About Us

Akin Akinc joined Aera as CEO in 2022 after spending nearly two decades at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals in various R&D and commercial roles.

Prior to joining Aera, Dr. Akinc was most recently Senior Vice President and Head of Oncology at Alnylam. Prior to that role, he was the General Manager of the GIVLAARI® program, which he led from Phase 3 to approval and launch. GIVLAARI® was first approved by the U.S. FDA for the treatment of acute hepatic porphyria in adults in 2019 and has received marketing authorizations in the EU, Japan and multiple other territories. Prior to that, Dr. Akinc was General Manager of the fitusiran program, currently in development for the treatment of hemophilia A and B, with or without inhibitors. He led the fitusiran program from discovery to Phase 3 clinical stage and until transfer of global rights to partner Sanofi. Prior to his therapeutic program leadership roles, Dr. Akinc served in roles of increasing responsibility and leadership in the research organization at Alnylam. Dr. Akinc co-led interdisciplinary efforts focused on delivery of RNAi therapeutics and the development of Alnylam’s RNAi platform technology, notably on lipid nanoparticles, which resulted in ONPATTRO®, the world’s first approved RNAi therapeutic.

Dr. Akinc holds a BSE in chemical engineering from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Husain is the Vice President of Bioanalytics, DMPK, Clinical Pharmacology and Analytics at Aera Therapeutics, where he spearheads the development and implementation of strategies in analytical sciences, drug metabolism, pharmacokinetics and clinical pharmacology. With extensive experience in quantitative pharmacology, Husain is responsible for integrating bioanalytical and pharmacometrics approaches to inform dose decisions. Before joining Aera, Husain was the Head of Clinical Pharmacology and Pharmacometrics at Moderna where he was instrumental in the dose selection process for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, utilizing predictive models to guide clinical decision-making for mRNA vaccines and therapeutics. Husain’s expertise also extends to his time at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals where he contributed to the dose selection of several novel siRNA therapeutics. Husain holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Drug Delivery Systems from Northeastern University.

Scott Barros joined Aera as SVP of Early Development in 2024 following 20+ years in various nonclinical investigative and regulatory toxicology roles. Prior to joining Aera, Dr. Barros was at Millennium, Archemix, Alnylam, Sage, and ReNAgade/Orna Therapeutics, where he was responsible for the nonclinical safety evaluation of small molecule and oligonucleotide therapeutics (aptamers, siRNA, mRNA, oRNA, gene editing); contributing to 5 approved drug products (Onpattro®, Givlaari®, Amvuttra®, Zurzuvae®, Zulresso®). Dr. Barros brings a broad cross-functional skill set to nonclinical and clinical drug safety issues and experience in bridging project team activities to advance candidates from Discovery to late‐stage clinical development.  Dr. Barros holds a BS in Pharmacology & Toxicology from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and a Ph.D. in Molecular Toxicology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Felipe joined Aera as Associate Director of Molecular Biology in March 2024. He brings over 20 years of experience in research and development spanning a wide range of fields and applications. Prior to Aera, Felipe was Associate Director of Molecular Biology at Senda Biosciences and Sail Biomedicines (the product of the merger with Laronde), leading molecular biology efforts including mRNA design and production. Prior to Senda, he was at DuPont pioneering high-throughput strain construction and protein engineering for industrial applications. During his academic career, Felipe made significant contributions to the fields of fundamental microbial cell biology and genetics. Felipe received post-doctoral training at the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, his Ph.D. in Microbiology from Case Western Reserve University and a B.S. in Microbiology from The Ohio State University.

Robert leads Aera’s protein nanoparticle and lipid nanoparticle research and development efforts, focusing on engineering novel targeted systems to enable a new generation of genetic medicines. Prior to joining Aera, Dr. Dorkin was at Beam Therapeutics, where he was responsible for the design and development of novel LNPs for delivery of mRNA and guide RNA to extrahepatic cell types. Robert also held a scientific role at CRISPR Therapeutics, where he led the development and evaluation of LNPs for the delivery of mRNA and guide RNA to hepatocytes. He started his career at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals where he supported the focused effort on siRNA formulations. Robert received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Biology and a B.A. from Swarthmore College in Biological Chemistry.

