It is early morning in January 2026. The Keystone Symposia board meeting has just ended, and board member Mohamad Tabrizi is driving with Walter Moos to the airport. In the quiet of that drive, Walter says something unexpected: that being named an Emeritus Board Member of Keystone Symposia is one of the greatest achievements of his career.
It is worth sitting with that for a moment. Walter has spent more than fifty years at the leading edge of science and medicine. He has led research divisions at pharmaceutical giants, co-founded biotechnology companies, and taught at UCSF for more than three decades. His teams helped bring the first Alzheimer’s drug to market. Two of his advisors at Harvard went on to win Nobel Prizes.
And amidst that outstanding resume — a volunteer role at a nonprofit conference organization is the pinnacle.
“The Keystone Board is an amazingly talented group. You can say amazing things about everybody who’s on the Board. To me, it’s like a Nobel Prize to be invited to continue in any capacity on the Keystone Symposia. And it’s just the reputation. This is the best science meeting, in the topics that we cover, in the world.”
— Walter Moos
To understand why, you have to go back — not to 1999, when Walter joined the Keystone Symposia Scientific Advisory Board, but to the decade before that.
In the 1980s, Walter was a staff scientist at Warner-Lambert/Parke-Davis (now Pfizer), working under celebrated scientist, Pedro Cuatrecasas, who served on the Scientific Advisory Board for Keystone Symposia (then known as the UCLA Symposia). Cuatrecasas actively encouraged his staff to attend the organization’s meetings. Walter went.
While at Keystone Symposia meetings, he saw how the organization brought together leading scientists across disciplines, and that the conversations taking place were shaping careers and opening unexpected paths. This impression stayed with Walter.
“I was impressed with the intellectual power of the individuals who were leading the organization. The meetings were obviously outstanding. It seemed like a place where I could both make a difference and broaden my knowledge and connections.”
— Walter Moos
When Cuatrecasas retired from Keystone Symposia’s Scientific Advisory Board in the late 1990’s, he suggested that Walter fill his vacancy. In 1999, Walter joined the Scientific Advisory Board; in 2002, he joined the Board of Directors, carrying an already substantial professional load as CEO of MitoKor, holding multiple editorial positions, and remaining a professor at University of California San Francisco. He made time to volunteer anyway. For Walter, the decision needed little deliberation: the scientists in those rooms were doing work that genuinely mattered, and being part of it was its own reward.
Over twenty years, Walter built something more difficult to measure than a title: the trust of everyone around him. When he first joined the board, he chaired the Development Committee through 2006, then transitioned to chair the Finance and Audit Committee, becoming Treasurer. When the organization needed an Interim CFO, Walter — a board volunteer — stepped in and took on a full-time executive’s responsibilities for a year. When there was a gap, he filled it.
“I felt like he offered a master class in business administration. I was watching Walter be the practitioner of all these things I learned, and he just made it always look so easy.”
— Juleen Zierath, Board Member and former Board Chair
When asked to name Walter’s single greatest contribution to Keystone Symposia, longtime CFO Pam Daugherty paused and offered one word: “Focus.” He consistently kept the organization anchored to what it does best: small, intimate, high-quality scientific gatherings.
In 2011, Walter reached Keystone Symposia’s maximum board term service under the organization’s by-laws. He stepped off the board, thinking it was simply the end of his time with the organization.
Then, in 2014, an invitation arrived to return to the Board of Directors. He was the first board member in Keystone Symposia’s history to be recalled after terming out and stepping away for multiple years.
“I figured that was the end. I didn’t figure I would be invited back. It was such a rare thing… I was really surprised when I was invited back, and very delighted to do so.”
— Walter Moos
He returned as Treasurer and Finance and Audit Chair in 2015, and in 2018 co-chaired the Business Strategy Subcommittee that produced the 2018–2022 Strategic Plan, a document that shaped Keystone Symposia’s vision for global reach and long-term financial sustainability.
Walter (top row, third from left) with the Keystone Symposia Board of Directors at the June 2019 meeting.
In July 2019, Walter was elected sixth Board Chair of Keystone Symposia. Within months, the COVID-19 pandemic arrived. For an organization whose entire model depends on scientists meeting in person at small, intimate venues, this was not merely a disruption. It was an existential threat.
“If the world gives you something bad, then you try to figure out how to spin it in a better way.”
— Walter Moos
Pam Daugherty would later say that Walter was “the right person for that time.” He didn’t overreact. He had come to the Keystone Symposia offices early in his tenure as Chair, meeting staff and working to understand the organization from the ground up. That groundwork mattered when the hard calls came. Because Keystone Symposia had already been developing an online capability for several years, it was able to pivot quickly: by June 2020, it had launched virtual conferences and hosted a free, global conference on COVID-19, with Dr. Anthony Fauci as the opening speaker.
“I learned very early that the first thing to do is not to react. The first thing to do is to listen. And think about what you’re hearing or seeing, and then figure out, okay, what’s the best path forward?”
— Walter Moos
Walter Moos with current Keystone Symposia CEO Jamie Baumgartner at the June 2026 board meeting — Walter's last as Board Chair.
