Foundation Leadership

Rusty Kelley is the managing director of the Retinal Degeneration Fund (RD Fund), the venture arm of the Foundation. Kelley brings over 25 years of experience in identifying, funding and developing biotechnologies to his leadership role. Kelley helped launch the RD Fund in 2018, serving the Foundation’s mission to develop therapeutics for inherited retinal dystrophies and age-related macular degenerations.

Prior to his current role, Kelley previously served on the bench as a scientist, then as a director and head of preclinical at Tengion, a tissue engineering spin-out of Boston Children’s Hospital and Wake Forest University. Kelley then directed the translational and interdisciplinary science funding portfolios at the Burroughs Wellcome Fund.

Earlier in his career, Kelley served on the bench in analytical chemistry and pharmaceutics in the divisions of wet chemistry and formulations at AAIPharma, and then in clinical development at PPD, Inc. where he helped develop and managed clinical trials in the divisions of Medicine, NIH trials and Infectious Disease.

Kelley received a BA in Chemistry from UNC Chapel Hill, and then after six years in industry earned a PhD in Pharmacology at LSU’s Health Sciences Center. Kelley was awarded an American Heart fellowship during his postdoc at the School of Medicine at UNC Chapel Hill and earned an MBA from Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business.

Kelley is currently a Board director of SparingVision and Nacuity and a Board observer for Atsena Therapeutics, Perceive Bio, Amber Bio, and Perceive Pharma. Kelley was also a founding Board director of Opus Genetics, and a Board observer for Stargazer Pharmaceuticals and Vedere Bio II.