvejian joined Flagship Ventures in 2011 as a Partner in VentureLabs， bringing nearly 7 years of operational experience in the biomedical tools space. Prior to Flagship， Avak was at Helicos BioSciences， a Flagship VentureLabs company which developed and commercialized the world's first single molecule sequencing technology. At Helicos since 2004， Avak held various business development， product management， marketing and sales roles. Most recently， as Vice President， Business Development for Helicos， he focused on establishing strategic partnerships in the areas of high-throughput sequencing and molecular diagnostics， leveraging the technology's unique capabilities.

Avak earned his PhD from McGill University in the laboratory of Dr. Nahum Sonenberg， where his research focused on modulators of mRNA translation and their regulation. During his studies at McGill， Avak was awarded a Canadian Institutes of Health Research operating grant as a co-investigator to Dr. Sonenberg， and was selected for the Dean's Honour List upon graduation.

At Flagship， Avak is developing new internally-generated ventures as part of VentureLabs and he is responsible for marketing and development firm-wide.