During that period, he and then-CEO Debbie Johnson spoke every month throughout her tenure, without exception. He never micromanaged. He let her run the organization, offered perspective when she needed it, and held the board steady. As current CEO Jamie Baumgartner later put it, Walter stayed close but took a support role. “Although he is my ultimate boss, he has approached discussions as a colleague. He is a large reason why I think the organization has built resiliency and is heading in the right direction.”
“I felt like when we had conversations, I left that discussion feeling very supported and encouraged.”
— Debbie Johnson, former CEO of Keystone Symposia
His communication style was characteristically spare. As Debbie put it, he was “not very verbose, but what he says is very important.” At the end of many of their calls, as uncertainty mounted, his sign-off was always the same: “Keep doing what you’re doing.”
Walter went straight from his PhD into industry at Warner-Lambert Parke-Davis — no postdoc. When a difficult direct report tested him early in his career, he didn’t sidestep the problem. He went to the library. He read management books, working through CliffsNotes editions when they became available. He came to subscribe to a principle he has carried ever since: Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way. He has built his leadership instincts the same way he built his scientific ones and demonstrates how calmly he has moved through leadership roles.
When asked independently about Walter, multiple people offered the same unprompted observation: he’s incredibly thoughtful. When Caroline, Keystone Symposia’s longtime executive assistant, had her son in 2006, Walter sent a baby gift. “I thought it was extremely sweet and so not expected,” she recalled. He asks Mike Page about his daughter’s career. He remembered a family member’s health struggle that another board member mentioned once, in passing.
Walter traced the habit to his early years at Warner-Lambert Parke-Davis, where he observed how the best colleagues in sales kept careful notes on the people around them — names, interests, family details — and made a point of returning to those details in future conversations. He adopted the practice as his own.
Walter has never stayed inside a single domain. Across more than five decades, he has moved between pharmaceutical research, academic science, nonprofit leadership, and venture capital, accumulating more than 200 publications and patents, seven co-authored or edited books, and multiple co-founded scientific journals along the way. He wrote the foreword to a book celebrating artist-scientist Sonya Rapoport, a pioneer whose work fused art, biology, and technology in ways that are now considered cutting-edge for her time. On most Wednesdays, he is still at UCSF, attending faculty meetings, meeting with students and faculty who want a sounding board, and writing review articles with what he affectionately calls his “ragtag band of mitochondriacs,” keeping mitochondrial biology in front of the scientific community.
Juleen Zierath, reflecting on years of working alongside Walter, reached for a word and settled on “elevated” — consistently above the fray. “He always did the right thing for all parties involved… obviously the right thing for the organization first, and he treated everybody fairly.”
On June 30, 2026, Walter steps down as Board Chair of Keystone Symposia, having reached the maximum board term — for the second time. The by-law that sets term limits was designed, fittingly, to ensure the organization outlasts any one person’s tenure. On July 1, he becomes an Emeritus Board Member: no vote, but still in the room. Still engaged. The honor has previously been held by Ralph A. Bradshaw, Ph.D., Edward A. Dennis, Ph.D., and Curtis C. Harris, M.D., individuals recognized for foundational contributions to the organization. Walter is the only person in Keystone Symposia’s history to have been recalled after terming out as a Director, and then elevated to Emeritus status.
“It’s a recognition of a lifetime achievement, an acknowledgement of his lifetime contribution to this organization, and it will never be forgotten because he will always be a part of this.”
— Juleen Zierath
Walter looks to fellow Emeritus member Ed Dennis, who has been part of Keystone Symposia longer than Walter and is still contributing significantly, as a model for what the role can be. “In some ways, he’s a role model for me of how I can continue to help the Keystone Symposia,” Walter said. His own ambition for the role is characteristically direct: “I hope to stay active with this for a long time.”
The pace outside Keystone Symposia has not slowed either. He remains Managing Director of Pandect Bioventures, Managing Member of the Berkeley Catalyst Fund, and adjunct professor at UCSF. His wife Susan, after retiring from UCSF, promptly started research at UC Berkeley. As Walter put it: neither of them can quit.
Their commitment runs deeper than volunteering their time. Walter and Susan’s Moos-Miller Fifty Forward Endowment reflects a conviction they have held throughout their careers: that the most impactful science happens at the interfaces — between disciplines, sectors, and career stages — and that Keystone Symposia is one of the rare institutions that consistently creates those conditions. The endowment was established in 2021 and carries no restrictions; to be used at the discretion of the CEO. It is Walter and Susan’s commitment to the perpetuity of Keystone Symposia and the long-term financial health of our organization.
A timeline of Walter Moos' involvement with Keystone Symposia
Back in that car, in the early morning after the January board meeting, what Walter said to Mohamad makes sense now. It was never about the title. It was about the scientists — the ones he watched make connections in those early California meetings, the ones whose research has reshaped medicine, the ones who needed a room to meet in. Keystone Symposia is that room, and more. Walter Moos spent 25 years making sure it stayed open. He has a phrase for this kind of work: do well by doing good. He has been living by it for most of his career, and Keystone Symposia is where it shows most clearly.
When asked what he would tell a young scientist who wants to build a career of real impact, Walter didn’t hesitate. “Be a sponge. Soak up as much knowledge as you can” he said before offering a series of advice that he would give to anyone including:
For a scientist who has spent fifty years doing good, he’s done well.