Miroslav Gasparek, MEng

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Miro studied Bioengineering at Imperial College London and did research in systems and synthetic biology at Imperial College, Caltech, and Stanford during his undergraduate studies. Miro worked with TechBio VC investors in the US and Europe and consulted to public institutions and private enterprises in Central and Eastern Europe on life science R&D and business development. He was a graduate research affiliate at Stanford University, where he worked on synthetic biology-associated biosecurity matters. He advised to the Slovak Ministry of Health and Executive Board Member of the World Health Organisation on biosecurity and innovation. Miro is a Co-Managing Director of Nucleate United Kingdom, the world’s largest non-profit organisation supporting student-led life science enterprises. He is also in the final stages of his PhD in Engineering and Synthetic Biology at the University of Oxford.

Dr Marian Kupculak

Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer

Marian has a PhD in Molecular Biology at Oxford, where he focused on genetic engineering and cancer. He has more than 9 years of full-time wet-lab experience with cellular engineering. He worked at the top European research centres (including the University of Oxford, University of Gothenburg and Vienna BioCenter).

Paul Sobotka, MD

Vice President of Clinical Research

Paul has clinical and scientific expertise in transplant and heart failure, having published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific articles. He has been a serial entrepreneur and founder and Chief Medical Officer of medical device start-up companies, including Ardian; CHF Solutions; ARTritech Med; ROX Med and Advanced Heuristics. Paul has extensive executive experience: he served as a Medical Advisor to Medtronic and Merck Pharmaceutical, and as Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the White House, assigned to the FDA. Paul was a Professor of Medicine and Physiology at The Ohio State University, Loyola and Vice Chair of Medicine at Wayne State University.

Anton McCaffrey, PhD

Vice President of Manufacturing Strategy (part-time)

Anton is a world-leading expert on mRNA production. Anton spent 10 years at TriLink BioTechnologies, a global leader in mRNA contract manufacturing, where he led the development of numerous techniques that were crucial for the successful commercial In Vitro Transcription-based mRNA production at gram scales. Previously he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Iowa School of Medicine. He received a B.A. in Molecular and Cellular Biology from UC San Diego, a Ph.D. in Chemistry and Biochemistry from the University of Colorado, Boulder and completed his postdoctoral fellowship at the Stanford University School of Medicine.

Leanne Minall, DPhil

Head of Science

Leanne has worked in nucleic acid therapeutics for over 12 years including the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID vaccine and with adenoviral vectors. She has experience in both research and later-stage projects including designing RNA-lipid nanoparticle products along with GMP-compliant production processes. Leanne has expertise in the fundamental chemistry of both nucleic acid-based drug products, virus-like particles, and lipid nanoparticles. She also works to help direct R&D and strategy at the non-profit, AI-lead, antibiotic developer Phare Bio in collaboration with MIT. Leanne read Chemical Biology for her D.Phil. at Oxford University before conducting postdoctoral positions in HIV vaccine design, T-cell therapies, and hydrogel drug delivery technologies.

Michal Karlubik, BA

Head of Operations

Michal completed Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford in the top 10% of his class. Alongside leading operations at Sensible Bio, he is currently completing an MSc in Computing at Imperial College London, which is focused on applications of deep learning for the design of mRNA therapeutics. Previously, he worked as a Business Analyst intern at McKinsey and in a London-based Private Equity and Debt fund. He also worked in the Office of the President of the Slovak Republic.

Kelvin Yaprianto, DPhil

Senior Scientist

Kelvin holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford, where he received a Clarendon Scholarship. Previously, Kelvin received his undergraduate degree in Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University of Melbourne and he worked as a scientist at Kalbe Farma, the largest publicly-listed pharma company in South Asia. Kelvin has more than 10 years of commercial and academic experience in genetic engineering and bioprocess quality control.

Liudmyla Kapustian, PhD

Senior Scientist

Liudmyla graduated from Taras Shevchenko National University in Kyiv. She holds a PhD in Molecular Biology and she did her doctoral studies at the Cell Signaling Department of the Institute of Molecular Biology and Genetics, National Academy of Science of Ukraine. Liudmyla co-authored 11 papers and presented at 8 conferences. Besides her extensive academic experience that spans more than 15 years, Liudmyla has more than 6 years of industrial experience working in the private biotech and pharma sectors in both startups (MultiplexDX, Ramintek) and large pharma companies (Farmak).

Alexandra Vargova, BSc

Computational Biologist

Alexandra is currently completing an MSc in Medical Parasitology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, following an undergraduate degree in Genetics at Aberystwyth University where she graduated with first-class honours. Her research predominantly utilises molecular interactions and dynamics simulations focusing on the structural modelling of helminth proteins and their potential application as a treatment for autoimmune conditions. She also completed a couple of research and clinical internships across the EU and the UK, including a year’s employment as a diagnostic laboratory technician and the position of a data analyst for NHS Wales.

Romana Halova, MSc

Junior Scientist

Romana completed her MSc degree in Biochemistry at Comenius University in Bratislava, where she studied the mechanisms of antibiotic resistance of M. tuberculosis. In her work, she acquired a wide suite of experimental skills with proteins, such as optimising their production in a range of microbial species, isolation using affinity chromatography and activity assays.

