Interview

Behind the ASO Design and Discovery with Konstantina Skourti-Stathaki, Ph.D.

June 26, 2024

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Konstantina Skourti-Stathaki leads the n-Lorem research team behind the design and discovery of ASOs. Nadina, as we at n-Lorem call her, has a passion for helping patients and an excitement for science that is contagious. She joins the Patient Empowerment Program podcast to discuss her day-to-day activities as n-Lorem’s Director of ASO Design and Discovery, the ongoing research her team is conducting, and more!

On This Episode We Discuss:

  • Inspired to study biology at the University of Crete
  • Leaving Greece to attend grad school at the University of Oxford
  • An internship led Nadina to the world of RNA
  • Leaving academia to impact lives
  • Lessons learned from experiencing drug discovery and development
  • The reason she joined n-Lorem
  • Day-to-day activities as Director of ASO Design and discovery
  • n-Lorem’s internal research management committee to make key decisions regarding programs
  • Ongoing research at n-Lorem to enhance allele selectivity
  • Stan Crooke on why he pioneered antisense technology

Watch on YouTube:

Dr. Konstantina Skourti-Stathaki is the Director of ASO Design and Discovery at n-Lorem Foundation. Konstantina has a strong passion for RNA research and her drive and mission is to utilize it to save people’s lives. Prior to n-Lorem, Konstantina led the RNA Biology and Technology team at MiNA Therapeutics. In this role, she specialized and oversaw pre-clinical RNA Therapeutics drug discovery, specifically target identification and validation, oligonucleotide design and targeting, and mechanism of action studies. She led the strategic planning of new targets and shaped key early decisions on the drug discovery process of rare disease targets. Konstantina also co-led programs from drug discovery to IND filing. Prior to her industry position, Konstantina spent 15 years in academia and her expertise is on RNA biology and biochemistry, transcription and epigenetics. Konstantina did her Ph.D. at the University of Oxford where she made the pioneering discovery that naturally formed RNA/DNA hybrids control transcription and chromatin in mammalian cells. She was then awarded a prestigious Sir Henry Wellcome independent post-doctoral fellowship which she spent at the University of Edinburgh, UK and the Max Delbruck Centre for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, Germany, where she pioneered how RNA structures affect stem cell homeostasis and DNA damage repair. Konstantina has a strong track record of innovative research including numerous high impact factor peer-reviewed publications and patent filings.

Credits

Hosted by: Dr. Stan Crooke.
Videographer: Jon Magnuson of Mighty One Productions.
Producers: Colin Delaney, Kira Dineen, Jon Magnuson, Andrew Serrano and Amy Williford.

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Transcript:

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