Anastasia Khvorova

Anastasia has more than 20 years of experience developing oligonucleotide technology and therapeutics. She is a professor in the RNA Therapeutics Institute and Program of Molecular Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS), where her lab brings together hardcore organic and oligonucleotide chemists with RNA biologists and pharmacologists to develop novel approaches and solutions to understanding natural and therapeutic RNA trafficking and delivery. Anastasia founded the UMass Nucleic Acid Chemistry Core, the only nonprofit facility in North America capable of gram-scale synthesis of modified oligonucleotides. Anastasia joined UMMS after several years in industry, during which she served as chief scientific officer at lead biotech companies (Dharmacon, ThermoFisher; RXi Pharmaceuticals) and co-founded several startups. She recently was reelected director of the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society. Anastasia is named as inventor on more than 150 patents and 200 patent applications, and she has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed publications – including seminal articles in Cell, Nature and Nature Biotechnology – defining the field of RNAi drug design and development. Anastasia is principal investigator on four major National Institutes of Health grants.