About Us

Dominique Verhelle, PhD is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of NextRNA. Dominique has over 20 years of industry experience, spanning key scientific leadership roles in biopharma and venture capital. Prior to joining NextRNA, Dominique served as Head of Academic Innovation at Takeda’s Center for External Innovation, where she led efforts to build partnerships for Takeda with leading academic investigators in the United States and globally. During that time, she also served as a Director on the Board of Bridge Medicines, a Takeda Ventures-backed company. Prior to joining Takeda, Dominique was a Principal at Third Rock Ventures, where she cofounded Fulcrum Therapeutics and Cedilla Therapeutics. Before that, Dominique launched and led epigenetic drug discovery efforts in oncology at Celgene and Pfizer for over a decade.

Dominique completed her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Christopher Glass, MD, PhD at the University of California, San Diego, focusing on transcription regulation and chromatin remodeling. She holds a PhD in Life Sciences from Université Côte d’Azur, France, and an MBA in Entrepreneurship from the Rady School of Management, University of California, San Diego.

Jesse Smith joined NextRNA in 2024 as Chief Scientific Officer. Jesse has over 20 years of drug discovery and development experience with a deep focus on advancing first-in-class targeted small molecule therapies. Before joining NextRNA, Jesse was the CSO at Civetta Therapeutics, a Deerfield-backed company focused on drugging Beta Propeller proteins for therapeutic intervention in oncology and other therapeutic areas. Previously, Jesse was SVP of Translational Biology at Remix Therapeutics, a Cambridge-based biotech company focused on drugging RNA processing to target drivers of human disease. Jesse helped initiate a first-in-class MYB mRNA degrader program, which is currently in early oncology clinical trials. Jesse’s experience also includes a decade in epigenetic drug discovery, most notably as VP of Biology at Epizyme Pharmaceuticals, where he made important contributions to the first-in-class EZH2 inhibitor, Tazverik® and to the first two arginine methyltransferase inhibitors to enter clinical development. Jesse received his Ph.D. in Molecular Cancer Biology from Duke University Medical Center and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the National Cancer Institute, NIH.

JS Cleiftie is NextRNA’s Chief Business Officer and Chief Financial Officer. He is responsible for Business & Corporate Development and Finance. He joins us with 20 years of experience in Business and Corporate Development, Venture Capital, and Drug Development in Pharma and Biotech.

Most recently, JS served as Chief Business Officer of Erytech Pharma, a NASDAQ-listed clinical-stage oncology company, where he was responsible for Business Development & Licensing, External Innovation, and New Product Planning.

Prior to that, he was associate Vice-President, Global Business Development & Licensing at Sanofi, where he led and supported numerous sell-side and buy-side transactions across multiple therapeutic areas and development stages.

Before joining Sanofi, JS was a Principal at Innoven Partners, a life sciences and technology venture capital firm, where he executed numerous equity investments in private biotech and medtech companies.

He started his career in drug development in the US as a research scientist with Aventis (now Sanofi) in immunotherapy and gene therapy for cancer.

JS earned an MS in Biological & Medical Sciences and a MS in Immunology from the University of Paris V, and received his MBA from Cornell University.

Alejandra joined NextRNA in 2022 as VP, Head of Biology. A highly accomplished scientific leader, Alejandra has over 25 years of small molecule drug discovery experience in the areas of cancer biology, epigenetics, and infectious diseases. Alejandra has a proven track record of leading biology teams throughout all stages of the discovery process from validation and uncovering of novel targets to drug candidate development and IND and NDA submissions.

Alejandra was previously Vice President and Head of Biological Sciences at Epizyme, where she worked for 11 years. Among other responsibilities, she served as preclinical project lead overseeing life cycle management of the EZH2 inhibitor program, tazemetostat, which won FDA-approval in 2020 as Tazverik®. Before that, she held roles at The Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research and Millennium Pharmaceuticals, now Takeda Oncology. Alejandra is an expert collaborator who has successfully built multidisciplinary teams for the implementation of technology platforms and driving drug discovery programs.

Alejandra has a strong foundation in research, spending years at the MIT Center for Cancer Research, and the Luis Federico Leloir Institute (Argentina). Alejandra received a BS in Chemistry from the University of Buenos Aires (Argentina).

