Nelson C. Chan Board’s Director, Twist Bioscience

Twist Bioscience Corporation, a company offering high-quality synthetic DNA using its silicon platform, appointed Nelson C. Chan, former CEO of Magellan, as a Class I director to its board of directors.

He brings more than 35 years of experience as both a director and operational executive in the technology and life sciences space.

“Nelson’s deep expertise in introducing a new type of storage, his ability to build businesses with exponential growth and his knowledge of both the semiconductor and life sciences industries internationally make him an excellent fit to guide our next steps in both DNA storage and genomics,” said Emily M. Leproust, Ph.D., CEO and co-founder.

Chan has been an advisor to Twist for the last 18 months, providing guidance on its DNA storage vertical. He brings a relevant expertise to the board, having previously served in various senior management positions with SanDisk Corporation, the world’s largest supplier of flash-branded storage products, including VP of global marketing, SVP of global sales and marketing and most recently as EVP and GM, consumer business. At SanDisk, he helped drive the business from start-up to over $3 billion in annual revenues. He led SanDisk’s entry into the retail business and was instrumental in creating and driving its retail presence through a branded product portfolio. He also served as CEO of Magellan, in consumer, survey, GIS and OEM GPS navigation and positioning markets. In addition, he held marketing and engineering positions at Chips and Technologies, Signetics, and Delco Electronics.

He holds a B.S. in electrical and computer engineering from the University of California at Santa Barbara and an M.B.A. from Santa Clara University.

He serves as COB of Synaptics and Adesto, and is executive chairman of HZO. He is also a member of the board of directors of Decker Brands, Federated Wireless and Nanosys, and previously served on the board of Affymetrix prior to its acquisition by Thermo Fisher and as COB of Outerwall until it was purchased by Apollo Management.

“I look forward to sharing my expertise as Twist moves toward the commercialization of a new storage media in DNA,” he commented. “I believe DNA could be as groundbreaking, if not more so, than flash memory in this field, and Twist, with its high throughput DNA writing platform, is positioned to lead the industry.“

Chan replaces Paul Conley, Ph.D., MD of Paladin Capital Group, who has served on Twist’s board of directors since 2013.

“I am so proud of what this company has built, so grateful for the opportunity to have been one of the earlier believers and financial backers of the team’s vision and so looking forward to watching my very capable colleagues on this board continue to enable and support that vision,” said Conley.