Ken Yamada
Assistant Professor University of Massachusetts Medical School
Ken Yamada, PhD, is an Assistant Professor at the RNA Therapeutics Institute (RTI), UMass Chan Medical School, and a Visiting Associate Professor at the Institute of Science Tokyo, where his research integrates chemistry, biology, and biophysics to develop novel chemistry platforms that expand oligonucleotide therapeutics to difficult extrahepatic tissues. Since joining RTI in 2021, he has led development of the extended nucleic acid (exNA) platform and other RNA chemistry technologies, generating multiple patents and advancing therapeutic programs targeting extrahepatic tissues and the central nervous system in both academic and industry settings.
Seminars
Interactive, case study-led workshop exploring how leading developers are overcoming the biological barriers limiting oligonucleotide delivery beyond the liver. Through realworld development examples and collaborative discussion, attendees will evaluate the trade-offs between emerging targeting platforms and leave with a practical framework for selecting the right delivery strategy for their own programmes.
Workshop highlights
- Work through real-world case studies of extrahepatic and CNS delivery programmes to understand where promising approaches translated successfully and where they broke down between preclinical models and the clinic
- Compare transferrin receptor conjugates, antibody shuttles, ligand-based targeting and non-conjugated approaches to determine which strategy is best suited to different tissues, indications and therapeutic modalities
- Leave with a practical framework to identify whether delivery strategy, targeting ligand or oligonucleotide chemistry represents the greatest development risk in your programme and where to focus optimisation efforts first
- Poly-dxC (exNA-dC) self-assembles into iMotif structures (ex-iM) specifically under the acidic pH condition
- Poly-dxC-modified siRNA self-assembles within the cell in vitro, enhancing the kinetics of siRNA activity without inducing toxic endosomal membrane rupture
- Poly-dxC-modified siRNA improves gene-silencing kinetics in vivo, with substantially enhanced early-time-point silencing in mouse kidney
