James Burns

James Burns joined Locana in December, 2019 as the CEO and Director of the Board. Dr. Burns joins us from Casebia, where he served as the chief executive officer and led the team in discovering and developing new CRISPR/Cas9-based breakthrough therapeutics to treat blood disorders, blindness and heart disease. Prior to Casebia, he spent the bulk of his career at Sanofi-Genzyme, where he held several leadership roles with increasing responsibility, including North America Site head for R&D where he coordinated R&D operations across key therapeutic areas. Dr. Burns is a former board member of MassBio, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and is a member of the External Advisory Committee for the BioMedical Engineering Department at Boston University. He also served as the industry representative for the Food and Drug Administration General Plastic Surgery Panel. Dr. Burns earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Purdue University and Master of Science and Doctorate degrees in bioengineering from the University of Illinois-Chicago, where his thesis work focused on drug delivery. Following his graduate studies, he was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Florida.