Shankar Ramaswamy, MD

Co-Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer

Shankar Ramaswamy is the Co-Founder, Chairman, and Chief Executive Officer of Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Ramaswamy was part of the early foundational team at Roivant Sciences, where he was responsible for helping to identify and evaluate assets across therapeutic areas and launch its first public subsidiary company. He went on to be the Chief Business Officer of Axovant Gene Therapies.

Dr. Ramaswamy received his MD from Brown University and his undergraduate degree in economics from Harvard University.

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Roger Jeffs, PhD

Co-Founder and Vice Chairman

Roger Jeffs is Co-Founder and Vice Chairman at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Jeffs was the President and co-CEO of United Therapeutics Corporation, joining the company during its start-up phase in 1998. He helped lead the company’s IPO, oversaw the clinical development and regulatory approval of six products for rare diseases, and managed the commercial efforts that led to a $1.5B annual revenue run rate. He currently serves on the boards of Axsome Therapeutics, Albireo Pharma and Liquidia Corporation. He previously served on the boards of United Therapeutics, Sangamo Therapeutics, and Dova Pharmaceuticals.

Dr. Jeffs received his PhD in pharmacology from the University of North Carolina School of Medicine and his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Duke University.

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Fraser Wright, PhD

Scientific Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Advisor

Fraser Wright is the Scientific Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Advisor at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Wright is a Professor of Pediatrics in the Center for Definitive and Curative Medicine at Stanford University. He was also the co-founder and Chief Technology Officer of Spark Therapeutics, where he helped oversee the product development and manufacturing of LUXTURNA^® and other pipeline programs. Prior to co-founding Spark Therapeutics, Dr. Wright was the founding Scientific Director of the Clinical Vector Core Laboratory at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He was also previously the director of development and clinical manufacturing at Avigen.

Dr. Wright received his PhD in biochemistry and molecular immunology and his undergraduate degree in biochemistry and physiology from the University of Toronto.

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Melissa Rhodes, PhD, DABT

Chief Development Officer

Melissa Rhodes is the Chief Development Officer at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Rhodes joins us from Aerami Therapeutics, a company focused on inhaled biologic therapies where she was the Chief Development Officer. Prior to Aerami, Dr. Rhodes was the Chief Development Officer at Altavant Sciences, a respiratory rare disease company. Dr. Rhodes also served as Senior Vice President at Roivant Sciences, where she built and led a team of scientists conducting nonclinical research for multiple Roivant subsidiary companies. She spent almost ten years in R&D at GlaxoSmithKline. Dr. Rhodes started her career in drug development at an oncology-focused biotech university spin-out.

Dr. Rhodes received her PhD in pharmacology and toxicology from Duke University Medical Center. Dr. Rhodes completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Toxicology Program at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, and is a diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology.

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Britt Petty

Chief Manufacturing Officer

Britt Petty is the Chief Manufacturing Officer at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Petty joins Kriya from AveXis, a Novartis company, focused on the development and commercialization of gene therapies for neurological genetic diseases, where he was the Chief Technical Officer (interim) and Head of Global Manufacturing. At AveXis, he was responsible for manufacturing the company’s commercial and clinical gene therapy products at both internal and external sites across the United States and Europe. Mr. Petty oversaw all of supply chain, engineering, program management, and manufacturing science and technology functions. Prior to AveXis, Mr. Petty held senior manufacturing roles at Biogen, including as the site head for the company’s North Carolina facility. He previously held manufacturing roles of increasing responsibility at Amgen and Eli Lily and Co.

Mr. Petty received his MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology.

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Daniel Chen

Chief Financial Officer

Daniel Chen is the Chief Financial Officer at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Chen joins Kriya from Portola Pharmaceuticals, where most recently he worked as Vice President of Business Planning and Corporate Strategy. In that role, he was responsible for leading the financial planning and analysis (FP&A), treasury, purchasing and strategic planning functions for the company. Prior to Portola, Mr. Chen held various roles in finance and commercial operations at Johnson & Johnson and Gilead Sciences.

Mr. Chen received his MBA from the University of Southern California and his undergraduate degree in molecular cell biology from the University of California, Berkeley.

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Dana Johnson

General Counsel

Dana Johnson is the General Counsel at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. Johnson joins us from Rakuten Medical where she was General Counsel and Vice President, Head of Legal Affairs and Corporate Compliance at Gritstone Oncology. Ms. Johnson has also held roles at a leading global law firm and BioMarin Pharmaceutical. Ms. Johnson brings over 15 years of international business and legal life sciences industry experience, in both private and public companies, in areas as varied as IPO, complex transactions, corporate governance, litigation, compliance and ethics, among others.

Ms. Johnson received her JD from the University of San Francisco School of Law and her undergraduate degree in English literature from Vanderbilt University.

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Nachi Gupta, MD, PhD

Chief Technology Innovation Officer

Nachi Gupta is the Chief Technology Innovation Officer at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Gupta is a board-certified emergency physician. Prior to his career as a clinician, Dr. Gupta was a quantitative analyst at Brevan Howard Asset Management, a global macro hedge fund. Dr. Gupta was also associate staff at MIT Lincoln Laboratories, serving on the ballistic missile defense team.

