Annette Bakker, who has a Ph.D. in Biochemistry, has held both academic and multiple executive leadership positions in Oncology R&D in big pharma and biotech. Struck that many great discoveries remain untranslated into clinical benefit, she joined the Children’s Tumor Foundation (CTF) in 2011 to disrupt the status quo for neurofibromatosis, a rare genetic disorder. Annette is laser-focused on getting therapies to accurately diagnose patients with the right treatments at the right time. Her team manages global public-private multi-disciplinary consortia, contributed to the successful approval of Koselugo and the spin-out of Springworks, and is investing in gene therapy and small-molecule companies. To expand pharma partnerships further, Annette’s team assembled a preclinical hub to swiftly generate clinical trial-ready assets and co-funded the NF2 platform-basket trial. In Europe, CTF was crucial in the first IMI2-funded platform trials for NF, which were implemented in partnership with GCAR. In 2018, CTF Europe was funded. The global CTF enterprises aim to benefit patients with NF and hope to act as a blueprint to accelerate drug discovery and development in the larger rare disease community. In 2021, Annette was decorated by the King of Belgium to Officer in the order of Leopold.