Leadership Team

Laura is an expert in translational medicine and clinical development focused on neuroscience, rare disease and gene therapy. Before joining Affinia Therapeutics, Laura was senior vice president of R&D at Arcellx. Prior to that, she was the executive director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Gene Therapy Program, where she led the preclinical development of more than 20 gene therapy programs across CNS, liver, metabolic, ocular, and respiratory diseases. Before that, she was vice president, translational sciences, at AstraZeneca. Laura is an author of more than 60 publications and has led or co-led more than 50 IND applications and three BLAs. She is a veterinary pathologist and molecular virologist by training, with a D.V.M. from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, an M.B.A. from Ball State University, and a Ph.D. from The Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.