Melissa J. Moore

Melissa J. Moore is the Chief Scientific Officer of Platform Research at Moderna.

In her role at Moderna, Dr. Moore is responsible for leading mRNA biology, delivery and computation science research. She joined Moderna in 2016 from the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMassMed), where she served as Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Pharmacology, Eleanor Eustis Farrington Chair in Cancer Research and a long-time Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) Investigator. At UMassMed, Dr. Moore was a founding Co-Director of the RNA Therapeutics Institute (RTI) and was instrumental in creating the Massachusetts Therapeutic and Entrepreneurship Realization initiative (MassTERi), a faculty-led program intended to facilitate the translation of UMMS discoveries into drugs, products, technologies and companies. Dr. Moore is an elected member of both the National Academy of Sciences (2017) and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2019).

Dr. Moore’s 23-year career in academic research focused on the roles of RNA and RNA-protein (RNP) complexes in regulating gene expression, and touched on many human diseases including cancer, neurodegeneration and preeclampsia. She began working on RNA metabolism during her postdoctoral training with Phillip A. Sharp, Ph.D. at MIT, where she also received her Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry working under Christopher T. Walsh, Ph.D. Dr. Moore holds a B.S. in Chemistry and Biology from the College of William and Mary.