Hong Liu, PhD, is Vice President and Head of Computational Biology at NextRNA Therapeutics. With over two decades of experience in the pharmaceutical and biotech industries, Hong brings a wealth of expertise in leveraging computational biology and data science to drive drug discovery and development. Prior to joining NextRNA, she held leadership positions at Abio-X, Checkmate Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Regeneron), Takeda, and Sanofi, where she spearheaded efforts in translational strategy, biomarker discovery, and target evaluation in the fields of Oncology and Immunology. Hong’s innovative work has resulted in multiple patents and publications, reflecting her commitment to advancing therapeutic development through cutting-edge computational approaches.

Throughout her career, Hong has demonstrated a talent for building and leading high-performing teams, fostering academic and commercial collaborations, and implementing novel computational solutions to complex biological challenges. Her strategic insights and technical proficiency in areas such as NGS analysis, machine learning applications, and multi-omics data integration position her as a key driver of NextRNA’s mission to develop innovative RNA-targeted therapeutics.

Jason joined NextRNA in 2022 as VP, Head of Drug Discovery. His drug discovery experience prior to NextRNA spans an 18-year career, including 13 years at Merck & Co. followed by 5 years at IFM Therapeutics, where he was a Sr Director of Medicinal Chemistry. Jason is a scientific leader with a strong track record of recruiting, managing, and collaborating with multidisciplinary teams. At IFM Therapeutics, Jason worked on several programs targeting the innate immune system, including the team that developed a suite of NLRP3 antagonists that were acquired by Novartis and advanced into Phase 2 clinical trials. At Merck, Jason was one of the first scientists hired at the Boston site, where he developed a passion for drug discovery, working on multidisciplinary teams, and mentoring other scientists.  He and his teams discovered and advanced into clinical development molecules addressing challenging oncology and immuno-oncology targets. Jason earned his PhD in synthetic organic chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill under the direction of Michael Crimmins and then went on to study as a NIH postdoctoral fellow at UC Irvine in the labs of Larry Overman. Jason received a BS in Chemistry from Union College.

Shana Mendozza is the Executive Director of Human Resources at NextRNA, leading all aspects of HR, with a focus on the growth and development of both the people and the organization. Shana has over 20 years of industry experience in operations and human resources, and has excelled in building collaborative relationships with leaders, providing critical human resource guidance, and serving as a trusted advisor on strategic organizational initiatives.

Before joining NextRNA, Shana was the Executive Director of Human Resources & Operations at Kronos Bio, a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company. At Kronos Bio, she played a pivotal role in the Company’s rapid scale-up and the creation of its HR infrastructure.  Prior to her role at Kronos Bio, Shana held various positions at Tetraphase Pharmaceuticals, including Senior Director of Operations. During her tenure from 2007 to 2019, she scaled the organization through all stages of growth, optimized HR processes, managed compliance programs, and oversaw the company’s safety program. Earlier in her career, Shana worked at Critical Therapeutics in Lexington, MA, where she oversaw safety programs, managed laboratory, and facility operations.

Shana holds a B.S. in Psychology and a B.S. in Human Development, from Hobart and William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY. Her extensive experience and leadership in human resources and operations have been instrumental in driving the success of the organizations she has been part of.

Dr. Friedman has served as a director of the Company since September 2023. Dr. Friedman has over 25 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry in drug discovery and development and senior management positions. She is currently the Chief Scientific Officer of ORIC Pharmaceuticals, Inc, where she leads discovery research, preclinical development sciences and manufacturing. Prior to ORIC, Dr. Friedman spent 15 years at Genentech, where she held roles of increasing responsibility including head of translational oncology for Genentech Research and Early Development (gRED), where her team advanced more than 20 programs into clinical development. Dr. Friedman also sat on cross-functional leadership teams tasked with strategic and technical review of Genentech’s oncology pipeline projects as well as in-licensing opportunities. Prior to Genentech, Dr. Friedman held various scientific leadership roles at Exelixis. She is an inventor on 28 issued patents and author on 99 peer-reviewed publications. Dr. Friedman earned a PhD in molecular and cell biology from UC Berkeley and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Cambridge University in England. She was previously a director on the board of Jiya Acquisition Corp., an advisor on several scientific advisory boards, and is currently on the board of Project Scientist, a non-profit organization serving girls in STEM.