Dr. Gupta received his MD from Brown University and completed his residency at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City. He received his PhD in mathematics from Oxford University, advanced degrees in computer science and mathematics. Dr. Gupta received his undergraduate degrees in economics and engineering from the University of Pennsylvania.

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Mitch Lower

Senior Vice President, Technical Operations

Mitch Lower is the Vice President of Technical Operations at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Lower joins Kriya from AveXis, a Novartis company, where he was most recently the Vice President of Global Engineering and Facilities, responsible for overall implementation and management of the company’s manufacturing capabilities and the support of the AveXis engineering and facilities global network. Prior to AveXis, Mr. Lower held positions of increasing responsibility at Biogen for more than 20 years in roles across technical operations, engineering and facilities, manufacturing, supply chain, and network strategy.

Mr. Lower received his MBA from Duke University his undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering at North Carolina State University.

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Ashlyn Bassiri, PhD

Vice President, Immunology

Ashlyn Bassiri is the Vice President of Immunology at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Bassiri joins Kriya from CSL Behring where she was the Head of Translational Safety. Prior to that, she was the Pharmacovigilance Leader for all liver-targeted programs and supported the US and European filings for LUXTURNA^® at the Philadelphia-based gene therapy company, Spark Therapeutics. She spent ten years in R&D at GlaxoSmithKline where she focused on immune toxicities in both the nonclinical and clinical safety groups, eventually chairing the Immune Safety panel.

Dr. Bassiri received her PhD in immunology from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.  She received her master’s and undergraduate degrees in Biomedical Sciences and Immunology from Ohio University.

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Brian Furmanski, PhD

Vice President, Regulatory Affairs

Brian Furmanski is the Vice President of Regulatory Affairs at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Furmanski joins Kriya from Nuventra Pharma Sciences where he was the Senior Director of Clinical Pharmacology and Regulatory Affairs. Prior to Nuventra, Dr. Furmanski was a Senior Clinical Pharmacology Reviewer at the FDA where he reviewed and provided regulatory and scientific advice on hundreds of IND, NDA and BLA submissions. Before his time at the FDA, Dr. Furmanski was an investigator in the muscle metabolism and repair group at GlaxoSmithKline. He started his career at Siga Technologies where he contributed to the development of novel antiviral therapies.

Dr. Furmanski received his PhD in biochemistry from the University of South Carolina and completed his postdoctoral fellowship at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.  Dr. Furmanski received his undergraduate degrees in economics and engineering, also from the University of South Carolina.

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Erik Hughes, PhD

Vice President, Applied Science and Technology

Erik Hughes is the Vice President of Applied Science and Technology at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Hughes joins Kriya from Biogen where he held various roles included Director of Global Process Sciences and Director of North American Manufacturing Sciences.  Within these roles, he was responsible for partner relationships, development of second-generation processes, technology transfer, process scale-up, GMP cell banking, process compliance, and lifecycle management across a portfolio of commercial and clinical products. Prior to Biogen, Dr. Hughes started his career at Wyeth Research where he worked in upstream process development on Prevnar13® and a meningococcal group B vaccine.

Dr. Hughes received his PhD in chemical engineering and his undergraduate degrees in economics and chemical engineering from Rice University.

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Harold Alterson

Vice President, Quality

Harold Alterson is the Vice President of Quality at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Alterson joins Kriya from bluebird bio where he was most recently Senior Director of Quality Control and CMC Lead. Mr. Alterson was part of the team involved in the construction and startup of bluebird bio’s first internal manufacturing facility. Mr. Alterson was responsible for building out the Quality Control team at the site to support facility qualification and routine operations. Prior to bluebird bio, Mr. Alterson held positions of increasing responsibility in Quality Assurance at Biogen with roles overseeing Quality Engineering, Quality Systems, and Quality Operations. In addition to roles within Quality, he spent the early part of his career in research and development focused on alphavirus vectors for vaccine use at AlphaVax.

Mr. Alterson received his undergraduate degree in microbiology from Montana State University.

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Jason Mallory, PhD

Vice President, Clinical Development

Jason Mallory is the Vice President of Clinical Development at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Mallory joins Kriya from Spark Therapeutics, where he was a Clinical Development Leader, focused on liver-targeted AAV clinical programs (Pompe disease, Hemophilia A, and early-stage programs). Prior to Spark Therapeutics, Dr. Mallory led clinical development activities spanning all phases of drug development for gene therapy programs at GlaxoSmithKline (Libmeldy™ for patients with metachromatic leukodystrophy) and Adverum Biotechnologies. Prior to his experience in the development of gene therapies for rare diseases, Dr. Mallory spent approximately ten years in clinical development of medicines for common diseases, including contributing to the development and successful global licensure of albiglutide (a GLP-1 receptor agonist) for patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus.