Dominika Valachova, MSc

Junior Scientist

Dominika earned her MSc degree in Genetics at Comenius University in Bratislava while working on analysing the telomerase complex of the non-conventional yeasts. Her undergraduate work focused on characterising the metabolism of a lesser-known marine protist D. papillatum.

Katarina Pruzinska, MSc

Lab Manager and Executive Assistant

Katarina received her MSc in Physiology and Ethology from Comenius University in Bratislava, where she is currently pursuing her PhD in Pharmacology. Her research focuses on evaluating plant-based substances with strong antioxidant capacity in animal models of chronic autoimmune disorders with the aim of broadening the current rheumatoid arthritis treatment with the usage of natural compounds. In her prior research, she studied the modulation of gene expression for the renin-angiotensin system alternative pathways in obesity.

Vikram Shaw, MS

Research Scientist

Vikram received his BS and MS in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University where he graduated magna cum laude and defended his structural biology thesis on DNA repair. He is currently a third-year student in the MD/PhD program at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas, where he is pursuing his PhD in quantitative and computational biology.

Canran Wang, BS

Research Scientist

Canran received her BS in Biomedical Science from Shanghai Jiao Tong University, where she graduated with first-class honours. She is currently pursuing a PhD degree in Medical Engineering at the California Institute of Technology with a research focus on developing wearable bioelectronics for chronic disease management. She has 18 publications with 7 of them as first/co-first author in the biomedical engineering field. Prior to the graduate program, she worked as an analyst for a healthcare investment bank in China and completed over $80mn overall in fundraising deals for biotech and biopharma startups. She is interested in promoting the clinical translation and commercialisation of biotechnology.

Kazimir Uzwyshyn-Jones, MSci

Research Scientist

Kazimir is currently a research assistant at the Francis Crick Institute, London. He is using switchable c-MYC mouse models to understand the relationships between cancer and wound healing. Kazimir completed an integrated Masters in Natural Sciences at the University of Cambridge, Biochemistry. Following this, he won a gold medal at iGEM, a global synthetic biology competition. In September 2023, he will be starting a prestigious rotation-based MRC DTP PhD at the University College London-Birkbeck in Experimental and Translational Medicine.

News

Sensible Biotechnologies Raises $4.2mn in a Pre-Seed Financing Round to Revolutionize mRNA Manufacturing

Sensible Biotechnologies, Inc., an mRNA platform company, has announced a $4.2mn pre-seed round to accelerate the development of its cell-based platform for cost-efficient manufacturing of high-quality mRNA.

Ginkgo partners up with Sensible Biotechnologies to forge mRNA manufacturing platform

Since the successful, global release of mRNA-based Covid-19 vaccines, the mRNA platform has become a top focus for biopharma companies. Ginkgo Bioworks’ latest partnership looks to further tap the mRNA market.

Sensible Biotechnologies And Ginkgo Bioworks Announce Partnership To Make In Vivo RNA To Unlock The Promise Of RNA Therapeutics

Fermentation tanks filled with thousands of liters of growth media and cells have been the picture of therapeutics production for decades.

Developing a Novel mRNA Manufacturing Platform with Sensible Biotechnologies

Today, we are pleased to announce our partnership with Sensible Biotechnologies to develop an in vivo microbial mRNA manufacturing platform.

Sensible Biotechnologies Partners with Ginkgo to Develop Novel mRNA Manufacturing Platform

Sensible Biotechnologies entered into a partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks to develop an in vivo microbial mRNA manufacturing platform.

Sensible Biotechnologies Announces Partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks to Develop Novel mRNA Manufacturing Platform

Through this partnership, Sensible and Ginkgo aim to develop an in vivo alternative to conventional in vitro mRNA production technology.

Miroslav Gasparek, MEng

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

Dr Marian Kupculak

Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer

Paul Sobotka, MD

Vice President of Clinical Research

Anton McCaffrey, PhD

Vice President of Manufacturing Strategy (part-time)

Leanne Minall, DPhil

Head of Science

Michal Karlubik, BA

Head of Operations

Kelvin Yaprianto, DPhil

Senior Scientist

Liudmyla Kapustian, PhD

Senior Scientist

Alexandra Vargova, BSc

Computational Biologist

Romana Halova, MSc

Junior Scientist

Dominika Valachova, MSc

Junior Scientist

Katarina Pruzinska, MSc

Lab Manager and Executive Assistant

Vikram Shaw, MS

Research Scientist

Canran Wang, BS

Research Scientist

Kazimir Uzwyshyn-Jones, MSci

Research Scientist

Mission

Platform

Team

Miroslav Gasparek

Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer

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Marian Kupculak, DPhil

Co-Founder and Chief Scientific Officer

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Paul Sobotka, MD

Vice President of Clinical Research

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Anton McCaffrey, PhD

Vice President of Manufacturing Strategy

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Leanne Minall, DPhil

Head of Science

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Michal Karlubik

Head of Operations

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Kelvin Yaprianto, DPhil

Senior Scientist

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Liudmyla Kapustian, PhD

Senior Scientist

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Alexandra Vargova

Computational Biologist

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Romana Halova

Junior Scientist

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Dominika Valachova

Junior Scientist

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Katarina Pruzinska

Lab Manager and Executive Assistant

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Vikram Shaw

Research Scientist

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Canran Wang

Research Scientist

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Kazimir Uzwyshyn-Jones

Research Scientist

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Scientific Advisory Board - to be announced soon

Investors & Partners