Cardiovascular Disease, microRNA

miRagen’s Scientific Advisory Board


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Eric N. Olson, Ph.D.

Chief Scientific Advisor and Co-Founder of miRagen Therapeutics; Chairman of miRagen’s Scientific Advisory Board; Professor and Chairman of Molecular Biology, Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair in Science, Annie and Willie Nelson Professor in Stem Cell Research and Pogue Distinguished Chair in Research on Cardiac Birth Defects at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Eric N. Olson, Ph.D., miRagen’s Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Advisor, has dedicated his career to deciphering the mechanisms that control muscle gene regulation and development. His most recent work has focused on the genetic pathways responsible for congenital and acquired cardiovascular disease.

Dr. Olson attended Wake Forest University receiving a B.A. in Chemistry and Biology, a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and an honorary doctorate. After postdoctoral training at Washington University School of Medicine, he joined the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at The M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in 1984 and became Professor and Chairman. He later founded the Department of Molecular Biology at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas where he holds the Robert A. Welch Distinguished Chair.

Dr. Olson’s honors include: the Basic Research Prize, the Founding Distinguished Scientist Award, and the Research Achievement Award from the American Heart Association; the Pasarow Medical Research Award in Cardiovascular Disease; the Gill Heart Institute Award; the Lucian Award for Research in Cardiovascular Disease; the Outstanding Investigator Award from the International Society for Heart Research; and the Pollin Prize for Lifetime Contributions to Pediatric Research. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the National Academy of Sciences and its Institute of Medicine.

Dr. Olson is a member of numerous editorial boards including Circulation, Circulation Research, and Science and belongs to the Scientific Review Board of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. He was a Co-Founder and Scientific Advisor of Myogen, Inc., a biotechnology company focusing on therapies for heart muscle disease, acquired by Gilead Pharmaceuticals in 2006.


Victor R. Ambros, Ph.D.

Silverman Professor of Natural Sciences, Program in Molecular Medicine, University of Massachusetts Medical School

Victor Ambros grew up in Vermont and graduated from MIT in 1975. He did his graduate research (1976-1979) with David Baltimore at MIT, studying poliovirus genome structure and replication. He began to study the genetic pathways controlling developmental timing in the nematode C. elegans as a postdoc in H. Robert Horvitz’s lab at MIT, and continued those studies while on the faculty of Harvard (1984-1992), Dartmouth (1992-2007) and the University of Massachusetts, Medical School (2008-present). In 1993, Ambros and co-workers Rosalind Lee and Rhonda Feinbaum identified the first microRNA, the product of the heterochronic gene lin-4 in C. elegans. Currently, the chief research interest of the Ambros lab is understanding the roles of microRNA-mediated regulatory pathways in animal development and human disease.


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Michael R. Bristow, M.D., Ph.D.

Co-Founder of miRagen Therapeutics; Professor of Medicine and Co‐Director of the University of Colorado Cardiovascular Institute at UC Denver School of Medicine

Michael R. Bristow, M.D., Ph.D., is currently a fully tenured Professor of Medicine (Cardiology) and Co-Director of the University of Colorado Cardiovascular Institute at UC Denver School of Medicine. He is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology, a founding member of the Heart Failure Society of America, and a member of multiple professional societies and editorial boards.

Dr. Bristow has authored over 380 reviewed papers and chapters on heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases, was instrumental in elucidating key molecular mechanisms underlying heart failure and the use of β‐blockers for its treatment, and is developing the first pharmacogenetically targeted cardiovascular drug (bucindolol, Gencaro™). Dr. Bristow has received many academic and industry honors, most recently the 2008 Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America Clinical Trial Exceptional Service Award for the development of carvedilol for heart failure and the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Heart Failure Society of America. Additionally, Dr. Bristow was named “Scientist of the Year” by the Colorado Chapter of the ARCS Foundation.

Dr. Bristow is the Chairman and Chief Science and Medical Officer of ARCA biopharma, a company he founded in 2002 with the mission of developing genetically targeted therapies for heart failure and other cardiovascular diseases. Dr. Bristow is also the principal Founder and former Chief Science and Medical Officer of Myogen, Inc., a biopharmaceutical company acquired by Gilead Sciences, Inc., in 2006.

Thomas R. Cech, Ph.D.

Distinguished Professor at the University of Colorado-Boulder, Director of the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Dr. Cech was raised and educated in Iowa (B.A. in Chemistry from Grinnell College, 1970). He obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley, and then engaged in postdoctoral research in the Department of Biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 1978 he joined the faculty of the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he became a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator in 1988 and Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry in 1990. In 1982 Dr. Cech and his research group announced that an RNA molecule from Tetrahymena, a single-celled pond organism, cut and rejoined chemical bonds in the complete absence of proteins. Thus, RNA was not restricted to being a passive carrier of genetic information, but could have an active role in cellular metabolism. This discovery of self-splicing RNA provided the first exception to the long-held belief that biological reactions are always catalyzed by proteins. In addition, it has been heralded as providing a new, plausible scenario for the origin of life; because RNA can be both an information-carrying molecule and a catalyst, perhaps the first self-reproducing system consisted of RNA alone. In January 2000 Dr. Cech moved to Maryland as President of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the nation’s largest private biomedical research organization. In addition, HHMI has an $80 million/year grants program that supports science education at all levels (K-12 through medical school) and international research. Dr. Cech’s work has been recognized by many national and international awards and prizes, including the Heineken Prize of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences (1988), the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award (1988), the Nobel Prize in Chemistry (1989), and the National Medal of Science (1995). In 1987, Dr. Cech was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and also awarded a lifetime professorship by the American Cancer Society. In April 2009, Dr. Cech returned full-time to the University of Colorado as the Director of the Colorado Initiative in Molecular Biotechnology.

