Kenanova Vania

Kenanova Vania has over 15 years of experience in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. Kenanova began their career in 2006 as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Department of Molecular and Medical Pharmacology at UC Los Angeles, where they wrote and was awarded grants and published two articles in peer-reviewed journals. Kenanova then moved to Novartis Institute for Biomedical Research in 2010, where they were an Investigator II and Lab Head of Preclinical PET/SPECT/CT Imaging. In this role, they headed a preclinical PET/SPECT/CT laboratory with radiolabeling capabilities, performed dozens of 18FDG, 18FLT and Na18F imaging and ex vivo tissue counting studies in rodents, completed receptor occupancy, mechanism of action, biodistribution, PK/PD and therapy studies for screening potential drugs and evaluation of therapies in live animals.

In 2015, Kenanova joined 121Bio LLC as a Senior Scientist, where they took an active part in the selection candidate process of anti-human CD8 and PD-L1 single domain antibodies, their functional modification for site specific radiolabeling and subsequent PET/CT and SPECT/CT imaging studies in mouse models. Kenanova also conceptualized the design and generation of targeted immunocytokines as well as various single domain formats, such as bispecific and biparatopic. Kenanova created protocols, worked with CROs and academic institutions, analyzed and interpreted in vivo data for ranking and go/no-go decision making.

In 2016, Kenanova moved to Agenus, where they served as a Senior Scientist. Finally, in 2022, Kenanova joined Myeloid Therapeutics as Senior Director of Antibody Discovery and Engineering.

Kenanova Vania obtained a PhD in Molecular and Cancer Biology from the City of Hope Graduate School in Biological Sciences and Beckman Research Institute between 2001 and 2006.