Ms. Henderson has served as a director of the Company since March of 2021. Ms. Henderson is the Head of the Family Office and General Counsel of Dubin & Company. Ms. Henderson also serves as the General Counsel of Haussmann Development, a real estate development company, and the Assistant General Counsel and Compliance Officer of Commodore Capital, a biotech fund focused on late stage private and small and mid-cap public companies. In addition, Ms. Henderson previously served as acting General Counsel of Engineers Gate, a proprietary quantitative trading company, and General Counsel of Untapped Labs (fka Jumpstart Ventures, Inc.), a tech recruiting software company. In addition to serving on the board of NextRNA, she is also a member of the board of directors of Untapped Labs and previously served as a member of the board of directors of Engineers Gate. Prior to joining Dubin & Company, Ms. Henderson was an associate in the Mergers & Acquisitions group of Davis Polk & Wardwell LLP. At Davis Polk, she represented public and private clients as well as individuals in domestic and cross-border public and private mergers and acquisitions, joint ventures, corporate restructurings and advised on corporate governance and compliance issues. Ms. Henderson earned her J.D. from Harvard Law School, where she served as Captain of the Championship Ames Moot Court Team.  She graduated with honors from Harvard College.  Ms. Henderson is admitted in New York.

Dr. Kunsch has served as a director of the Company since December 2024.Dr. Kunsch has more than 30 years of leadership in R&D, business development and life science venture investing and is passionate about working with entrepreneurs and innovators to advance discoveries that bring novel therapeutics to patients. He has broad experience in sourcing, evaluation and transacting early-stage investments and business development partnerships through leveraging a well-established network. Dr. Kunsch spent over 10 years as Managing Director at AbbVie Ventures where he led investments in and served on the boards of numerous companies including Prevail (acquired by Lilly), Tidal Therapeutics (acquired by Sanofi), FireCyte Therapeutics, DG Medicines, Disc Medicine (Nasdaq: IRON), Kojin Therapeutics, Accent Therapeutics and Quanta Therapeutics among others. Prior to AbbVie, Dr. Kunsch was Vice President of Biology at AtheroGenics, Inc leading teams to advance several programs into the clinic for cardiovascular disease, rheumatoid arthritis and asthma. He started his career at Human Genome Sciences managing a team of scientists conducting whole-genome sequencing and analysis of several human pathogenic bacteria.

Dr. Kunsch obtained his Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine and completed his post-doctoral fellowship at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology. He is an author on more than 60 scientific publications and inventor on dozens of patents. Currently, Dr. Kunsch is a Venture Partner at Dreavent Capital, serves on the Supervisory Board of Captor Therapeutics, is a member of the Board of Trustees for The Pennsylvania State Research Foundation and is Vice Chairman of the Board of Trustees for the Massachusetts Biomedical Initiatives.

Mr. McKee has served as a director of the Company since March 2022. He currently serves as Chief Executive Officer of MBJC Associates, LLC, a business consulting firm serving pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies and serves as a part-time Venture Partner for Cobro Ventures, a private investment firm focused on software and biotechnology companies. Mr. McKee served as Chief Financial Officer of C4 Therapeutics, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company, from July 2020 until June 2021. Mr. McKee served as Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer of EKR Therapeutics, Inc., from July 2010 until June 2012 when EKR was sold to Cornerstone Therapeutics Inc. From January 2009 until March 2010, Mr. McKee served as the Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer of Barr Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a subsidiary of Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Limited, and the successor entity to Barr Pharmaceuticals, Inc., which was acquired by Teva in December 2008. Mr. McKee was also Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Barr Pharmaceuticals, Inc. from 1996 until 2008. Prior to joining Barr, Mr. McKee served as a Director of International Operations and Vice President Finance at Absolute Entertainment, Inc. from June 1993 until December 1994. From 1990 until June 1993, Mr. McKee worked at Gramkow & Carnevale, CPAs, and from 1983 until 1990, he worked at Deloitte & Touche. Mr. McKee serves as a director and chair of the audit committee of Aileron Therapeutics, Inc., a publicly-held biopharmaceutical company, and Assertio Therapeutics, a publicly held specialty pharmaceutical company. He also serves on the board of several privately held companies in the medical and biopharmaceutical industries. Mr. McKee holds a B.S. from the University of Notre Dame.

