Kathleen McGinness

Kathleen McGinness has a long and varied career in biotechnology. Kathleen began their career in 2001 as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where they conducted research on regulated proteolysis and tmRNA-mediated translational quality control in Escherichia coli. In 2006, they joined Archemix as a Scientist, then Senior Scientist, and then Principal Investigator for Discovery Research. Her role focused on the discovery, characterization, and optimization of nucleic acid aptamer therapeutics, with a focus on the treatment of hematologic disease, and optimization of the aptamer platform technology. In 2010, they transitioned to Baxter Healthcare with the acquisition of the Archemix hemophilia assets, where they were a Senior Manager for BioScience, supporting the clinical development of an aptamer therapeutic for the treatment of hemophilia and leading discovery programs to generate new hemophilia therapeutics. In 2012, they founded McGinness Consulting, providing consulting services for start-up biotechnology companies with expertise in nucleic acid and protein biochemistry, drug discovery, nucleic acid aptamers, selection-based technologies, and technology platform development. Kathleen also served as Director for In Vitro Pharmacology in the Psychiatric Disease Area at the Broad Institute. In 2014, they joined Unum Therapeutics as Director, Head of Platform Technologies, where they led a team responsible for inventing and evaluating new technologies that direct patient-derived immune cells to destroy cancer cells using Unum’s propriety Antibody-Coupled T-cell Receptor (ACTR) technology. In 2020, they joined Arrakis Therapeutics as Senior Director, Head of Platform Biology, and Bioinventra Consulting, LLC as Principal Consultant in Biotechnology, providing expertise in drug discovery, platform technology development, cell therapy, cellular engineering, nucleic acid therapeutics, nucleic acid and protein biochemistry, molecular biology, selection-based technologies, assay development, and screening cascades.

Kathleen McGinness received their Ph.D. in Chemistry from Scripps Research in 2001. Prior to that, they earned a B.S. in Chemistry and a B.S. in Psychology from the University of Maryland in 1996.