Katie M. Stiles

Katie M. Stiles has extensive experience in the field of genetic medicine and research. Katie M. is currently working as the Director of AAV R&D at Rocket Pharmaceuticals since 2022. Prior to this, from 2016 to 2022, they served as an Assistant Professor of Research in Genetic Medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine. In this role, they led the Discovery team for the Belfer Gene Therapy Core Facility, managed and directed projects for a team of postdocs, students, and technicians, and identified new therapeutic targets for AAV gene therapy. Katie M. also developed mouse models and assays for preclinical vector expression and efficacy studies.

Before joining Weill Cornell Medicine, Katie worked at Albert Einstein College of Medicine as a Research Associate from 2015 to 2016. In this role, they designed and produced viral fusion proteins and developed a microneutralization assay for dengue. Katie M. also worked as a Post-doctoral fellow at the same institute from 2010 to 2015, where they studied alphaviruses and flaviviruses and their spread by mosquito and tick vectors.

Prior to their work at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Katie was a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pennsylvania from 2004 to 2010. Their research focused on studying the downregulation of cellular receptor nectin-1 and the interaction of cellular receptor HVEM with HSV gD and its ligands. Katie M. utilized various techniques such as mutagenesis, flow cytometry, microscopy, recombinant protein expression, surface plasmon resonance, and ELISA.

Katie's academic career began with undergraduate honors thesis research at Lehigh University from 2003 to 2004. Before that, they gained research experience as a Summer Research Intern at Schering-Plough Research Institute in 2003 and as a Summer Research Fellow at the University of Toledo College of Medicine in 2002.

Katie M. Stiles obtained a Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine from 2004 to 2010. Prior to that, they earned a B.S. in Molecular Biology from Lehigh University, attending from 2000 to 2004. In addition to their formal education, they obtained a certification in Genomic Data Science Specialization from Coursera in July 2021.