Dr. Sandage has served as a director of the Company since June 2022. Dr. Sandage has almost 40 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry in drug development and senior management positions and venture capital.  He currently is the Managing Director of the Paula and Rodger Riney Foundation and Lightchain Capital, LLC, and General Partner in Cultivation Capital Life Sciences Fund II, a St. Louis venture fund.  Previously he was President and CEO of Coronado BioSciences, Inc. (NASDAQ: CNDO), an immunotherapy company where he took the company public in 2011.  Prior to that, he was Vice President of Covidien (Mallinckrodt) Pharmaceuticals’ oncology research and development program.  For 19 years, Dr. Sandage was the Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Vice President of Research and Development, Quality and Manufacturing at Indevus Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (NASDAQ: IDEV) (successor to Interneuron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.), which was acquired by Endo Pharmaceuticals in 2009. Prior to Indevus, he held senior drug development positions at DuPont Merck Pharmaceutical Company, DuPont/American Critical Care, Merrell Dow and Dow Pharmaceuticals.  Dr. Sandage is currently Chair of the Board of Directors of Immunophotonics, Inc., a private oncology company and director at Endevica Biotech, Inc., a private biotech company focusing on the treatment of cachexia and Geneoscopy, a private diagnostic company for detecting colorectal cancer.  He was previously served as a member of the boards of Mateon (NASDAQ: MATN), a publicly traded oncology company; Arch Oncology, Inc. a private oncology company; Gentium S.r.l. (NASDAQ: GENT) a Italian biotech company; Osteologix, Inc. (NASDAQ: OLGX) a Danish biotech company; Genta Inc. (NASDAQ: GNTA) a public oncology company. Dr. Sandage is an adjunct Professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville School of Pharmacy and has published over 50 scientific articles. Dr. Sandage earned a B.S. in pharmacy from the University of Arkansas College of Pharmacy and a Ph.D. in Clinical Pharmacy from Purdue University College of Pharmacy.

Dominique Verhelle, PhD is Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of NextRNA. Dominique has over 20 years of industry experience, spanning key scientific leadership roles in biopharma and venture capital. Prior to joining NextRNA, Dominique served as Head of Academic Innovation at Takeda’s Center for External Innovation, where she led efforts to build partnerships for Takeda with leading academic investigators in the United States and globally. During that time, she also served as a Director on the Board of Bridge Medicines, a Takeda Ventures-backed company. Prior to joining Takeda, Dominique was a Principal at Third Rock Ventures, where she cofounded Fulcrum Therapeutics and Cedilla Therapeutics. Before that, Dominique launched and led epigenetic drug discovery efforts in oncology at Celgene and Pfizer for over a decade.

Dominique completed her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Christopher Glass, MD, PhD at the University of California, San Diego, focusing on transcription regulation and chromatin remodeling. She holds a PhD in Life Sciences from Université Côte d’Azur, France, and an MBA in Entrepreneurship from the Rady School of Management, University of California, San Diego.

Alan Ashworth is President of the Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center at University of California, San Francisco and Senior Vice President for clinical services, UCSF Health. Ashworth was a key member of the team that discovered the BRCA2 gene in 1995, which is linked to an increased risk of breast, ovarian and other cancers. In 2005, his lab identified a way to exploit genetic weaknesses (using synthetic lethality) in cancer cells with mutated BRCA1 or 2 genes, leading to a new approach to cancer treatment, PARP inhibition. Four different PARP inhibitors have now been approved by the FDA for the treatment of ovarian, breast, pancreatic and prostate cancer based on this observation, which was named by Nature in the top 20 discoveries in cancer in the 21st century. He continues to develop new treatments for cancer using genetic principles.