Dr. Mallory received his PhD in molecular biology and genetics from Baylor University and completed postdoctoral work at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center and the Institute of Metabolic Disease at Baylor University Medical Center. Dr. Mallory received his undergraduate degree Biology from Midwestern State University, Wichita Falls.

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Joseph Rabinowitz, PhD

Vice President, Process Sciences

Joseph Rabinowitz is the Vice President of Process Sciences at Kriya. Dr. Rabinowitz joins Kriya from Pfizer where he was the Senior Director of Capsid Development in the Rare Disease Research Unit where he led a team generating AAV viral libraries. Dr. Rabinowitz brings over 20 years of experience in AAV vector development. Prior to working at Pfizer, he was a faculty member at Temple University and Thomas Jefferson University.

Dr. Rabinowitz received his PhD in genetics from Case Western Reserve University and completed his postdoctoral work at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Gene Therapy.  Dr. Rabinowitz received his undergraduate degree in microbiology from the University of Arizona, Tucson.

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Lily Nguyen

Vice President, Project Management

Lily Nguyen is the Vice President of Project Management at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. Nguyen joins Kriya from SpringWorks, a company focused on advancing therapies in rare disease and oncology, where she was Director of Program and Alliance Management. She supported development teams to plan and execute on global clinical studies and managed development programs with alliance partners. Prior to SpringWorks, Ms. Nguyen was Senior Director of Program Management at Roivant Sciences where she led planning and organization of drug development projects through NDA preparation and coordination of due diligence reviews for potential in-license assets. She has over 15 years of drug development experience and has held project management roles of increasing responsibility at Aerie, Cempra and Synthon Pharmaceuticals.

Ms. Nguyen received her MBA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering at North Carolina State University.

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Michele Stone, PhD

Vice President, Translational Development

Michele Stone is the Vice President of Translational Development at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Stone joins Kriya from Axovant Gene Therapies, where she was Vice President of Early Development and Head of Nonclinical and Bioanalytical. Prior to Axovant Gene Therapies, Dr. Stone was Executive Director of Vaccine Development and Bioanalytical at Liquidia Technologies. Dr. Stone was also the Director of R&D at Aeras where she was responsible for developing and leading partnerships to advance multiple vaccine platforms (viral vector, protein, and nucleic acid) into and through clinical development. In addition, Dr. Stone was a Senior Scientist at Canon US Life Sciences where she contributed to the development of diagnostics targeted towards personalized medicine.

Dr. Stone received her PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology and completed her postdoctoral fellowship in physiology and neuroscience at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. Dr. Stone received her undergraduate degree in chemistry at Lynchburg College.

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Stephen Soltys

Vice President, Process Development

Stephen Soltys is the Vice President of Process Development at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Soltys joins Kriya from AveXis, a Novartis company, where he was Director of the Manufacturing Science and Technology (MSAT) labs and led a team of upstream, downstream, and analytical scientists. Prior to AveXis, Mr. Soltys designed the manufacturing processes for multiple gene therapy companies, including Precision BioSciences and Bamboo Therapeutics (a Pfizer, Inc. subsidiary), and was a process development scientist at the University of North Carolina Gene Therapy Center.

Mr. Soltys received his master’s degree in molecular biology from Thomas Jefferson University and his undergraduate degree in biology at Marietta College.

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Wayne Yount, PhD 

 Vice President, Analytical Development 

 Wayne Yount is the Vice President of Analytical Development at Kriya Therapeutics.  Dr. Yount joins Kriya from KBI Biopharma, Inc., where he was most recently the Senior Vice President of Analytical and Formulation Sciences, responsible for leading a global organization providing analytical and formulation services for biopharmaceutical development.  During his 16 years at KBI, Dr. Yount held roles of increasing responsibility, specializing in analytical development, characterization and formulation development as well as method qualification/validation and clinical through commercial release/stability.   

 Dr. Yount received his PhD in chemistry at Duke University and his undergraduate degree in chemistry from East Carolina University. 

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Zhu Pirot, PhD

Vice President, Translational Sciences

Zhu Pirot is the Vice President of Translational Sciences at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Pirot joins Kriya from Sangamo Therapeutics, where she was the head of analytical method development, CMC lead where she built and led the analytical function for AAV-mediated gene therapy, gene editing, and cell therapy programs. Dr. Pirot has more than 20 years of experience in drug development and has held positions of increasing responsibility at Chiron, Avigen, and Geron.

Dr. Pirot received her MD from Inner Mongolia Medical College, her PhD in cellular and molecular biology from the University of Turin and her master’s degree in cytogenetics from the Beijing Cancer Institute.

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Amy Chen

Senior Director, Corporate Controller

Amy Chen is the Corporate Controller at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. Chen joins Kriya from Jazz Pharmaceuticals where she as the Director of Accounting, supporting all aspects of the company’s U.S. accounting operations and related SOX compliance. Before Jazz, she was the Assistant Controller at Natera, then a biotech startup, where she played a key role in the company’s accounting readiness for its initial S-1 filing. Ms. Chen has also held roles in both technical accounting and BU finance. Ms. Chen started her career in public accounting with Deloitte and subsequently Ernst & Young, serving both public and private audit clients across various industries. She is a Certified Public Accountant actively licensed in the state of California.

