33. RNA modification gene therapy for rare disorders, Jim Burns, CEO, Kathie Bishop, CSO, Locanabio

James Burns, PhD, Chief Executive Officer, Locanabio James (Jim) Burns, Ph.D., joined Locanabio in December 2019 as CEO and Board member. Prior to joining Locanabio, Dr. Burns served as the CEO of Casebia Therapeutics and led the team in discovering and developing new CRISPR/Cas9-based breakthrough therapeutics to treat blood disorders, blindness and auto-immune disease. Prior to Casebia, Dr. Burns spent the bulk of his career at Sanofi-Genzyme, where he held several leadership roles with increasing responsibility, including North America Site Head for R&D where he coordinated R&D operations across key therapeutic areas, and head of Sanofi-Genzyme R&D. Dr. Burns is a former board member of MassBio, a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering and a member of the External Advisory Committee for the BioMedical Engineering Department at Boston University. He also served as the industry representative for the Food and Drug Administration General Plastic Surgery Panel. Dr. Burns earned a Bachelor of Science degree in biology from Purdue University and Master of Science and Doctorate degrees in bioengineering from the University of Illinois-Chicago, where his thesis work focused on drug delivery. Following his graduate studies, he was a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Florida. Kathie Bishop, PhD, Chief Scientific Officer, Locanabio Kathie M. Bishop, Ph.D., joined Locanabio in August 2019 as CSO. Dr. Bishop has 20 years’ experience in leading translational research and drug development, with a focus on novel therapeutics in neurological and rare diseases. She was previously CSO at Otonomy, where she led preclinical and clinical development of a pipeline of neurotology programs. Before that, she was CSO of Tioga Pharmaceuticals. From 2009 to 2015, Dr. Bishop served in various product development management roles at Ionis Pharmaceuticals including Vice President, Clinical Development. At Ionis, she led translation and development of multiple programs in the neurology franchise including leading the development and clinical trials for SPINRAZA™ (nusinersen), the first approved treatment for patients with spinal muscular atrophy and winner of the 2017 Prix Galien Award. Dr. Bishop also served in research and development leadership roles from to 2001 to 2009 at Ceregene, a company focused on the development of AAV-based gene therapy products for the treatment of neurodegenerative and retinal disorders. She conducted post-doctoral work at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and obtained her Ph.D. from the University of Alberta.