Carver Biosciences Announces Appointment of Three Members to its Scientific Advisory Board
Carver Biosciences, Inc., a biotech company focused on the development of CRISPR/Cas13 antivirals, today announced the formation of its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). Cameron Myhrvold Ph.D., co-founder of Carver will serve as the chairman of the SAB. Additional appointments include Uri Lopatin, M.D., Olivia Merkel, Ph.D., and Neville Sanjana, Ph.D.
"I am thrilled to have Dr. Lopatin, Dr. Merkel and Dr. Sanjana join our advisory board," said Dr. Walter Strapps, co-founder and CEO of Carver. "Along with Dr. Myhrvold, these scientific leaders will help us shape our pipeline and advance our programs into the clinic."
Uri Lopatin, M.D.
Dr. Lopatin is a serial biotech entrepreneur who founded and brought public two biotech companies, Assembly Biosciences (NASDAQ:ASMB) and Pardes Biosciences (NASDAQ:PRDS), building both from concept through clinical development. He has helped raise over $600M for his companies to advance novel therapies for Hepatitis B (ASMB) and SARS-CoV-2 (PRDS) infections.. Dr Lopatin was also a visiting partner at Y combinator, where he focused on early stage biotech investments.
Dr. Lopatin completed his training in Internal Medicine at the University of Washington, and New York University and his fellowship training in Infectious Diseases at the NIH - National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease.
Olivia Merkel, Ph.D.
Dr. Merkel has been a Professor of Drug Delivery at LMU Munich since 2015 and Chair since 2022. She is a Registered Pharmacist, received a MS (2006) and a PhD (2009) in Pharmaceutical Technology as well as numerous awards, including an ERC Starting Grant, ERC Proof-of-Concept Grant, the APV Research Award and the Carl-Wilhelm-Scheele-Award. Merkel is the author of over 100 articles and book chapters.
She served as NIH reviewer from 2014-2015, SNF reviewer from 2018-2022, is an Editorial Board member for JCR, EJPB, Molecular Pharmaceutics and other journals, was the President of the German Controlled Release Society in 2020 and the Chair of the CRS Focus Group on Transdermal and Mucosal Delivery from 2020-2022. Her research focuses mainly on RNA formulation and pulmonary delivery for the treatment of a variety of lung diseases.
Neville Sanjana, Ph.D.
Dr. Sanjana, is a Core Faculty Member at the New York Genome Center and an Associate Professor in the Departments of Biology and of Neuroscience and Physiology at New York University. As a bioengineer, Dr. Sanjana has developed high-throughput genome engineering tools to understand the impact of genetic changes on cancer evolution, viral pathogenesis, drug resistance and the nervous system.
Dr. Sanjana is a recipient of the Presidential Early Career Award for Engineers and Scientists, AAAS Wachtel Prize for Cancer Research, the NIH's New Innovator Award, the Cancer Research Institute Technology Impact Award, the DARPA Young Faculty Award, the Kimmel Scholar Award, the MRA Young Investigator Award, and also is the Leichtung Family Investigator of the Brain and Behavior Foundation. Dr. Sanjana holds a PhD in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from MIT, a BS in Symbolic Systems and a BA in English from Stanford University.
About Carver Biosciences, Inc.
Carver is a Boston, MA-based gene therapy company developing CRISPR-based therapies for RNA viruses that infect humans. Carver's approach is a programmable, platform technology that could offer a generalizable solution for treating many viruses, as targeting is dictated by a guide RNA sequence. The company's underlying technology was developed by co-founder Dr. Cameron Myhrvold. For additional information, please visit www.carver.bio.
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