Dr. Westphal, Dr. Donabedian, and Mr. Aldrich founded Axial Therapeutics with Dr. Sarkis Mazmanian, of California Institute of Technology, a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation “Genius” award. Dr. Donabedian serves as CEO and Mr. Aldrich serves as a director. Axial harnesses the link between the human gut microbiome and the Central Nervous System to develop a new class of therapeutics to improve the quality of life for people with CNS diseases including Parkinson’s Disease and Autism Spectrum Disorder.