Ms. Chen received her master’s degree in economics from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale and her master’s degree in accounting from the University of Georgia. Ms. Chen receive her bachelor’s degree in economics from Zhongnan University of Economics of Law in China.

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Bruce Schnepp, PhD

Senior Director, Technology Development

Bruce Schnepp is the Senior Director of Technology Development at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Schnepp joins Kriya from Limelight Bio where he was a Research Scientist and led a team of scientists developing both AAV-mediated and non-viral therapeutics for genetic diseases. Prior to Limelight Bio, Dr. Schnepp was a Scientist at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia where he was involved in the preclinical design and development of the first-in-human study that used a recombinant AAV vector to deliver a gene for a monoclonal antibody to block HIV infection. Dr. Schnepp has more than 20 years of experience in rAAV gene transfer, as well as vector biodistribution, safety, and genome persistence.

Dr. Schnepp received his PhD in molecular genetics from the Ohio State University.  He completed his postdoctoral work at Nationwide Children’s Hospital. Dr. Schnepp received his undergraduate degree in biology from Purdue University.

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Jed Leviner

Senior Director & Head of Information and Operational Technology

Jed Leviner is the Senior Director and Head of Information and Operational Technology at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Leviner joins Kriya from Liquidia Technologies where he was Executive Director of Information Technology. He developed and led the execution of the technology strategy to transition from R&D and clinical manufacturing to commercial manufacturing. Mr. Leviner was also the Director of Information Technology and Automation for Medicago, where he scaled the technology strategy, infrastructure, and operations in the build-out of a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-funded manufacturing facility in North Carolina and the conceptual design of a commercial-scale facility in Quebec. Mr. Leviner began his career with Campbell Soup Company and held various roles of increasing responsibility in manufacturing automation and information technology before transitioning to the life sciences industry.

Mr. Leviner received his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Appalachian State University.

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Sherry Clough 

 Senior Director, Supply Chain 

 Sherry Clough is the Senior Director of Supply Chain at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. Clough joins Kriya from Cellectis Biologics where she was the Director of Supply Chain. Ms. Clough was part of the team involved in the early construction and startup of the Cellectis manufacturing facility in Raleigh, NC and was responsible for establishing the supply chain end-to-end planning, equipment and material procurement and logistics processes, and building the supply chain team. Prior to Cellectis, Ms. Clough held supply chain leadership positions at Novan Inc, KBI BioPharma and Merck. Ms. Clough spent the early part of her career in various supply chain, operations, finance and engineering roles in both the automotive and telecom industries.   

 Ms. Clough received her master’s degrees in business management and materials science engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and her undergraduate degree in Industrial and operations engineering from the University of Michigan. 

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Spencer Knight, PhD

Senior Director and Head of Computational Biology

Spencer Knight is the Principal Scientist, Machine Learning at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Knight joins Kriya from AncestryDNA, where he worked on COVID-19 phenotypic modeling research as a project and technical lead, and developed software pipelines for data science research. Dr. Knight also worked as a Data Scientist, and as a scientific co-founder and bioinformatics lead at Algen Biotechnologies. Dr. Knight has extensive experience leading projects at the interface of biology, human health, and applied machine learning.

Dr. Knight received his PhD in chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley and his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities.

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Veronica Wong

Senior Director, Corporate Legal & Compliance

Veronica Wong is the Senior Director of Corporate Legal & Compliance at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. Wong joins Kriya from Gritstone Oncology, where she was Director of Legal & Compliance, and responsible for leading contracting and compliance efforts, implementation of legal and compliance systems, as well as managing financing and corporate governance activities. Ms. Wong brings over a decade of global legal operations and corporate compliance experience in the life sciences industry, covering all phases of research and development.

Ms. Wong received her undergraduate degree in art history from University of California, Davis.

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Jennifer Coggburn

Director, Human Resources

Jennifer Coggburn is the Director of Human Resources at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. Coggburn joins Kriya from the IBM Corporation where she was the Senior Benefits Program Manager. Prior to IBM, she held a variety of leadership positions at Citigroup. Ms. Coggburn brings more than two decades of human resources leadership and experience.

Ms. Coggburn received her master’s degree in human resources at the University of South Carolina and her undergraduate degree in management at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

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Jiewu Liu, PhD

Director, Bioanalytical Science

Jiewu Liu is the Director of Bioanalytical Science at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Liu joins Kriya from Cambridge Biomedical, where he was an Associate Director and built and led a team to provide bioanalytical support for drug development under GxPs. He has over ten years of combined experience in bioanalytical assay development and validation. Before that, Dr. Liu served as bioanalysis manager at Enzyvant and its parent company Roivant Sciences where he was responsible for bioanalytical method development. Dr. Liu held positions of increasing responsibility at Vascular Pharmaceuticals, Argos Therapeutics, and BioAgilytix.

