Kerry Benenato

Chief Platform Officer at Sail Biomedicines

Speaker

Dr. Kerry Benenato joined Sail Biomedicines in February 2024 as Chief Platform Officer, bringing to the company a distinguished career in the development of mRNA products and product candidates. Prior to Sail, she served as Chief Scientific Officer of 76Bio, a startup focused on the development of a novel targeted protein degradation modality using mRNA/lipid nanoparticle (LNP) technologies. Before this, she spent eight years in positions of increasing responsibility at Moderna, most recently serving as Vice President, Platform Chemistry and Formulation Discovery, where she led the Platform team, with oversight for the discovery and development of mRNA delivery tools for multiple modalities (infectious disease, rare disease, immuno-oncology, auto-immune diseases) and the development of tools for LNP biophysical characterization. In 2022, Kerry was awarded the American Chemical Society Heroes of Chemistry award for her work contributing to Moderna’s mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccine (Spikevax™). She began her industry career in scientific research at AstraZeneca, after completing a research fellowship at Harvard University as a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellow. She holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Boston College and a B.S. in Chemistry from Providence College.