The team behind the map.
Leonardo is a serial founder in biotechnology. A biotechnology engineer by training, he cofounded Protera (formerly GEA Enzymes) in 2015, a company that designs food proteins with machine learning, and took it through IndieBio in San Francisco and a Series A led by Sofinnova Partners, later joined by Grupo Bimbo. Earlier he founded Aminotec, a Startup Chile AgTech company making fertilizers. He is a named inventor on four patent families in AI protein design and coauthored Protera's deep learning preprints. El Mercurio named him one of Chile's 100 Young Leaders to Watch in 2015. As CEO, he sets Chask's direction.
Simón builds where biotechnology meets AI. A biochemist with a master's in biochemistry focused on bioinformatics, he led computational biology at Protera, where he used AI models to design functional ingredients based on proteins and shorten R&D cycles, and he is a coinventor on four of its patent families. His work spans protein structure, machine learning and software engineering. As CTO, he owns Chask's technology end to end, from the system architecture and the data that maps how a company operates to the AI that automates how teams work.
Ignacio has spent over a decade turning science into companies. A biochemist from Universidad de Chile and a named inventor on five patent families, he cofounded Lab4U, an edtech that scaled internationally and was acquired, and cofounded and led R2B Catalyst, a biotech incubator and R&D center for companies and startups in Chile, built with UC Davis. At Chask, he owns the part most AI projects skip: making automation run reliably in production, under real compliance constraints, for companies and the public sector.
Francia is an operator with a decade in biotech across Santiago and San Francisco. A biotechnology engineer by training, she cofounded Protera (formerly GEA Enzymes) in 2015, took it through IndieBio in San Francisco and ran its operations and finance as COO through a Series A led by Sofinnova Partners. She holds diplomas in Accounting & Finance (Universidad de Chile) and Business Creation (Universidad Andrés Bello). At Chask, she leads finance and the operating discipline a company needs to scale.
Biologists by training. Complex systems people by trade.
Chask's founders come from the life sciences: biochemistry, biotechnology and bioinformatics. We have known each other for more than a decade and spent our careers inside living systems, where no part makes sense on its own and behavior emerges from how the parts connect.
Computational biology taught us to read those systems: map every interaction, find the pathway that fails, change one thing and measure. A company is a complex system too. People, tools and processes form a network, and the bottleneck is rarely where it seems. That is why we map first, then automate, the idea we have been building Chask on, together, for years.
Proteins designed by machine learning
At Protera, Leonardo and Simón built deep learning models that predict and design functional proteins, published as preprints and covered by four patent families since 2019.
Science turned into products
Ignacio cofounded Lab4U, which turned smartphones into lab instruments (patented in the US) and was acquired, led R2B Catalyst, the R&D center he launched with UC Davis in Santiago, and holds patents in biocontrol, nanomaterials and AI for genomics.
Deep tech taken to market
Leonardo and Francia cofounded Protera in 2015, went through IndieBio in San Francisco and closed a Series A led by Sofinnova Partners.
Patents
- Systems and methods for predicting proteinsLeonardo Alvarez, Simón Correa et al. (Protera) · WO2021041199A1 · US20220375539A1 · 2021
- Antifungal protein compositionLeonardo Alvarez, Simón Correa et al. (Protera) · WO2021092379A1 · US20240268395A1 · 2021
- Biochemical saturation of molecules and its useLeonardo Alvarez, Simón Correa et al. (Protera) · WO2022082200A2 · 2022
- Methods and systems for protein expression optimization and variant generationLeonardo Alvarez, Simón Correa et al. (Protera) · US20250182854A1 · 2025
- System and method for determining solute concentration in a colored liquid sampleIgnacio Brescia et al. (Lab4U) · US10012584B2 (granted) · 2018
- Microorganisms for biocontrol of BotrytisIgnacio Brescia et al. (AM Ecological) · WO2019144249A1 · 2019
- Composition for the control and prevention of phytopathogenic fungi in plants, crops and fruit treesIgnacio Brescia et al. (AM Ecological) · CL2020002013A1 · 2020
- Superhydrophobic composition based on zeolitesIgnacio Brescia et al. (Nans) · CL2020000506A1 · 2020
- Predictive system of equine sports performance through genetic analysis with neural networksIgnacio Brescia et al. (Elite Genomics) · CL2019002073A1 · 2019
Publications
- Deep learning enables the design of functional de novo antimicrobial proteinsbioRxiv · 2020
- Deep learning model for the prediction and classification of protein toxins across all domains of lifebioRxiv · 2021
- Protein sequence sampling and prediction from structural databioRxiv · 2021
- Phosphorylation at the N-terminal finger subdomain of a viral RNA-dependent RNA polymeraseBiochemical and Biophysical Research Communications · 2015
- Physicochemical characterization of PHBV nanoparticles functionalized with multiple bioactives designed to be theranostics for lung cancerJournal of Cluster Science · 2020
