Achieving Targeted Delivery of Gene Editing Therapies

Sean Bedingfield is a drug delivery specialist bridging gene editing & gene therapy early discovery and clinical translation with work spanning multiple platforms and modalities. Currently in Lilly’s Genetic Medicine division, he leads a small team in a blend of specific portfolio projects, internal platform development, external collaborations and vetting external technologies. Lilly’s interests are broad and ambitious in genetic medicine, as highlighted by their public partnerships including Dicerna Therapeutics, Scribe Therapeutics and Sangamo Therapeutics and acquisitions such as Prevail, Akouos and Verve Therapeutics. Receiving his PhD in Biomedical Engineering from Vanderbilt University, his publications include high impact papers relating to intracellular assay development, RNA delivery leveraging targeted nanoparticles, protein engineering applications (now licensed by Anchor Biologics), and nanomedicine-related material science investigations. Prior to this role, he worked as a technical lead in business development for Pendant Biosciences.

Shawn P. Davis, Ph.D., is the CEO of Liberate Bio, a pioneering biotech company building the next generation of immune-cell therapies—delivered in vivo.  With over 20 years of experience spanning startups to global biopharma leaders, Dr. Davis has built and led high-performance teams at AstraZeneca and Amgen, advancing programs from discovery through clinical development. A recognized expert in drug delivery, he has authored foundational research, holds over 20 U.S. patents, and chairs multiple industry-leading conferences. He is known for bridging scientific innovation with commercial strategy to transform therapeutic possibilities into patient impact.

Dr Sanyogitta (Sanya) Puri is currently Senior Director & Head of Non-viral Delivery with the RNA & GT organization at Novo Nordisk. She leads a global department with multidisciplinary teams across Denmark and Boston, that are accountable for a portfolio of nucleic acid therapeutics with novel delivery systems within Novo Nordisk. Prior to this role, Dr Puri was Director of the Advanced Drug Delivery team, AstraZeneca Cambridge, UK, where she led a team of multidisciplinary drug delivery, formulation and clinical development scientists. Over her 10+ years & industrial career, Dr Puri has worked on design and development of oligonucleotide, peptide, mRNA and targeted nanomedicine products across oncology, cardiovascular, respiratory and rare disease areas. Dr Puri holds a degree in Pharmacy from India and PhD in Nanoparticle drug delivery from Nottingham University, UK. Dr Puri is known for being passionate about innovative drug delivery and has a track record of preclinical to clinical translation of novel medicines through both internal capability build and external partnerships.

Dr Manmohan Singh is currently Chief Technology Officer at Beam Therapeutics in Cambridge, MA. Dr Singh has over 28 years of R&D experience in drug product development, novel delivery systems, genetic medicines and vaccine research. He previously led technical teams overseeing early and late stage development programs at Takeda and Novartis. His team was instrumental in approval of several novel vaccines (FluAd®,Bexsero®,Menveo®,Flucelvax®). Dr Singh has authored over 140 peer reviewed papers and is the editor of 6 Books on vaccines and drug product development. He was elected as a Fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) in 2011.

Liping Zhou, PhD, is currently a senior director at AstraZeneca Boston R&D center. She is heading the new modality formulation development and delivery science team, developing preclinical and clinical formulations and supporting AstraZeneca internal pipeline projects as well as external collaborations. Dr Zhou has 20 years of post-PhD technical and managerial experience in research and development functions in the biotechnology/pharmaceutical industry. She has diversified expertise especially in pre-formulation, formulation development and drug delivery technologies focusing on peptides, nucleic acids and small molecule drug candidates. She has been actively involved in preclinical and clinical programs, life-cycle management and due diligence projects in multiple therapeutical areas as well as efficiently and strategically managing external collaborations in the US, Europe and Asia. Dr Zhou’s previous employment includes but not limited to Novartis, Ipsen, and Ra Pharmaceuticals (now UCB). She co-authored more than 20 scientific publications in the leading biomedical journals and book chapters.Dr Zhou received her Ph.D. degree in Chemistry from University of Connecticut and her bachelor’s degree from Peking University.