RNA Therapeutics Modalities

Andrew Geall

Armon Sharei

Denis Drygin

Gene Yeo

Gene Yeo PhD MBA is a Professor of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of California San Diego (UCSD). Dr. Yeo has a BSc in Chemical Engineering and a BA in Economics from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, a Ph.D. in Computational Neuroscience from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an MBA from the UCSD Rady School of Management. His primary research interest is in understanding the importance of RNA processing and the roles that RNA binding proteins (RBPs) play in development and disease. Dr. Yeo has authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications including invited book chapters and review articles in the areas of neurodegeneration, RNA processing, computational biology and stem cell models; and served as Editor on two books on the biology of RNA binding proteins.

Gene is on the Editorial Boards of the journals RNA, Cell Reports, Cell Research and eLife, and on the Advisory Board of Review commons. Gene is also a Paul Allen Distinguished Investigator (2020) and received the 2021 Elisa Izaurralde Award for Innovation in Research, Teaching and Service from the RNA Society. Gene is a co-founder of biotech companies which includes Locanabio, Eclipse Bioinnovations, Proteona, CircBio and Trotana Therapeutics.  Gene serves or had served on the scientific advisory boards of the Allen Institute of Immunology, Locanabio, Eclipse Bioinnovations, Proteona, Aquinnah, Cell Applications, Tecan, LGC, Nooma, Insitro and Ribometrix. Gene is a senior advisor to Accelerator Life Sciences Partners.

Karin Jooss

Karin Jooss, Ph.D., is the head of research and development. She had most recently served as the executive vice president of research and chief scientific officer at Gritstone since April 2016. Prior to Gritstone, from May 2009 to April 2016, Dr. Jooss was the head of cancer immuno-therapeutics in the vaccine immuno-therapeutics department at Pfizer, Inc., a public pharmaceutical company, where she was also a member of the vaccine immuno-therapeutics leadership team and served as head of the immuno-pharmacology team with responsibilities including clinical development. Prior to joining Pfizer, Dr. Jooss served as vice president of research at Cell Genesys, Inc., from June 2005 to April 2009, and as senior director of research at Cell Genesys from July 2001 to June 2005. She is on the editorial board of Molecular Therapy and the Journal of Gene Medicine and is a member of the Immunology and Educational Committee of the American Society of Gene & Cell Therapy and the Industry Task Force of the Society for Immunotherapy of Cancer. Dr. Jooss serves on the board of directors of Fate Therapeutics, Inc. Dr. Jooss received her diploma in theoretical medicine from the University of Marburg in Germany, a Ph.D. in molecular biology from the University of Marburg in Germany and performed postgraduate work in gene therapy and immunology at the University of Pennsylvania.

Lior Zangi

Lior Zangi, PhD, is an Associate Professor with Tenure at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York. He completed his education and training at the Weizmann Institute of Science, and Harvard University. He has established a new method, mRNA based, for gene delivery into skeletal and cardiac muscle. In the last two years, these mRNA delivery methods have been used for COVID19 vaccinations and promoting cardiovascular regeneration in ischemic heart disease. Currently, Prof. Zangi’s laboratory investigates mRNA delivery method into healthy or unhealthy specific cell types and organs, to fight different diseases such as heart failure and cancer.

Roel Schaapveld

Roel served as Chief Operating Officer when InteRNA became operational until he was appointed Chief Executive Officer in May 2009. Prior to InteRNA, Roel was senior manager in the corporate finance biotech team at the Dutch merchant bank Kempen & Co involved in private funding, M&A and IPO’s at Euronext of life sciences companies.

Previously, he held several management positions at Kreatech Diagnostics (sold to Leica Biosystems), among which VP Corporate and Business Development.

Roel holds MSc and PhD degrees from Radboud University Nijmegen (NL). During his academic career he worked at the Roche Institute for Molecular Biology (Nutley, NJ), at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Boston, MA) and at the Netherlands Cancer Institute in Amsterdam. Roel received his MBA from Nyenrode Business School (NL).

Stefano Zanotti

Ken Yamada

Lorena Lerner

Lorena Lerner Ph.D. is the Vice President of Research at Oncorus, where she is leading the efforts to engineer and develop novel oncolytic viral immunotherapies to treat solid tumors.

Lorena is an experienced cancer biologist with a proven track record of managing and advancing projects, from early discovery to clinical development. Most recently, Lorena served as Director of Biology at Quiet Therapeutics, where she was responsible for developing its proprietary nanotechnology platform, identifying potent immunotherapy target candidates, and optimizing vector design. Prior to Quiet, she served as Director of Target Discovery at Scholar Rock and held positions of increasing responsibilities at AVEO Oncology, where she pioneered and executed the development of AV-380, a cancer cachexia program targeting GDF15, from target identification, validation, and antibody discovery through preclinical development and out-licensing enterprises.

Lorena received an MSc in Molecular Biology and a Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Buenos Aires. She completed a post-doctoral research fellowship in Molecular and Cellular Biology with Professor James E. Darnell at Rockefeller University. Her academic training focused on the field of gene regulation and cancer molecular biology. Lorena is a co-inventor of numerous patents and high-impact, peer-reviewed manuscripts and abstracts.

Martin Akerman

Dr. Martin Akerman is the Co-founder and CTO of Envisagenics. He is the inventor of SpliceCore®, Envisagenics’ flagship platform born of his vision of applying machine learning to RNA information and discovering new drug targets in areas of unmet need. Martin trained as a post doctorate fellow with Dr. Adrian Krainer at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he helped in the development of Spinraza®, the first FDA-approved RNA therapeutic for treating Spinal Muscular Atrophy. He received his PhD in Bioinformatics from Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, where he studied how RNA splicing can boost functionality of the human genome and trigger diseases.

Justin Fallon

Peter Connolly

Dushyant Varshney

Andrew Prigodich