Jing Liao

Head of Vector Technology at Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Genomic Medicine

Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States

About

• Focusing on novel gene therapy and gene editing technologies at LogicBio Therapeutics • Extensive experience with designing/creating plasmid constructs including different cassettes for canonical AAV gene therapy and novel homologous recombination. Optimization of the cassettes for the studies in vitro and in vivo, increasing the production yield and eliminating rcAAV. • Manage the AAV vector production pipeline and experienced with the pipeline of lenti virus production, tittering and QC. • Develop and identify novel liver tropic capsid with superior transduction efficiency and other characteristics in humanized mouse model and nonhuman primates. • Reprogramed somatic cells into pluripotent stem cells. Established the first human iPSC line in China and the first Rat iPSC line in the world. • Broad skill set in molecular, cellular biology and animal handling. • Highly productive and competitive by publishing the first reports in top journals in the field with fierce competition. • 12+ years of managerial leadership experience. Successful management experience of PhD student and MS/BS level research associates. • 15+ years’ experience in genome editing using conventional homologous recombination or TALENs, CRISPR/Cas9 technology in order to create straight knockout, conditional knockout or knockin cell lines or knockout mouse models. • Effective scientific communicator adept at organizing written and oral presentations.

Experience

  • Alexion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (On-site)
    • Head of Vector Technology
      Oct 2023 - Present · 2 yrs 10 mos

      -Lead capsid engineering project. Reported human liver tropic capsid sL65 as first sAAVy capsid. -Lead gene editing project. Further enhance GeneRide efficiency. -Lead AAV production team. Developed mAAVRx 2-plasmid system. -Manage a group of 13 people to support capsid engineering, gene editing, AAV manufacturability enhancement by plasmid optimization and cell line engineering and preclinical AAV production - Direct report to VP of Genomic Medicine, Alexion

    • Director, Vector Development and Operations
      Oct 2022 - Present · 3 yrs 10 mos

  • LogicBio Therapeutics (8 yrs 10 mos)
    • Director, Vector Operations
      Feb 2022 - Present · 4 yrs 6 mos

    • Associate Director of Vector Development and Operations
      Sep 2020 - Feb 2022 · 1 yr 6 mos

      - Organize and lead AAV Vector Development and Operations team with high quality, efficiency and motivation. - Design the AAV cassettes for both canonical gene therapy and homologous recombination in vitro and in vivo. - Optimize of the constructs in order to improve the vector production yield and elimination of rcAAV. - Lead novel capsid project and identified the superior liver tropic capsid in nonhuman primates. Oral presentation in ASGCT, 2021 - Manage 8 people direct reporting to me when managing both bioanalytic and vector development and operations at the same time. - Direct report to Global VP, Head of Technology Development

    • Associate Director
      Aug 2019 - Aug 2020 · 1 yr 1 mo

      - Organize and lead a high-quality and high-efficiency bioanalytical team - Lead in-house bioanalytic laboratory activities to support preclinical studies - Transfer assays to CRO and other collaborators. - Establish the GLP lab internally and analyzed the preclinical samples internally to support IND filing within short time frame. - Lead the project of platform optimization in order to improve the platform. - Lead the novel capsid project and identified the top-tier capsid in both humanized mouse model and non-human primates. - Manage 4 people direct reporting to me for assay development, analytical study, assay qualification, assay transfer and early discovery. - Direct report to VP, Biology & Translational Research

  • Senior Scientist at Q-State Biosciences
    Jul 2017 - Oct 2017 · 4 mos

    • Report to principle Scientist as core member of the Q-state’s Cell production team. • Handled 24 isogenic iPSC lines with different genotypes and differentiated iPSCs into neuron cells within 1 month for phenotype studies. • Coordinating with colleagues from cell production group, imaging group and data analysis group in order to push the moving forward of the pipeline in the cross functional environment. • Optimizing the differentiation protocol. • Served as the consultant and technical support for the iPSC platform in Translate Bio.

  • Scientist at RaNA Therapeutics
    Sep 2015 - Jun 2017 · 1 yr 10 mos

    • Report to associate Director as core member of the RaNA’s R&D team. • Lead genome-editing/cell biology/iPSC core in order to create platform to support pre-clinical lead therapeutic programs for Friedreich’s Ataxia and other ongoing projects. • Manage MS/BS scientists in order to support target identification, hit validation, and in vitro disease model generation. • Manage external collaborations including academic or industrial collaborators.

  • Postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University
    Jan 2011 - Aug 2015 · 4 yrs 8 mos

    • Published first authored article in Nature Genetics. • Established the CRISPR/Cas9 and TALENs genome editing platform for human ES cells in the lab. • Led the first systematical study of the function and targets of DNMTs in human ES cells by knocking out key epigenetic regulators in human ES cells using CRISPR/Cas9. • Generated the first full list of targets for the key epigenetic regulators DNMTs in human ES cells, which can be used as important reference for epi-genome editing in the future. • Trained and supervised 2 technicians. Honors and Rewards: 2015 Harvard Chinese Life Science Annual Distinguished Research Award, Boston, USA 2011~2014 Awardee, Human Frontier Science Program (HFSP) Postdoctoral Fellowship