Melissa Moore

Melissa Moore is a renowned scientist with over three decades of experience in RNA research and pharmaceutical development.

From 2016-2021, she served as Chief Scientific Officer at Moderna where she led the early-stage research teams developing Moderna’s platform technologies in mRNA design and delivery. Prior to that, Dr. Moore co-founded the RNA Therapeutics Institute at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where she was a Professor of Biochemistry & Molecular Pharmacology, Eleanor Eustis Farrington Chair in Cancer Research, and a long-time Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI). Her academic research encompassed a broad array of topics related to the roles of RNA and RNA-protein (RNP) complexes in gene expression, and touched on many human diseases including cancer, neurodegeneration, and preeclampsia.

Dr. Moore is an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (2017), a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2019) and recipient of the RNA Society Lifetime Achievement Award (2021). She currently sits on multiple Scientific Advisory Boards and has co-founded two companies (Comanche Biopharma and Via Scientific) stemming from her academic research.

Dr. Moore holds a B.S. in Chemistry and Biology from the College of William and Mary, and a Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry from MIT, where she specialized in enzymology under Prof. Christopher T. Walsh. She began working on RNA metabolism during her postdoctoral training with Phillip A. Sharp at MIT.