Stephanie Dimmeler, Ph.D.

Professor of Experimental Medicine and Director of the Institute of Cardiovascular Regeneration, Center for Molecular Medicine at the University of Frankfurt (Germany)

Stefanie Dimmeler was born on 18.07.1967 in Ravensburg, Germany. Dr. Dimmeler received her undergraduate, graduate, and Ph.D. degree from the University of Konstanz in Konstanz (Germany). She then completed a fellowship in Experimental Surgery at the University of Cologne and in Molecular Cardiology at the University of Frankfurt. She is Professor of Experimental Medicine (since 2001) and Director of the Institute of Cardiovascular Regeneration, Center for Molecular Medicine at the University of Frankfurt (Germany) since 2008.

She is author of more than 180 papers, all of which published in highly qualified journals, including: “Nature”, “Nature Medicine” “Nature Cell Biology”, “Journal of Experimental Medicine”, “Journal of Clinical Investigations”, “The New England Journal of Medicine”, “Circulation”, “Circulation Research”, and “Blood”. Her global impact factor (IF) is higher than 1000. In the last years, she has been invited as a speaker in more than 150 national and international meetings and seminars. She received several awards including the Award of the German Heart Foundation in 1998, the Frankel-Preis of the German Cardiac Society in 2000, the prestigious Alfried Krupp Award 2002 (500.000 €), the Leibniz Award 2005 (1.5 Mio €), the Award of the Jung Foundation 2007 and the FEBS award 2006. She presented the prestigious George E. Brown Memorial Lecture at the Scientific Sessions of the AHA in 2005 and the Basic Science Lecture of the European Society of Cardiology in 2006. She is presently on the editorial board of The Journal of Clinical Investigation, Circulation, Circulation Research, Basic Research in Cardiology, and she has been associated editor of the Journal of Molecular and Cellular Cardiology. She is co-founder of the European Network of Excellence “Vascular Genomic Network (EVGN)” supported by the European Community, co-director of the Transatlantic Network of Cardiac Regeneration supported by the Leducq Foundation and member of the Steering Committee of the “Excellence Cluster Cardio-Pulmonary System” (ECCPS), a translational research center in the field of vascular and parenchymal heart and lung diseases, funded by the DFG (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft).

Her research is predominantly focused on endothelial cell biology, including signal transduction apoptosis, and renewal by circulation endothelial progenitor cells in health and disease. She identified novel signalling pathways mediating the synthesis and release of the endothelial protective factors NO. Together with Dr. Zeiher, she is responsible for the scientific discoveries culminating in current clinical trials of human progenitor cells for cardiovascular repair.

Douglas L. Mann, M.D.

Lewin Professor and Chief of the Cardiovascular Division at Washington University School of Medicine; Cardiologist-in-Chief at Barnes-Jewish Hospital

Dr. Mann is the Lewin Professor and Chief, Cardiovascular Division at Washington University School of Medicine and the Cardiologist-in-Chief, Barnes-Jewish Hospital. His research interests have focused on the basic cellular and molecular mechanisms that lead to cardiac decompensation, including the role that inflammatory mediators play in regulating cardiac structure and function. Dr. Mann is a member of the American Society for Clinical Investigation, the Association of University Cardiologists, the Heart Failure Society of America, the International Cytokine Society, the International Society for Heart Failure Research and is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology as well as the American College of Chest Physicians. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Circulation, The Journal of Cardiac Failure, Heart and Vessels, Heart Failure Reviews, Heart Failure Monitor and Cardiology Today. Dr. Mann has published numerous articles peer reviewed articles on the role on inflammatory mediators in heart failure, and the molecular and cellular basis for cardiac dysfunction and remodeling. He has received numerous awards including the Alfred Soffer Award for Editorial Excellence from the American College of Chest Physicians, the Michael E. Debakey award for Excellence in research.

Jeffery D. Molkentin, Ph.D.

Professor at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center of the University of Cincinnati and Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Dr. Molkentin received his PhD from the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1994, after which he performed postdoctoral training with Dr. Eric Olson in Texas from 1994-1997, followed by his first faculty appointment in 1997 at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center of the University of Cincinnati, where today he is a Full Professor. Dr. Molkentin has published over 205 original articles during this time and is funded with multiple NIH awards. Dr. Molkentin was the recipient of the AHA Louis N. & Arnold M. Katz Award in Cardiovascular Medicine in 1999, and was an Established Investigator of the AHA from 2003-2007. Dr. Molkentin was also a Pew Scholar and is a full investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Molkentin’s research program continues to focus on the identification of candidate genes and signaling pathways involved in cardiac hypertrophy, contractility, cell death, and heart failure.

Harnessing microRNA biology to treat cardiovascular disease