Allen Horhota, PhD

Senior Director, Head of Delivery at Orna Therapeutics

Al is the Senior Director, Head of Delivery Sciences at Orna Therapeutics, leading their efforts to bring oRNA to new, therapeutically meaningful tissues and cell types. Al is a classically trained nucleic acid chemist and enzymologist with over ten years in industry focused on nanoparticle development. Al earned his Ph.D. in Chemistry at Boston College, followed by a Post Doc at The Scripps Research Institute, specializing in simplified nucleic acid backbones, their chemical synthesis, and enzymatic processing. He is an author on multiple papers and patents spanning the nucleic acid, nanoparticle targeting, polymeric, and lipid nanoparticle delivery of RNA fields.

Before joining, Orna Al was an Associate Director and founding member of Moderna’s Delivery Innovation group, focusing on novel materials and processes for effective mRNA delivery across the polymer and lipid nanoparticle spaces. Before Moderna, Al held various scientific and leadership roles at BIND Therapeutics. At BIND, Al focused on novel approaches to active nanoparticle targeting and nanoparticle processing techniques to enable small molecule and nucleic acid payloads. Al has contributed to multiple clinical and commercial nanoparticle programs at Moderna and BIND therapeutics throughout his career.