Heather joined Aera in November 2023, bringing expertise in protein expression, purification, characterization and protein engineering. Prior to joining Aera, Heather was an Associate Director at Diagonal Therapeutics, working on bispecific agonistic antibodies. Prior to that, Heather led molecular biology and protein sciences at Immunitas Therapeutics, focused on antibody and ADC therapeutics for oncology. Previous roles also include Alkermes, where she focused on protein engineering and production of cytokine-based immunotherapeutics. These include Nemvaleukin Alfa, an IL-2 clinical drug, and an IL-8 discovery engineering effort.  Heather also held roles at Aveo Oncology and Shire HGT. She received her M.S. in Chemistry from Northeastern University and a B.S. in Chemistry from University of South Carolina.

Bob Gantzer joined Aera as Vice President of Lab Technology in 2022, where he leads the company’s computation, informatics, and automation efforts.  Before joining Aera, Bob served as the Senior Director of Lab Automation at Beam Therapeutics. In this role, he led teams focused on lab automation, next-generation sequencing (NGS), and informatics. During his tenure, Bob oversaw the design and implementation of a fully digitized and automated research platform to support NGS and high-throughput gene editing research.  Prior to Beam, Bob held multiple roles within the agricultural division of Dow Chemical, including In Vitro Platform Leader of the Predictive Safety Center and R&D AP Testing Leader, where he managed molecular quality control testing across a global laboratory network in the U.S., Canada, and Brazil. His career also includes scientific leadership positions in human genetics testing within multiple highly regulated forensic identification labs. He holds a B.S. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from the University of Illinois and an M.S. in Biotechnology from Johns Hopkins University.

Suanne Nakajima is Vice President of Intellectual Properties at Aera Therapeutics. She brings nearly 20 years of experience in the intellectual property and biopharmaceutical industries with a focus on RNA medicines. Prior to Aera Therapeutics, Suanne served as Vice President, IP Counsel at Senda Biosciences (now Sail Biomedicines), where she was part of the executive leadership team and provided strategic legal advice and direction for protecting all aspects of Senda’s technology. Previously, Suanne spent 13 years at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, where she developed and executed intellectual property strategies for Alnylam’s platforms and therapeutic candidates including ONPATTRO, GIVLARRI, OXLUMO and AMVUTTRA. She also assisted in litigation involving the Alnylam platform intellectual property estate. Before joining Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, she was a patent agent at Elmore Patent Law Group, where she built intellectual property estates for numerous small size companies.  Suanne began her career as a medicinal chemist, where she is an inventor on more than ten issued US patents. She obtained her BSc and MSc degrees in organic chemistry from the University of Calgary, and a law degree from Suffolk University Law School.

Stephanie joined Aera in early 2023 with over 20 years of leadership and operational experience in the biotech and pharmaceutical industry including research operations, strategic planning, finance, alliance management, communications and employee experience. Prior to joining Aera, Stephanie was Vice President of Employee Experience and Facilities Operations at Agios Pharmaceuticals. She previously held global positions at Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research where she led the Scientific Operations functions responsible for supporting the research across the institute. Stephanie started her career as a scientist focused on enabling technologies for early discovery at Millennium Pharmaceuticals (now Takeda) and Genetics Institute (now Pfizer). Stephanie holds an M.B.A from Simmons School of Management and a B.S in Chemistry from Merrimack College.

Lukasz Swiech joined Aera in November 2021 to lead the Therapeutic Discovery function where he where he oversees the biology research efforts. Prior to Aera, Dr. Swiech was at Catamaran Bio, where he was responsible for development and implementation of gene delivery platform for NK cells. Lukasz also held scientific positions at Unum Therapeutics and Agenus, where he focused on advancing immuno-oncology therapeutics. During his postdoctoral research at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in the laboratory of Dr. Feng Zhang, Dr. Swiech pioneered the development and application of CRISPR technology for in vivo studies of the brain, resulting in multiple patents and the 2014 American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy Excellence in Research Award. He holds a PhD in Neuroscience from the International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, and graduated with honors in Biotechnology and Developmental Biology (M.S. and B.S.) from the University of Warsaw.

