Insights Into The Editing Of The Human Genome: Where Can Novel Non-Viral Polymeric Delivery Agents Take Us?

Copyright © 2022 Aldevron. Published by Cell and Gene Therapy Insights under Creative Commons License Deed CC BY NC ND 4.0.

Tom Foti, Vice President and General Manager of the Protein Business Unit, Aldevron, and Dr. Kris Saha, Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medical History and Bioethics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, discuss ongoing work in Dr. Saha’s lab to harness different types of HDR templates in order to build cutting-edge systems with the potential to enable point-of-care cell and gene therapy manufacture.

TOM FOTI has more than 25 years of biotechnology experience and serves as Vice President/GM of the Protein Business Unit. He was one of the original founders of Aldevron’s protein services business, which was formed in 2009. Prior to working for Aldevron, Foti served in several roles in the Merck KGaA Bioscience Division, most recently as the Director of its Global Custom Services Business. He started his career in 1992, with Novagen, Inc. serving in manufacturing and operational roles until 1999. He played college basketball while earning a Bachelor’s of Science in Biotechnology and Microbiology from North Dakota State University. Foti also holds a Master’s in Business Administration from Edgewood College and a Management Leadership Certificate from Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

KRIS SAHA is an Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Medical History and Bioethics at the University of Wisconsin- Madison. He was recently named the McPherson Eye Research Institute’s Retina Research Foundation Kathryn and Latimer Murfee Chair for 2019-2022. His lab is at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery (WID), and he participates on campus in the executive committees of the Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Center, Robert F. Holtz Center on Science and Technology Studies, and Forward Bio Institute. Prior to his arrival in Madison, Dr. Saha studied chemical engineering and biotechnology at Cornell University, University of Cambridge, and the University of California, Berkeley. In 2007 he became a Society in Science: Branco-Weiss fellow in the laboratory of Professor Rudolf Jaenisch at the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research at MIT and in the Science and Technology Studies program at Harvard University with Professor Sheila Jasanoff in Cambridge, Massachusetts. At UW-Madison, major thrusts of his lab involve gene editing and cell engineering of human cells found in the retina, central nervous system, liver, and blood. He has published more than 75 scientific manuscripts, filed several patents, and received awards that include the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, Biomedical Engineering Society’s Rising Star Award, and Gund Harrington Scholar Award. He is the leader of the gene therapy biomanufacturing impact area of the Grainger Institute for Engineering, a member of the National Academies’ Forum on Regenerative Medicine, a co-lead for the T cell testbed within the National Science Foundation’s Center for Cell Manufacturing Technologies (CMaT) and on the Executive Committee of the National Institutes for Health’s Somatic Cell Genome Editing (SCGE) Consortium.