Dr. Liu received his PhD in biochemistry and molecular biology from the Shanghai Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology and completed his postdoctoral fellowships at St. Jude Children’s Hospital and Weill Medical College of Cornell University.  Dr. Liu received his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry from Nankai University, China.

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Justin Reehl

Director, Engineering and Facilities

Justin Reehl is the Director of Engineering and Facilities at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Reehl joins Kriya from Biogen where he was most recently a Sr. Engineer, Global Engineering. Mr. Reehl has expertise in areas of traditional biologics, single use manufacturing and oligonucleotide processes. He brings over 15 years of end-to-end engineering and project experience in the gene therapy field.

Mr. Reehl received his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering at Lehigh University and is a Registered Professional Engineer in North Carolina.

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Mark Chen

Director, Manufacturing Strategy & Program Management

Mark Chen is the Director of Manufacturing Strategy and Program Management at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Chen joins Kriya from Biogen, where he was most recently Associate Director, Strategic Partnerships. Mr. Chen was responsible for the strategic relationship management and day-to-day oversight of Biogen’s insourcing manufacturing commitments. Prior to this role, Mr. Chen held roles of increasing responsibility within Biogen across the Manufacturing, Technical Development, and Manufacturing Sciences organizations.

Mr. Chen received his MBA from Duke University and his undergraduate degree in biological sciences at North Carolina State University.

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Peter McElerney

Director, Finance

Peter McElerney is the Director of Finance at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. McElerney joins Kriya from Patheon (part of Thermo Fisher Scientific) where he was Finance Director Global SG&A and responsible for planning, managing, and analyzing investments in Global SG&A. Prior to his time at Patheon, Mr. McElerney was Controller and Finance Manager at BD Technologies, a medical device company.

Mr. McElerney received his MBA from Iona College and his undergraduate degree in economics at the State University of New York at Albany.

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Rich Guerra

Director, Technical Operations

Rich Guerra is the Director of Technical Operations at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Guerra joins Kriya from Clark, Richardson, and Biskup Consulting Engineers, where he was a Senior Project Manager and responsible for managing the delivery of capital projects from concept through detailed design. Prior to CRB, Mr. Guerra held a variety of leadership roles within Engineering, Manufacturing, and Manufacturing Science and Technology at Biogen. Mr. Guerra has also held roles of increasing scope and responsibility as a senior engineer at Amgen.

Mr. Guerra received his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

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Dylan Clark

Associate Director, Operations Technology

Dylan Clark is the Associate Director of Operations Technology at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Clark joins Kriya from was bluebird bio, where he was most recently Senior Manager of Quality Control Systems. Mr. Clark provided leadership in the implementation, validation, and management of computer systems and instruments and led data integrity initiatives. Prior to bluebird bio, Mr. Clark held positions of increasing responsibility over twelve years at the consulting firm Sequence, Inc., most recently overseeing the Software & Data Management business unit. Mr. Clark has leadership experience in the implementation and validation of client computer systems, laboratory informatics and manufacturing and process development data analytics. He spent the early part of his career working in bench laboratory positions at PepsiCo, Lilly, Cirrus Pharma, and GlaxoSmithKline.

Mr. Clark received his master’s degree in information systems from DePaul University and his undergraduate degree in biology from Butler University.

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Fernie Mitchelson, PhD

Associate Director, Process Development

Fernie Mitchelson is the Associate Director of Process Development at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Mitchelson joins Kriya from Biogen, where she was a Senior Engineer of Process Sciences in the Global Manufacturing Sciences department and she managed cell culture tech transfers of biologics from external partners and supported commercial biologics manufacturing.

Dr. Mitchelson received her PhD in chemical engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology and her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering at the University of Virginia.

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Richard Steere

Associate Director, Quality Control

Richard Steere is the Associate Director of Quality Control at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Steere joins Kriya from Seqirus, where he held multiple roles of increasing responsibility over ten years. Most recently Mr. Steere held the role of Senior Manager of Global Product Specifications and Reference Standards and was responsible for the global specification review committee, the generation and calibration of QC reference standards and the management of a team of specialists providing analytical support for manufacturing sites in the US, Great Britain and Australia. Prior to this role, Mr. Steere held positions as Manager of the QC Biochemistry laboratory and various titles supporting the QC Analytical Method Validation group, with responsibilities for the development, validation, transfer and ongoing technical support for QC Chemistry and Raw Materials laboratory methods.

Mr. Steere received undergraduate degrees in biological engineering and chemistry from North Carolina State University.

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Shuailiang Lin, PhD

Associate Director, Translational Sciences

Shuailiang Lin is the Associate Director of Translational Sciences at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Lin joins Kriya from Ligandal Inc., where he was the Director of Genome Editing and built and led the team of gene editing, gene delivery and TCR engineering in T cells. Dr. Lin was part of the early development team and a co-inventor of CRISPR/Cas9 genome engineering system in Feng Zhang’s lab at The Broad Institute. Beyond gene editing, Dr. Lin has also applied the CRISPR system in gene regulation in vivo at Harvard Medical School and human genome-wide screen at UCSF. Dr. Lin has more than ten years of experiences in genome engineering and gene delivery.