Akin Akinc joined Aera as CEO in 2022 after spending nearly two decades at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals in various R&D and commercial roles.

Prior to joining Aera, Dr. Akinc was most recently Senior Vice President and Head of Oncology at Alnylam. Prior to that role, he was the General Manager of the GIVLAARI® program, which he led from Phase 3 to approval and launch. GIVLAARI® was first approved by the U.S. FDA for the treatment of acute hepatic porphyria in adults in 2019 and has received marketing authorizations in the EU, Japan and multiple other territories. Prior to that, Dr. Akinc was General Manager of the fitusiran program, currently in development for the treatment of hemophilia A and B, with or without inhibitors. He led the fitusiran program from discovery to Phase 3 clinical stage and until transfer of global rights to partner Sanofi. Prior to his therapeutic program leadership roles, Dr. Akinc served in roles of increasing responsibility and leadership in the research organization at Alnylam. Dr. Akinc co-led interdisciplinary efforts focused on delivery of RNAi therapeutics and the development of Alnylam’s RNAi platform technology, notably on lipid nanoparticles, which resulted in ONPATTRO®, the world’s first approved RNAi therapeutic.

Dr. Akinc holds a BSE in chemical engineering from Princeton University and a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Molecular biologist Feng Zhang focuses on developing multiple, revolutionary technologies that are being used around the world to advance the study, diagnosis and treatment of human diseases. He played an integral part in the development of optogenetics, pioneered the use of CRISPR systems for genome editing, and discovered a number of other natural systems, many of which he and his team harnessed for therapeutic and diagnostic applications. This work is complemented by his work to develop novel delivery modalities for genetic therapeutics.

Dr. Zhang is a core member of the Broad Institute, an Investigator at the McGovern Institute for Brain Research, the James and Patricia Poitras Professor of Neuroscience at MIT, and a Howard Hughes Medical Investigator. He is also a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the National Academy of Medicine.

Dr. Zhang received an A.B. in chemistry and physics from Harvard College and a Ph.D. in chemistry from Stanford University.

John Maraganore served as the founding CEO and a Director of Alnylam from 2002 to 2021, where he built and led the company from early platform research on RNA interference through global approval and commercialization of the first four RNAi therapeutic medicines, ONPATTRO^®, GIVLAARI^®, OXLUMO^® and Leqvio^®. At Alnylam, he also led the company’s value creation strategy, building over $25 billion in market capitalization and forming over 20 major pharmaceutical alliances. He continues to serve on the Alnylam Scientific Advisory Board.

Prior to Alnylam, Dr. Maraganore was at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he was responsible for the company’s product franchises in oncology, and cardiovascular, inflammatory and metabolic diseases, in addition to leadership of M&A, strategy and biotherapeutics functions. Before Millennium, he held scientific and business roles at Biogen, Inc., where he invented and led the discovery and development of ANGIOMAX^® (bivalirudin) for injection. Previously, he was a scientist at ZymoGenetics, Inc. and the Upjohn Company.

Dr. Maraganore is currently a Venture Partner at ARCH Venture Partners, Chairman and Co-founder of Orbital Therapeutics, a Venture Advisor at Atlas Ventures, an Executive Partner at RTW Investments and Senior Advisor for Blackstone Life Sciences. He is also a member of the Board of Directors of publicly traded companies, including Agios Pharmaceuticals, Beam Therapeutics, Kymera Therapeutics, ProKidney Corp. and Takeda Pharmaceuticals. He is also on the Board of a number of private companies – including Aerium, Hemab, Aera and Versanis, and on the Board of the Biotechnology Innovation Organization, or “BIO,” where he was Chair from 2017-2019 and is Chair Emeritus. In addition, he serves on the Board of the Termeer Foundation – committed to continuing the legacy of the late Henri A. Termeer, as Chair of the n-Lorem Foundation Advisory Council – committed to meeting the needs of patients with nano-rare diseases, on the Advisory Board of Ariadne Labs – advancing global health system innovations, and as an advisor to Nucleate – a student-led organization facilitating the formation of pioneering life sciences companies. Dr. Maraganore also serves as a strategic advisor to a number of innovative biotechnology companies, with a focus on mentoring CEOs in their mission to advance science and innovation for patients.

