Our mission.
Building the AI platform that puts drug discovery on targets it can actually reach.
Cavatar grew out of two decades of pioneering work on the blood-tissue interface and caveolae-mediated transport. We're turning that research — and the proprietary data behind it — into software that any biotech can use to discover deliverable targets.
Leadership
Jan E. Schnitzer, MD
Founder & CEO / Chief Scientist
Bogdan Olenyuk, PhD
Head of Target Science
Michael Levin, PhD
Head of Nanotechnology
Adrian Chrastina, PhD
Head of Validation & Imaging
Tad Schnitzer
Head of Machine Learning
Tim Buss
Head of Antibody Engineering
Twenty years of accessible biology.
Cavatar's scientific foundation traces back to Jan Schnitzer's research on the vascular endothelium, which began in the 1990s and continued at PRISM (Proteogenomics Research Institute for Systems Medicine) — a nonprofit research institute Schnitzer founded in 2009. Several members of Cavatar's team, including Adrian Chrastina, Michael Levin, and Bogdan Olenyuk, are PRISM-affiliated researchers who bring that expertise directly into Cavatar. Founded in 2016, Cavatar is an independent company built to turn that body of scientific understanding into an AI-driven drug-target-discovery platform.
- 1994Schnitzer discovers caveolae-mediated transcytosis
Early work at JCB establishing the caveolae transport mechanism.
- 2002McIntosh & Schnitzer publish in PNAS
Foundational work on caveolae-mediated transcytosis.
- 2004Oh et al. publish in Nature
Caveolae-mediated transcytosis of antibody targeting caveolae.
- 2007Oh et al. publish in Nature Biotechnology
Caveolae-mediated transcytosis can be induced in cells lacking caveolae.
- 2009Yi & Schnitzer publish in PNAS
Impaired tumor growth, metastasis, angiogenesis, and wound healing in Annexin A1-null mice — foundational biology behind the AnnA1 program.
- 2010Chrastina et al. publish in J Vasc Res
Aminopeptidase P2 identified as lung caveolae-enriched target.
- 2014Oh et al. publish in Nature Medicine
Caveolae-targeting antibody to truncated Annexin A1 for tumor delivery.
- 2022Kadam et al. publish in PLOS ONE
Anti-TGF-beta bispecific antibody for pulmonary fibrosis.
- 2025Nayak, Chrastina et al. publish in Nature Nanotechnology
APP2-targeting for pulmonary delivery via caveolae-mediated transcytosis.
- 2026Cavatar emerges from PRISM
Cavatar emerges from PRISM to advance caveolae-targeting antibodies into the clinic.
where accessible biology meets artificial intelligence.