Dr. Lin received his PhD at Tsinghua University and completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco.  Dr. Lin received his undergraduate degree in Biological Sciences from the China Agricultural University.

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Weiran Shen, PhD

Associate Director, Vector Design and Innovation

Weiran Shen is the Associate Director of Vector Design and Innovation at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Shen joins Kriya from Sangamo Therapeutics, where he was a lead scientist and led the efforts to design novel AAV vectors to treat CNS diseases. Prior to Sangamo, Weiran led a group at the discovery lab in the Gene Therapy Program at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Shen received his PhD in microbiology at the University of Kansas Medical Center and his postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Shen received his master’s degree in neuroscience from Second Military Medical University and his undergraduate degree in biology at Southwest University in China.

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Yunchao Gai, PhD

Associate Director, Analytical Sciences

Yunchao Gai is the Associate Director of Analytical Sciences at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Gai joins Kriya from Koniku Inc. and Sangamo Therapeutics, where he led a team in the fields of diagnostics and therapeutics. Dr. Gai has more than 15 years of experience in the fields of molecular and cellular biology.

Dr. Gai received his PhD in innate immunity from University of Chinese Academy of Sciences and completed his postdoctoral training in immunology at the University of Missouri and in neuroscience at the Scripps Research Institute.  Dr. Gai received his undergraduate degree in Biotechnology from the Hefei University of Technology.

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Carlos Serrano

Senior Manager, Facility Operations

Carlos Serrano is Senior Manager, Facility Operations at Kriya Therapeutics. Most recently he worked as a Senior Reliability and Asset Management Engineering Consultant, participating in projects with Bristol Meyers Squibb, B. Broun Medical, and Vigene Bios, among others. Prior to that, Mr. Serrano worked at Biogen as a Manager of Plant Engineering and Maintenance where he participated in the startup and licensing of Biogen’s facility in Denmark. Mr. Serrano began his career in Wyeth Vaccines (now Pfizer), where he spent 21 years in positions of increasing levels of responsibility in the areas of plant engineering and maintenance.  Mr. Serrano is a biotechnology professional with 30 years of experience with plant engineering and asset management.

Mr. Serrano received his AAS in industrial plant maintenance electromechanical from Central Carolina Technical College and his undergraduate degree in business administration from North Carolina Wesleyan College.

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Dana McKinney

Senior Manager, Quality Systems

Dana McKinney is the Senior Manager of Quality Systems at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. McKinney joins Kriya from bluebird bio, where she was most recently Manager of Quality Control, Raw Materials. Ms. McKinney was responsible for creating a raw material program for bluebird bio’s first internal manufacturing site. Prior to bluebird bio, Ms. McKinney was part of a team involved in the construction of the new facility for the Diabetes Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients – US project at Novo Nordisk. Ms. McKinney held various roles in Quality at Biogen and Catalent Pharma Solutions.

Ms. McKinney received her master’s degree in public health from Emory University and her undergraduate degree in biological sciences at North Carolina State University.

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Emilia Bora

Senior Manager, Vector Core

Emilia is the Senior Manager, Vector Core at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. Bora has worked in the biotech industry since 2006 for Fortune 100 companies as well as startups from early stage through IPO. Ms. Bora has broad expertise in Research and Development, Quality Control, Process Development, Clinical Testing and a strong focus in Analytical Development.

Emilia received her master’s degree in biology from Tufts University and her undergraduate degree in biology from University of Bucharest.

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Andrea Pappas, PhD

Program Manager, Development

Andrea Pappas is a Program Manager at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Pappas joins Kriya from the Duke Human Vaccine Institute, where she was a program management lead and managed quality assurance programs that provided support to external laboratories developing HIV vaccines. Dr. Pappas also managed the Collaborative Influenza Vaccine Innovation Centers (CIVICs) Program which aimed to develop and manufacture a global influenza vaccine.

Dr. Pappas received her PhD in neurobiology from Duke University and her undergraduate degree in biology from the University of Utah.

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Greg Cockrell, PhD

Senior Scientist, Process Development

Greg Cockrell is the Senior Scientist, Process Development at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Cockrell joins Kriya from Biogen, where he was a Scientist II of Process Sciences in the Global Manufacturing Sciences department. His responsibilities included managing analytical and downstream lab projects to advance clinical tech transfers and the commercial manufacturing of biologics.

Dr. Cockrell received his PhD in chemistry from Boston College. He received his master’s and undergraduate degrees in chemistry from the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

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Brandy Bateman

Manager, Quality Assurance

Brandy Bateman is the Quality Assurance Manager at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. Bateman joins Kriya from bluebird bio, where she was the Quality Control Lead for the Sample Control department. Ms. Bateman was a part of the facility’s startup team and led development of processes and built the initial team. Prior to bluebird bio, Ms. Bateman was a part of the Quality Assurance team at Biogen, holding positions in Quality Engineering and Quality Operations. Ms. Bateman spent her early career at Biogen in Technical Development.

