Jamie Heywood, an Massachusetts Institute of Technology-trained mechanical engineer, entered the field of translational medicine when his 29-year-old brother Stephen was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease (MND)/Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS).

Today, Heywood is chairman, chief scientist and architect for PatientsLikeMe, a patient network that helps improve lives by providing a real-time research platform that advances medicine. PatientsLikeMe has been described by CNN Money as one of the 15 companies that will change the world.

Heywood co-founded PatientsLikeMe to ensure patient outcomes become the primary driver of the medical care and discovery process. He is the chairman and co-founder of AOBiome, a skin biome and nitric oxide biotechnology company. Heywood is also the founder and past CEO of the ALS Therapy Development Institute (ALS TDI), the world’s first non-profit biotechnology company. During his tenure at ALS TDI, Heywood helped pioneer an open research model and industrialized therapeutic validation process that made ALS TDI the world’s largest and most comprehensive ALS research program.

Heywood and his brother were the subjects of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jonathan Weiner’s biography, His Brother’s Keeper and the documentary “So Much So Fast.”