Jeffrey Cottrell, PhD

Jeffrey (Jeff) Cottrell, PhD, is a Senior Partner at The Bracken Group and a neuroscientist with 20 years of experience in CNS research and drug discovery. He earned his PhD in Neuroscience from MIT in 2004 and has dedicated his career to uncovering the basis of brain disorders and finding treatments for them, working across neurodegenerative, psychiatric, and neurodevelopmental disease.

Jeff spent eleven years at Galenea, a CNS startup where he was the first hire, leading development of a proprietary platform for measuring synaptic function in a high-throughput fashion. He then became Director of Translational Research at the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, translating the genetics of brain disorders into therapeutic projects, one of which was out-licensed to a pharma company. At Novartis he led systems neuroscience drug discovery across small molecule, AAV, and siRNA programs.

Between those roles he was the first employee at Delix Therapeutics, where a virtual discovery program he built reached IND approval and the clinic in 2023, and an early leader at Serqet Therapeutics. He holds four patent filings, has published widely on cellular and molecular neurobiology, and now advises companies through JCNeuro Consulting and Bracken.