Ron Batra

Ranjan (Ron) Batra is an expert in modeling and therapeutics of RNA mediated disease. Ron completed his bachelor’s degree in pharmacy (Pharm. D equivalent) at the University of Delhi in India. Subsequently, he joined the master’s program in pharmacology at the Ohio State University and studied the mechanisms of tau protein aggregation in Alzheimer’s disease and Frontotemporal Dementia. Ron joined the PhD program in molecular genetics at University of Florida, where he worked in the laboratory of Dr. Maurice Swanson, an expert in RNA biology and neuromuscular disease. Ron generated and characterized animal models and analyzed transcriptome wide alterations to elucidate the mechanisms of microsatellite repeat expansion diseases, such as myotonic dystrophy (DM), and used gene therapy for these models. Following his PhD, he delved into the mechanisms of C9orf72 ALS at Mayo Clinic, located in Jacksonville, FL. Ron was awarded the myotonic dystrophy foundation (MDF) postdoctoral fellowship for his work at the Laboratory of Gene Yeo at University of California San Diego, where he teamed up with David Nelles for the foundational work of RNA targeting CRISPR therapeutics for various microsatellite expansion diseases, which is the basis for the first-generation products at Locana. Briefly, Ron worked at Verily (formerly Google Life Sciences) before joining Locana in March 2018.