Wenchao Song

Dr. Wenchao Song is the Scientific Founder of Kira and chairs its Scientific Advisory Board. He is Professor of Pharmacology in the Department of Systems Pharmacology and Translational Therapeutics at the Perelman School of Medicine of the University of Pennsylvania (Penn). Wenchao completed college in China before pursuing graduate studies in the UK under the auspices of a British Council scholarship. He received his PhD in biochemistry from the University of Wales, Bangor and subsequently conducted postdoctoral studies in the Division of Clinical Pharmacology at Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville, TN. He joined the Pharmacology faculty at Penn Medicine in 1995 and is a member of both the pharmacology and immunology graduate groups.

Dr. Song is an internationally renowned expert on complement biology. His research group pioneered studies of mouse models of complement-mediated diseases. Their work has helped reveal fundamental knowledge of how complement is regulated in vivo, with translational relevance to anti-complement therapeutics. He has been recognized as an Established Investigator of the American Heart Association and is a recipient of the Lady Barbra Colyton Prize in Autoimmune Disease Research. He chaired the organizing committee of the XXI International Complement Workshop and was elected and served both as a Councilor and Treasurer of the International Complement Society.