Ms. Bateman received her master’s degree in regulatory science from Johns Hopkins University and her undergraduate degree in biological sciences and biomanufacturing from North Carolina State University.

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Eva Tung

Manager, Accounting

Eva Tung is the Accounting Manager at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. Tung joins Kriya from Tile Inc. where she served as Senior Accountant and was responsible for streamlining various accounting processes and handling month end close procedures. Ms. Tung brings 15 years of accounting experience in both private and publicly held companies. Ms. Tung also worked for pharmaceutical companies, including Natera and Coherus. At Natera, Ms. Tung led a team of four people and oversaw the accounting areas of general ledger and accounts payable.

Eva received her undergraduate degree in accounting from San Jose State University.

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Kristopher Britt

Manager, Supply Chain

Kris Britt is the Supply Chain Manager at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Britt joins Kriya from AveXis, a Novartis company, where he was the Purchasing Supervisor. His responsibilities included both direct and indirect purchasing, as well as all materials management activities involved with the implementation of AveXis’ North Carolina manufacturing facility. Prior to AveXis, Mr. Britt worked for Organon Teknika (a part of Merck & Co., Inc.), Merck & Co, Inc., and Biogen, holding positions of increasing responsibility within the discipline of supply chain management.

Mr. Britt received his undergraduate degree in business management at East Carolina University.

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Rob Ballard

Manager, Manufacturing Operations

Rob Ballard is the Manager of Manufacturing Operations at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Ballard joins Kriya from Biogen, where he was an Engineering Supervisor. Mr. Ballard has extensive experience with manufacturing processes related to biologics and gene therapy.

Mr. Ballard received his undergraduate degree in chemical engineering from North Carolina State University.

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Beth Marbois, PhD

Principal Scientist, Process Analytics Group Leader

Beth Marbois is the Principal Scientist at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Marbois joins Kriya from a gene editing and vaccine technical development background. Dr. Marbois has extensive experience working at the bench and leading teams to develop, qualify and execute release methods to measure AAV, mRNA, protein and small molecule for quality and safety decision making. Dr. Marbois has held positions at Precision BioSciences, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, bioMérieux and Atairgin Technologies, as well as the University of California, Los Angeles.

Dr. Marbois received her PhD in biological chemistry at the UCLA Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center, where she also completed her postdoctoral fellowship. Dr. Marbois received her master’s degree in science and public health in nutritional sciences and her undergraduate degree in dietetics also from UCLA.

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Ben Rusche

Senior Scientist, Process Development

Ben Rusche is the Senior Scientist, Process Development at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Rusche joins Kriya from United Therapeutics where he worked as a process engineer, developing lung cell isolation, purification, and expansion methods. He has also developed and manufactured cell therapies from neonatal tissues.

Mr. Rusche received his undergraduate degrees in biochemistry and microbiology from North Carolina State University.

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Dawn Fellner

Senior Scientist

Dawn Fellner is a Senior Scientist at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. Fellner joins Kriya from Intertek and Roivant Sciences where she worked in nonclinical operations roles. Prior to these two roles, Ms. Fellner worked as a technician and project manager at Charles River Laboratories.

Ms. Fellner received her undergraduate degree in biology at Kent State University.

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Tyler Goodwin, PhD

Senior Scientist, Drug Product

Tyler Goodwin is the Senior Scientist, Drug Product Process Development at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Goodwin joins Kriya from Precision BioSciences, where he was CMC Lead and Scientist in the Process Science team and led a team of scientists and engineers in developing viral and non-viral gene delivery systems from pre-clinical to clinical stage studies for gene and cell therapies.

Dr. Goodwin received his PhD in pharmacoengineering and molecular pharmaceutics from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Dr. Goodwin received his master’s degree in chemistry and his undergraduate degree in Chemistry from University of North Carolina Wilmington.

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Allison Lewis

Scientist

Allison Lewis is a Scientist at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. Lewis joins Kriya from Pfizer, where she was an Associate Scientist and worked in AAV production. MS. Lewis subsequently transitioned to the capsid development team within the Rare Disease Research Unit at Pfizer.

Ms. Lewis received her undergraduate degree in pharmaceutical science at North Carolina Central University.

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Michael Walker

Scientist

Mike Walker is a Scientist at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Walker joins Kriya from Precision BioSciences, where he was a Research Assistant. Mr. Walker has experience with molecular cloning, plasmid purification and GLP vector production. Mr. Walker has also served as a Combat Engineer in the United States Army.

Mr. Walker received his undergraduate degree in biology from East Carolina University.

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Priya Togarrati, PhD 

 Scientist

 Priya Togarrati is the Scientist II, Translational Sciences at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Togarrati joins Kriya from Eat JUST Inc., where as a Cell Line Development Scientist she developed stable mammalian cell lines and developed analytical assays to characterize the candidate manufacturing cell lines. Prior to Eat JUST Inc., Priya was Staff Scientist-I at Vitalant Research Institute, her work focused in the field of cellular therapy and she worked on derivation and characterization of human hematopoietic, endothelial and mesenchymal stem cells from primary tissues and pluripotent cell sources, and developing functional assays to test their potency in in vitro and in vivo mice models.  