Dr. Maraganore received his M.S. and Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology at the University of Chicago.

Robert Nelsen is a Co-founder and a Managing Director of ARCH Venture Partners. He joined ARCH at its founding and played a significant role in the creation, early sourcing, financing and development of more than 150 companies, including 39 that have reached valuations exceeding $1 billion.

Mr. Nelsen is focused on generating new ideas for disruptive technologies or business models and partnering with founding management teams and entrepreneurs to execute on these visions by advancing novel platform technologies with the overarching goal of improving health care and outcomes.

Some of his notable early stage investments include Illumina, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, Juno Therapeutics (acquired by Celgene), Beam Therapeutics, Karuna Therapeutics, Altos Labs, EQRx, National Resilience, Prime Medicine, Lyell Immunopharma, Array BioPharma (acquired by Pfizer), Hua Medicine, Vir Biotechnology, Insitro, Agios Pharmaceuticals, Sage Therapeutics, GRAIL (acquired by Illumina), Gossamer Bio, Ikaria (acquired by Mallinckrodt), Kythera Biopharmaceuticals (acquired by Allergan), Receptos (acquired by Celgene), Aviron (acquired by MedImmune), Denali Therapeutics, Syros Pharmaceuticals, Sana Biotechnology, Verve Therapeutics, Brii Biosciences, Bluebird Bio, R2 Technology (acquired by Hologic), Caliper Life Sciences (acquired by PerkinElmer), Trubion Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Emergent Biosolutions), Adolor (acquired by Cubist Pharmaceuticals), deCODE Genetics (acquired by Amgen), Editas, 10x Genomics, Semma Therapeutics (acquired by Vertex Pharmaceuticals), Element and IDUN Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pfizer).

Mr. Nelsen is a Director of Vir Biotechnology, Sana Biotechnology, Lyell Immunopharma, National Resilience, Insitro, Prime Medicine, Nutcracker Therapeutics, Neumora Therapeutics and Brii Biosciences, and serves as chairman of Hua Medicine, among others. He previously served as a Trustee of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute, the Institute of Systems Biology, and was a Director of the National Venture Capital association.

Mr. Nelsen holds an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago and a B.S. from the University of Puget Sound with majors in economics and biology.

Issi Rozen is a General Partner at GV, where he primarily focuses on the formation of new companies and early-stage investments. Mr. Rozen is an experienced biotech executive and a serial entrepreneur who co-founded multiple startups, including GV portfolio company Verve Therapeutics.

Previously, Mr. Rozen spent a decade at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, where he was the Institute’s first Chief Business Officer and a member of the Executive Leadership Team. At the Broad, Mr. Rozen led the creation of the Office of Strategic Alliances and Partnering and was responsible for developing innovative scientific and business collaborations, initiating and establishing new ventures around novel technologies, and overseeing strategy and licensing of the Institute’s intellectual property portfolio. He played a key role in the creation and spin-out of more than 20 startups from the Institute. Prior to joining the Broad, Mr. Rozen led strategy and business development efforts at a number of biotech companies. An accomplished jazz guitarist, he is also a former professor at Berklee College of Music.

Mr. Rozen earned his MBA at MIT’s Sloan School of Management.

Vicki Sato serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors at Vir Biotechnology and Denali Therapeutics, and as a business advisor to enterprises in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries.

From 2006 to 2017, Dr. Sato served on the faculties of Harvard University: as Professor of Management Practice at The Harvard Business School and as Professor of the Practice, Molecular and Cell Biology, on the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.

Dr. Sato retired in 2005 from Vertex Pharmaceuticals, where she served as President since 2000, with responsibility for research and development, business and corporate development, commercial operations, legal and finance. Prior to becoming President, she was Chief Scientific Officer, Senior Vice President of Research and Development and Chair of the Scientific Advisory Board. Under her leadership, Vertex created a diversified pipeline of drugs. Before joining Vertex, Dr. Sato was Vice President of Research at Biogen, Inc., where she led research programs in the areas of inflammation, thrombosis and HIV disease, and where she participated in the executive management of the company. Several molecules from those programs have now reached the marketplace. She also served as a member of the Biogen Scientific Board.