He has received a number of awards and prizes many of which recognize the innovative and translational nature of his work as well as its clinical impact. He is an elected member of the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, the American Association of Arts and Sciences, the American Association of Cancer Research and the Royal Society (equivalent to membership of the National Academy of Sciences). Prizes include the European Society of Medical Oncology (ESMO) Lifetime Achievement Award, the David T. Workman Memorial Award of the Samuel Waxman Cancer Research Foundation, the Meyenburg Foundation’s Cancer Research Award, the Genetics Society Medal, the inaugural winner of the Basser Global Prize, and the Susan G Komen Brinker award. He is the scientific co-founder of Tango Therapeutics.

Dr. Alisha Jones, who goes by Jonesy, is a James Weldon Johnson Assistant Professor at New York University in the Department of Chemistry. She was a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Michael Sattler in Munich, Germany, and earned her PhD in Chemistry in the lab of Gabriele Varani at the University of Washington. Jonesy’s research experiences as a graduate student and postdoctoral researcher were centered around RNA structural biology; this helped her shape her current research interests in understanding the molecular mechanisms that govern RNA function. Her research group is particularly interested in investigating how long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) are spliced and how the structures of mature transcripts influence lncRNA function (e.g., through interactions with other nucleic acids and proteins). Considering that lncRNAs are critical regulators of gene expression, the work carried out by the Jonesy research group has the potential to increase our overall knowledge regarding lncRNA function, and offers a starting point for therapeutically targeting lncRNAs when they are implicated in a disease.

Dr. Jeffrey Brown is a seasoned biotech leader with over 20 years of preclinical drug development experience. Throughout his career, Jeffrey has built several drug discovery platforms focused on RNA, AAV, and small molecule therapeutics across multiple organizations including Pfizer, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Alexion, Voyager Therapeutics, and Wave Life Sciences. With a focus on moving therapeutics from concept to clinic, Jeffrey has successfully advanced multiple preclinical programs to drug candidates, with some reaching clinical trials. Jeffrey received an MBA from Suffolk University and Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of Utah. Following his Ph.D., Jeffrey completed post-doctoral training at Harvard Medical School and Boston University Medical Center. Combining his drug discovery experience with his passion for helping patients affected with rare disease, inspired him to establish Scientific Foundation LLC, an organization dedicated to helping families, patients and biotech start-ups navigate the challenges of preclinical drug development. In addition, Jeffrey currently serves as Chief Scientific Officer at Sensorium Therapeutics and is a contributing member of the Board of Trustees for the Huntington Disease Society of America.

David Mathews is the Lynne E. Maquat Distinguished Professor of RNA Biology at the University of Rochester.  He is in the Department of Biochemistry & Biophysics and the Center for RNA Biology.  He received his M.D. and Ph.D. from the University of Rochester, and his thesis work was mentored by Douglas Turner in Chemistry.  He was a postdoctoral fellow with David Case at the Scripps Research Institute. Research in the Mathews lab spans the fields of Computational Biology and Bioinformatics, studying RNA structure using computational methods. They develop and maintain the RNA structure software package for secondary structure prediction and analysis. In addition, they develop and use molecular dynamics to model the conformational dynamics of 3D structures.

John Mattick, PhD is Professor of RNA Biology at UNSW Sydney. He was previously the Chief Executive of Genomics England, Executive Director of the Garvan Institute of Medical Research in Sydney, Director of the Institute for Molecular Biology at the University of Queensland, and Director of the Australian Genome Research Facility.

Dr. Mattick has made several seminal contributions to molecular biology, including delineation of the architecture and function of the fatty acid synthase complex, development of one of the first recombinant DNA-based vaccines, and genetic characterization of bacterial surface filaments involved in host colonization. Dr. Mattick has also pioneered a new view of the genetic programming of humans and other complex organisms by showing that the majority of the genome, previously considered ‘junk’, actually specifies a dynamic network of regulatory RNAs that guide differentiation and development. He has published almost 300 research articles and his work has received coverage in Nature, Science, Scientific American, New Scientist and the New York Times, among others. In 2022, Dr. Mattick published a book titled, RNA, the Epicenter of Genomic Information.

Dr. Mattick obtained his BSc from the University of Sydney and his PhD from Monash University. He undertook his postdoctoral training at Baylor College of Medicine at the Texas Medical Center in Houston.