 Dr. Togarrati has received her PhD in cancer genetics from Sanjay Gandhi Postgraduate Institute of Medical Sciences, India. She completed her postdoctoral research at University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of California, San Francisco in the fields of hematopoietic stem cells and transplantation immunology. Dr. Togarrati received her undergraduate degree in zoology from Khallikote College, India 

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Priyanka Kulkarni, PhD

Scientist

Priyanka Kulkarni is a Scientist, Translational Sciences at Kriya Therapeutics. Dr. Kulkarni joins Kriya from the NCIRE -The Veterans Health Research Institute, where she led the research to understand the role of non-coding RNAs in drug-resistant urological cancers. Before joining NCIRE, she completed her postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where she identified the novel biomarkers for renal carcinoma.

Dr. Kulkarni received her PhD in life sciences from the National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health (NIRRH), Mumbai, a premier research institute of the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR). She received her graduate and undergraduate degrees in biotechnology from the University of Mumbai.

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Rosalie Bateson

Scientist, Process Development Analytics

Rosalie Bateson is the Scientist, Process Development at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. Bateson joins Kriya from Precision Biosciences where she was a research associate in the CMC analytical department, working molecular analytics for cell and gene therapies.

Ms. Bateson received her master’s degree in cellular and molecular physiology from Yale University and her undergraduate degree in biology from Stanford University.

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Samantha Lasater

Scientist

Samantha Lasater is a scientist at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. Lasater joins Kriya from Pfizer working in the gene therapy group. Prior to that, she worked at KBI Biopharma, a contract development and manufacturing organization, where she worked in cell line development.

Ms. Lasater received her master’s degree in molecular and cellular biology from the Georgia Institute of Technology and her undergraduate degree in biology from the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

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Dilan Chudasma 

 Process Engineer 

 Dilan Chudasma is Process Engineer at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Chudasma joins Kriya from bluebird bio where he was Manufacturing Associate II. He was part of the initial team that was involved in the development of bluebird bio’s first internal GMP manufacturing facility.  

 Mr. Chudasma is working on his master’s degree in engineering manager from John Hopkins and received his undergraduate degree in biomedical engineering from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. 

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Megan Walz

Engineer, Bioprocess

Megan Walz is the Process Engineer at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. Walz joins Kriya from bluebird bio, where she was a Manufacturing Associate and then Engineer. Ms. Walz was part of the team involved in the construction and start-up of bluebird bio’s first internal manufacturing facility and was responsible for preparing the facility for GMP manufacturing. Prior to bluebird bio, Ms. Walz was a Research Associate in a microbial fermentation process development group at Novozymes and spent time as a Research Assistant at bioMASON.

Ms. Walz received her master’s degree in biological systems engineering from the University of Kentucky and her undergraduate degree in biology from North Carolina State University.

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Amit Weiss

Senior Research Associate & Lab Manager

Amit is the Senior Research Associate & Lab Manager at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Weiss joins Kriya from Neucyte, where he worked as a Research Associate in the manufacturing team to produce materials for Neucyte’s induced pluripotent stem cell technology program. Prior to Neucyte, Mr. Weiss was a Lab Technician at Koniku, responsible for executing and optimizing cell-based assays for compound screening. Prior to Koniku, he gained experience in a wide range of academic labs focusing on the cell biology of HIV, early mouse development, and cell cycle in yeast, among others.

Mr. Weiss received his undergraduate degree in molecular, cell and developmental biology from the University of California, Santa Cruz.

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Omar Quraishi

 Manufacturing Associate III

 Omar Quraishi is a Manufacturing Associate III at Kriya Therapeutics. Mr. Quraishi joins Kriya from AveXis where he was a downstream manufacturing associate. Prior to this role Mr. Quraishi was at Biogen, where he worked in small scale, large scale, and single use facilities in manufacturing.

Mr. Quraishi received his undergraduate degree in business administration from the University of Massachusetts Lowell.

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Diana Fortner

Office Manager & Executive Administrator

Diana Fortner is an Office Manager & Executive Administrator at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. Fortner joins Kriya from Enzyvant, a company focused on breakthrough biotechnologies and transformative therapies for people with suffering from rare diseases, where she was an Executive Assistant. Previously, she served at Roivant Sciences as office administrator and senior administrative assistant to the Vice Presidents of CMC, Regulatory, and Clinical Development teams. Ms. Fortner’s background also includes experience with the United States Department of Defense and cybersecurity companies.

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Dorothee Grall

Office Manager & Executive Administrator

Dorothee Grall is an Office Manager & Executive Administrator at Kriya Therapeutics. Ms. Grall joins Kriya from Intel Corporation, where she worked as a Project Manager and was responsible for customer experiences in the Executive Briefing Center. Ms. Grall was also a Lead Administrator in the Sales and Marketing Organization and co-created the Field Sales Business Continuity Program for remote field employees in the US and Canada.

Ms. Grall received her undergraduate degree in Spanish, foreign languages and international marketing from San Jose State University.

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