Currently, Dr. Sato is a member of the board of directors of publicly held companies Akouos and Allogene Therapeutics, having retired recently from the boards of Bristol Myers Squibb and BorgWarner Corporation after many years of service. In 2021 she was appointed to President Joseph Biden’s Council of Advisors in Science and Technology (PCAST).

Dr. Sato holds an A.B. from Radcliffe College, and A.M. and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard University. Following postdoctoral work at both the University of California Berkeley and Stanford Medical Center, Dr. Sato was appointed to the faculty of Harvard University, where she was an Assistant and Associate Professor of Biology.

As a hematologist and medical oncologist for over 30 years, David Schenkein has spent his career trying to positively impact the lives of patients and their families in need – as a physician, through drug development, and as an investor in the next generation of health startups. Dr. Schenkein co-leads GV’s life science investment team, where his interests include therapeutics, diagnostics, medical devices, novel care delivery systems and payer innovation.

Before joining GV, Dr. Schenkein spent 10 years as CEO and a member of the Board of Directors at Agios Pharmaceuticals, where he remains as a Director. He also served as Senior Vice President of Clinical Hematology/Oncology at Genentech. There, Dr. Schenkein was responsible for numerous successful oncology drug approvals and led the medical and scientific strategies for their BioOncology portfolio. While at Genentech, he also served as an adjunct Clinical Professor of Medical Oncology at Stanford University School of Medicine. Before Genentech, Dr. Schenkein was the Senior Vice President of Clinical Research at Millennium Pharmaceuticals, overseeing the clinical development and worldwide approval of Velcade®, a first-in-class cancer therapy now approved to treat multiple myeloma and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Dr. Schenkein currently serves as an Adjunct Attending Physician in Hematology at Tufts Medical Center and is on the Board of Directors of Denali Therapeutics, Agios Pharmaceuticals, Treeline Biosciences, Prime Medicine, Aera Therapeutics and Leyden Labs.

Dr. Schenkein holds a B.A. in chemistry from Wesleyan University and an M.D. from the State University of New York Upstate Medical School.

Josh Wolfe co-founded Lux Capital to support scientists and entrepreneurs who pursue counter-conventional solutions to the most vexing puzzles of our time in order to lead us into a brighter future. The more ambitious the project, the better—like, say, creating matter from light.

Mr. Wolfe represents Lux on wide-ranging interdisciplinary cutting-edge tech ventures spanning aerospace and defense, automation, robotics, neuroscience, scientific tools, biotech and brain machine interfaces, including Aera, Anduril, Caja Neuroscience, Crayon, Eikon, Gandeeva, Hadrian, Impulse, Kallyope, Kymeta, Osmo, Resilience, Shapeways, Strateos, Variant, Varda and more.

Mr. Wolfe is a founding investor and board member with Bill Gates in Kymeta, making cutting-edge antennas for high-speed global satellite and space communications. Josh is a Westinghouse semi-finalist and published scientist in immunopathology, and previously worked in investment banking at Salomon Smith Barney and in capital markets at Merrill Lynch. He co-founded and funded Kurion, a contrarian bet in the unlikely business of using advanced robotics and state-of-the-art engineering and chemistry to clean up nuclear waste. It was an unmet, inevitable need with no solution in sight. The company was among the first responders to the Fukushima Daiichi disaster and later Veolia acquired Kurion for 34x Lux’s total investment. He also co-founded Variant (focused on outlier people with outlier traits in outlier parts of the world) and Osmo (focused on giving machines a sense of smell).

Mr. Wolfe has been a columnist with Forbes, an invited guest to advise the White House and Capitol Hill on emerging technologies, a term member at The Council on Foreign Relations, a Trustee of the Santa Fe Institute, Chair of Coney Island Prep charter school, where he grew up in Brooklyn.

Mr. Wolfe graduated from Cornell University with a B.S. in economics and finance.