Melissa Moore

Concerned citizen, Connector, Educator/Teacher, Entrepreneur, Foodie, Gay, Idea generator, Parent, Scientist, World traveler

I currently serve as Chief Scientific Officer, Scientific Affairs, at Moderna. I joined Moderna in 2016 from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, where I was a professor, a long-time Investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) and a founding Co-Director of the UMMS RNA Therapeutics Institute (RTI). I am an elected member of the National Academy of Sciences (2017), a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2019), and recipient of the RNA Society Lifetime Achievement Award (2021). I currently sit on the Board of Directors of Tessera Therapeutics and multiple Scientific Advisory Boards, and have co-founded two companies with my academic colleagues. During my 23 years as faculty member, first at Brandeis University and then at UMass Med, my research encompassed a broad array of topics related to the roles of RNA and RNA-protein (RNP) complexes in gene expression, and touched on many human diseases including cancer, neurodegeneration and preeclampsia. I am married to Janet Kosloff (also attending TED2022), and together we have three adult children and two Bernedoodles.

My passions include educating the public about the coming age of nucleic acid medicines, increasing Diversity, Equality and Inclusion (DEI) at all levels of the biotechnology workforce, and playing Texas Hold'Em.

We have now officially entered the era programmable or language-based medicines. These medicines, based on our ability to read and write in the language of life (the genetic code), have the potential to completely transform how we can prevent and treat innumerable diseases, as well as more equitably deliver healthcare across the globe.

communicating science, molecular biology