Melissa Lucas is a Senior Manager of CMC at Strand Therapeutics. Melissa has over 8 years’ experience in operations in multiple industries. She started her career in the United States Army at Joint Base Lewis McChord in Washington State as a Healthcare Specialist. She provided medical support to service members and civilians while providing oversight of day-to-day operations. After completing her contract in Washington, she was stationed at the US Army Research Institute of Environmental medicine as a Healthcare Supervisor and Project Manager. She coordinated and managed the medical evaluations and medical documentation requirements for research volunteers. Melissa also managed and supported all security elements in the company which included publication reviews, employee contracts, and vendor services. After leaving the service, Melissa transitioned to an Operations Specialist at Dakota Systems’ Inc. In this role, Melissa supported the Quality department in process improvement and development, root cause and data analysis, and all regulatory requirements. She also managed multiple complex projects that required constant oversight for success. Ultimately, Melissa made the decision to transition to the Biopharmaceutical Industry to follow her dream of improving people’s lives. With her vast experience in Operations, her passion to learn, and her desire to help people, Melissa will support day-to-day functions at Strand and develop, improve, and streamline all business operations. Melissa holds a B.A in Business Administration, Management from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and is currently in the B.S. in Mechanical Engineering Technology at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell.
Mike Bertram is the Controller of Strand Therapeutics and has over 15 years of accounting and finance experience. Prior to joining Strand, Mike was the Controller of Viela Bio, a public biotechnology company which was acquired by Horizon Therapeutics for $3 billion in 2021, and Senseonics, a public medical technology company. Prior to joining Senseonics, Mike worked for PricewaterhouseCoopers in the assurance practice serving clients in various industries, specifically life sciences, healthcare, and venture capital. Mike received his B.S. in Accounting from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.
Monica Jaffee is an Associate Scientist II in the Immune Cell Engineering division at Strand Therapeutics. She began as a co-op at Strand in 2022 and returned full-time upon completion of her studies in 2023. Monica has also previously worked with natural killer cells and other tumor-infiltrating lymphocytes at an academic laboratory at Massachusetts General Hospital. Monica received both her B.S. in Biology and B.S. in Philosophy from Northeastern University.
Nandita is a Principal Associate Scientist in the LNP Discovery group at Strand Therapeutics. Nandita was previously a Research Associate at the Koch institute, MIT where she worked on engineering a micro-particle platform for single injection, self-boosting vaccine delivery. Nandita received her Master’s in Bioengineering from Tufts university and holds a Bachelor’s in Biotechnology. She seeks to use her background in Polymer Chemistry, Biology and Micro-device Fabrication to develop innovative solutions in the bioengineering space.
Nikita Lomis is a Senior Scientist in Process Development at Strand. She is working on optimizing and building robust processes for LNP formulations ranging from discovery to large scale manufacturing. She has a combined academic and industrial experience of over 10 years in nanoparticle formulation development and targeted delivery of RNA, DNA, peptides, and small molecules. Nikita holds a PhD in Experimental Medicine from McGill University, Canada; her PhD was focused on the design of bioconjugated albumin nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery to the heart and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. She also completed a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she developed liposome-based biosensors for detection of traumatic brain injury. Prior to joining Strand, Nikita worked as a scientist at Precision NanoSystems in Vancouver, Canada, in a client-driven role working with various biopharma companies providing end-to-end solutions to accelerate LNP drug product development.
Parth is Associate Scientist II of Cellular Analytical Development at Strand Therapeutics. In previous academic research, Parth was working on the project for evaluation of monoclonal antibody target prevalence amongst diverse Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) clinical isolates at AZ. He received his M.S. in Pharmaceutical Science from University of Maryland, Baltimore.
Rebecca is an Associate Scientist I on the translational biology team at Strand Therapeutics. She is a recent graduate from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a B.S. in Biology. While at UMass, she worked in a laboratory with a team who studied how birds acclimate to colder weather. Rebecca likes reading, traveling to Cape Cod, and spending time with friends and family.
Ryan Patenaude is a Senior Associate Scientist, In Vivo Pharmacology at Strand Therapeutics. He joined in late 2021. He has previously worked in developing various animal models, cellular assays, and molecular biology assays as a research assistant at Boston Children’s Hospital, and as an undergraduate researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. He received his B.S. in Biology, with a concentration in Biochemistry, from Emmanuel College.
Ryan is an immunologist focused on next-generation immune medicines for cancer and responsible for supporting Strand’s immuno-oncology programs. Prior to joining Strand, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale School of Medicine where he developed cutting edge ‘immune avatars’, an in vivo model system constructed from individual patients’ tumors and their immune systems to enable personalized parallel evaluation immunotherapy combinations. His research interests include T cells and how they adapt to different tissue microenvironments. Ryan earned his Ph.D. in Immunology at Rush University in Chicago, where he identified a novel approach to redirect T cells to mucosal tissues where they are positioned to serve as a barrier to infection. He also holds a M.S. in Biomedical Sciences from University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and a B.S. in Cell & Molecular Biology from University of Northern Colorado. He has authored numerous publications, including in the journals Cell, Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, Blood, Cancer Discovery, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cell Reports, Journal of Immunology, and has been collectively cited over 1000 times.
Samiksha is an Associate Scientist II for the Translational Biology team. Currently at Strand, she supports complex in vitro model development. Prior to joining Strand she worked at Abbvie, developing colon organoids and in vitro IBD models. She received her B.S. In Psychology and Biomolecular Sciences at Central Connecticut State University.
