OTS Member Highlight – Dr. Richard Geary
Dr. Richard Geary, current OTS President, has always been passionate about health and finding ways to improve people's well-being. Born with a rare disease, he was in the medical spotlight at a young age; now, he’s known for his incredible contributions to the scientific field ...
Binding and Ligand Activation Driven Enrichment–Directed Evolution of SaCas9 gRNAs Improves Gene Editing Efficiency
Authors: Telmo Llanga, Korie Bush, Ying Sun, Amy Yan, Jonathan Zhou, Jan Gorodkin, and Bruce A. Sullenger AbstractClustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats-based editing is inefficient at over two-thirds of genetic targets. A primary cause is ribonucleic acid (RNA) misfolding that can occur between the ...
2025 President’s Special Award
David Corey, Ph.D. UT Southwestern Medical Center Biography: Dr. Corey received his BA from Harvard in 1985 and his PhD from UC Berkeley in 1990 under the guidance of Dr. Peter Schultz. After postdoctoral study in the laboratory of Dr. Charles Craik at UCSF, ...
2025 Paper of the Year Award – Late Discovery Category
Michele Carrer, Ph.D. Executive Director, Department of Neurology Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Carlsbad, CA “Conjugation to a transferrin receptor 1-binding Bicycle peptide enhances ASO and siRNA potency in skeletal and cardiac muscles” https://doi.org/10.1093/nar/gkaf270 Biography: Michele Carrer, Ph.D., is an Executive Director in the Department of Neurology ...
2025 Paper of the Year – Basic Research Category
Ken Yamada, Ph.D. RTI, UMass Chan Medical School “Extended Nucleic Acid (exNA): A Novel Platform Technology Development for Enhancing siRNA Potency in Vivo” Paper of the Year: Enhancing siRNA efficacy in vivo with extended nucleic acid backbones https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-024-02336-7 Biography: Dr. Ken Yamada is an ...
2025 Patient Advocacy Award
Daniel Knight, PhD Candidate Carleton University “Strengthening Research, Advocacy, and Collaboration in ALS: The Dual Perspective of a Scientist and Community Member” Biography Daniel Knight is a fourth-year PhD candidate in chemistry at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, where he is developing a novel ...
2025 Dr. Alan M. Gewirtz Memorial Scholarship for Graduate Students
Cristina Hofman, PhD Candidate UT Southwestern Medical Center “Nuclear Argonaute:miRNA complexes recognize target sequences within chromatin-associated RNA and silence gene expression” Biography: Cristina received her B.S. in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Trinity University and joined David Corey’s lab at the University of Texas ...
2025 Mary Ann Liebert Publishers Inc., Young Investigator Award
Hien Tran Zhao, Ph.D. Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc. “Harnessing antisense oligonucleotide for the treatment of neurological disorders” Biography: Dr. Zhao has over 15 years of experience in Neuroscience Drug Discovery. She is currently an Executive Director of Neurology Research at Ionis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a company ...
2025 OTS Lifetime Achievement Award Winner – Prof. Wojtek Stec
Prof. Wojtek Stec (15 October 1940 - 4 December 2024) Biography: An outstanding chemist and a co-founder of Polish phosphorus chemistry of bioorganic compounds, Professor Stec was a distinguished scientific leader and a dedicated mentor. His research interests centered on bioorganic chemistry, with a ...
2025 OTS Lifetime Achievement Award Winner – Brett Monia, PhD
Brett Monia, Ph.D. Chief Executive Officer, Ionis Pharmaceuticals "Pioneering RNA-Targeted Oligonucleotide Therapeutics: A 35-Year Journey" Biography: Dr. Monia is the chief executive officer, a member of the board of directors and a founding scientist of Ionis Pharmaceuticals. His contributions at Ionis include research into ...
