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    • Craig C. Mello, Ph.D., Founder and Scientific Advisory Board Chairman

    Craig C. Mello, Ph.D., has served as the Chairman of our Scientific Advisory Board since February 2007. Dr. Mello, co recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Medicine for RNAi, co-discovered RNAi and co-invented RNAi therapeutics. Dr. Mello is the Blais University Chair in Molecular Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, a Howard Hughes Investigator and a member of the National Academy of Sciences. In 2006, he was named the inaugural recipient of The Dr. Paul Janssen Award for Biomedical Research by Johnson & Johnson and was the co-recipient of the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize. Dr. Mello was also the co-recipient of the National Academy of Sciences’ Award in Molecular Biology and the Wiley Prize in the Biomedical Sciences from Rockefeller University in 2003. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and in 1995, was named a Pew Scholar in the Biomedical Sciences. Dr. Mello received his B.S. in Biochemistry from Brown University in 1982 and his Ph.D. in Cellular and Developmental Biology from Harvard University in 1990.

     

    Tariq Rana, Ph.D. Founder and Scientific Advisory Board Member

    Tariq Rana, Ph.D., has served as a member of our Scientific Advisory Board since February 2007.  Dr. Rana is Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Pharmacology and Founding Director of the Program in Chemical Biology at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dr. Rana’s laboratory discovered the fundamental rules to stabilize RNAi, and developed new technologies for therapeutic RNAi. Dr. Rana has previously advised a number of biotechnology companies including Sirna Therapeutics and has served as a member of Sirna’s Scientific Advisory Board. He received a National Institutes of Health Research Career Award in 1996. He was an American Cancer Society Fellow from 1991 to 1993 at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Rana received his Ph.D. in 1990 from the University of California at Davis.

        

    Gregory J. Hannon, Ph.D., Founder and Scientific Advisory Board Member

    Gregory Hannon, Ph.D., has served as a member of our Scientific Advisory Board since February 2007.  Dr. Hannon is currently a Howard Hughes Investigator at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. His laboratory discovered the mechanism of RNAi in human cells. Dr. Hannon and his collaborators identified the p21, p15 and p16 genes, which are in tumor suppressor pathways. Dr. Hannon’s research was recognized by Science magazine in 2002 as the Breakthrough of the Year. He was a 1997 Pew Scholar in Biomedical Sciences, received a U.S. Army Breast Cancer Research Program Innovator Award, in 2005 American Association for Cancer Research Award for Outstanding Achievement in Cancer Research in 2007 he received the National Academy of Sciences Award for Molecular Biology. Dr. Hannon also recently received the Memorial Sloan- Kettering Cancer Center’s 2007 Paul Marks Prize for Cancer Research. He assumed his current position in 2005 as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor and continues to explore the mechanisms and regulation of RNA interference as well as its applications to cancer research. Dr. Hannon received a B.A. in Biochemistry and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio.

     

    Michael Czech, Ph.D. Founder and Scientific Advisory Board Member

    Michael Czech, Ph.D., has served as a member of our Scientific Advisory Board since February 2007.  Dr. Czech is Professor and Chair, Program in Molecular Medicine, at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Dr. Czech has authored over 250 papers in the field of insulin action, and was awarded the Eli Lilly 68 Award for Diabetes Research, the 1998 Elliot P. Joslin Medal in diabetes research and the 2000 Banting Medal of the American Diabetes Association. He was a member of the Cell Biology and Regulation Review Panel of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute from 1994-1998, and served as a member of the Endocrinology Study Section of the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Czech received a B.A. from Brown University in 1967, a M.A. from Duke University in 1969 and received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from Brown University in 1972.

     

    Nicholas Dean, Ph.D., Scientific Advisory Board Member

    Nicholas Dean, Ph.D., has served as a member of our Scientific Advisory Board since March 2007.  Dr. Dean is Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Excaliard Pharmaceuticals. Formerly, Dr. Dean was the Vice President of Functional Genomics and Oncology at Isis Pharmaceuticals, and Managing Director of Isis Singapore. Dr. Dean is a leader in the field of oligonucleotide therapeutics, with an emphasis on pharmacology.  He has held Vice President positions in departments of functional genomics, oncology and pharmacology during his 15 year career at Isis Pharmaceuticals. At Isis, Dr. Dean managed a substantial budget for their Eli Lilly collaboration in oncology and metabolic disease and managed a research group of 25 scientists. He has authored 38 issued patents and is the author of over 120 papers in the fields of genomics, antisense and oligonucleotide technology, and oncology. Dr. Dean is in an inventor on more than 100 patents and patent

    applications and author of more than 100 research publications. Dr. Dean is also a member of the editorial board of Antisense & Nucleic Acid Research and Drug Discovery Today: Technologies. He received his B.Sc. from the University of Wales, and his Ph.D. in pharmacology from the Welsh National School of Medicine.

     

    Nassim Usman, Ph.D., Scientific Advisory Board Member

    Nassim Usman, Ph.D., has served as a member of our Scientific Advisory Board since March 2007.  Dr Usman is currently Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of Directors at Catalyst Biosciences. Prior to joining Catalyst in 2006 he was an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with Morgenthaler Ventures, a national venture capital firm with approximately $2.5 billion under management. He joined Morgenthaler after serving as Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Sirna Therapeutics Inc. from 2004 to 2005 and held various Research and Development positions at both Sirna and Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals, including Vice President of Research and Development and Chief Scientific Officer, from 1992 to 2004. Dr. Usman has entered several RNA-based drugs into clinical development, most recently Sirna-027, an siRNA for the treatment of Age-Related Macular Degeneration. Dr. Usman was an NIH Fogarty and NSERC Postdoctoral Fellow and Scientist in the Departments of Biology and Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1987 to 1992. In his doctoral dissertation, he developed a method for the solidphase synthesis of RNA that is widely used in science and in a marketed RNA product. He has authored more than 70 scientific articles and 130 patents and applications. Dr. Usman received his B.Sc. (Honors) and Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from McGill University.