MBL Friday Evening Lecture Series: Rachel Meyers, Sunrise Bioventures

Whether you’re in Woods Hole or halfway around the world, join us for this venerable MBL lecture series.

Lectures are free and open to the public for in-person and virtual attendance.

“RNAi Across Scales: From Model Organisms to Clinical Therapies” - Rachel Meyers, Sunrise Bioventures

This talk traces the path from fundamental discovery of small interfering RNA (siRNA) to highlighting the engineering and innovations needed to translate siRNA into a clinical therapeutic. RNA interference (RNAi) emerged from two unexpected observations: the puzzling co-suppression of pigmentation genes in petunias, and the discovery in C. elegans that double-stranded RNA could trigger potent, sequence-specific gene silencing. These findings revealed a conserved biological mechanism and launched a new therapeutic modality capable of silencing disease-causing genes with incredible precision.

The first example of this successful translation was an siRNA therapeutic for the treatment of transthyretin (TTR) amyloidosis, a fatal disease caused by the accumulation of misfolded protein in nerves and heart tissue. The journey that led to siRNA therapies for this disease highlights the non-linear path of drug discovery and development, reveals a platform in the making and illustrates how basic biology can be harnessed for transformative clinical impact.

Rachel Meyers is an entrepreneurial scientist actively involved in the biotech and pharma community. She is a member of the board of directors for Korro Bio, a nucleic acid therapeutics company focused on RNA editing as well as an Atlas Ventures StealthCo in the nucleic acid therapeutics space. She serves as a scientific advisor to Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, the pioneer of RNAi therapeutics; Arrakis Therapeutics, a small-molecule company focused on targeting RNA; and CAMP4 Therapeutics, a nucleic acid therapeutics company focused on upregulating RNA transcription. Meyers is a founding partner of Sunrise Bioventures, a nucleic acid accelerator, and serves as acting CEO at AmyGo Solutions, a startup focused on early detection in amyloidosis. In addition to other advisory roles across industry and academia, Meyers serves as a mentor with several local and national biotech entrepreneurial programs. Meyers has more than 25 years of drug discovery and development expertise as well as extensive experience in building R&D organizations. Previously, she served as Founder and Chief Scientific Officer at Faze Medicines, a Third Rock Ventures-backed biotech company focused on treating diseases with high unmet medical need by perturbing biomolecular condensates. She has deep expertise in the development of RNA-based therapies, having spent 14 years at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, helping to build the company from the beginning, ultimately serving as the SVP of Research and RNAi Lead Development. Prior to Alnylam, Meyers held various scientific roles at Millennium Pharmaceuticals.

Meyers completed her postdoctoral training with Lew Cantley at Harvard Medical School in the field of signal transduction and received her Ph.D. from Nobel laureate Phil Sharp at MIT in the field of in vitro transcription. She served on the National Advisory Council on Innovation and Entrepreneurship (NACIE) during the Biden administration. Meyers is listed as an inventor on many patents and patent applications and is an author on numerous peer-reviewed publications.

No registration required for in-person attendance. Doors open at 7:30 PM, lectures start at 8 PM in the Cornelia Clapp Auditorium.