Prof. Anastasia Khvorova RNA Therapeutics Institute, University of Massachusetts Medical School, USA

Anastasia Khvorova, PhD, is Professor in the RNA Therapeutics Institute and the Program in Molecular Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS) in Worcester, Massachusetts. Before joining the UMMS faculty, she held leadership positions in industry, including Vice President of Research & Development and Chief Science Officer of... read moreDharmacon (now a Thermo Fisher Scientific company), Founder and Scientific Advisor of Advirna, and Chief Science Officer and Senior Vice President of RXi Pharmaceuticals. Dr Khvorova is credited with several major advances in the field of RNA interference. Her team at Dharmacon developed and facilitated the commercialization of the first functional siRNA collection targeting the human genome (siGENOME), and at RXi, her group made significant progress in chemically modifying RNAi compounds to create self-delivering rxRNA compounds. Dr Khvorova’s industry experience in drug discovery and development collaborations with pharmaceutical companies along with her expertise in chemistry and cell biology allowed her to establish a lab at UMMS that brings together organic chemists and RNA biologists to develop novel approaches and solutions to understanding natural and therapeutic RNA trafficking and delivery. Dr Khvorova is a member of the Board of Directors of the Oligonucleotide Therapeutics Society and sits on the editorial board of Nucleic Acid Research. She is the author of more than 150 abstracts, more than 50 peer-reviewed articles, several book chapters, and more than 250 patents and patent applications; her publications are widely cited.