Interdisciplinary Team

Nandita is a Senior Associate Scientist in the LNP Discovery group at Strand Therapeutics. Nandita was previously a Research Associate at the Koch institute, MIT where she worked on engineering a micro-particle platform for single injection, self-boosting vaccine delivery. Nandita received her Master’s in Bioengineering from Tufts university and holds a Bachelor’s in Biotechnology. She seeks to use her background in Polymer Chemistry, Biology and Micro-device Fabrication to develop innovative solutions in the bioengineering space.

Nikita Lomis is a Senior Scientist in Process Development at Strand. She is working on optimizing and building robust processes for LNP formulations ranging from discovery to large scale manufacturing. She has a combined academic and industrial experience of over 10 years in nanoparticle formulation development and targeted delivery of RNA, DNA, peptides, and small molecules. Nikita holds a PhD in Experimental Medicine from McGill University, Canada; her PhD was focused on the design of bioconjugated albumin nanoparticles for targeted drug delivery to the heart and treatment of cardiovascular diseases. She also completed a Master’s in Biomedical Engineering from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where she developed liposome-based biosensors for detection of traumatic brain injury. Prior to joining Strand, Nikita worked as a scientist at Precision NanoSystems in Vancouver, Canada, in a client-driven role working with various biopharma companies providing end-to-end solutions to accelerate LNP drug product development.

Parth is Associate Scientist II of Cellular Analytical Development at Strand Therapeutics. In previous academic research, Parth was working on the project for evaluation of monoclonal antibody target prevalence amongst diverse Nontypeable Haemophilus influenzae (NTHi) clinical isolates at AZ. He received his M.S. in Pharmaceutical Science from University of Maryland, Baltimore.

Rebecca is an Associate Scientist I on the translational biology team at Strand Therapeutics.  She is a recent graduate from the University of Massachusetts Amherst with a B.S. in Biology.  While at UMass, she worked in a laboratory with a team who studied how birds acclimate to colder weather.  Rebecca likes reading, traveling to Cape Cod, and spending time with friends and family.

Ryan Patenaude is a Senior Associate Scientist, In Vivo Pharmacology at Strand Therapeutics. He joined in late 2021. He has previously worked in developing various animal models, cellular assays, and molecular biology assays as a research assistant at Boston Children’s Hospital, and as an undergraduate researcher at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. He received his B.S. in Biology, with a concentration in Biochemistry, from Emmanuel College.

Ryan is an immunologist focused on next-generation immune medicines for cancer and responsible for supporting Strand’s immuno-oncology programs. Prior to joining Strand, he was a postdoctoral fellow at Yale School of Medicine where he developed cutting edge ‘immune avatars’, an in vivo model system constructed from individual patients’ tumors and their immune systems to enable personalized parallel evaluation immunotherapy combinations. His research interests include T cells and how they adapt to different tissue microenvironments. Ryan earned his Ph.D. in Immunology at Rush University in Chicago, where he identified a novel approach to redirect T cells to mucosal tissues where they are positioned to serve as a barrier to infection. He also holds a M.S. in Biomedical Sciences from University of Texas, M. D. Anderson Cancer Center, and a B.S. in Cell & Molecular Biology from University of Northern Colorado. He has authored numerous publications, including in the journals Cell, Nature Medicine, Nature Communications, Blood, Cancer Discovery, Journal of Clinical Oncology, Cell Reports, Journal of Immunology, and has been collectively cited over 1000 times.

Samiksha is an Associate Scientist II for the Translational Biology team. Currently at Strand, she supports complex in vitro model development. Prior to joining Strand she worked at Abbvie, developing colon organoids and in vitro IBD models. She received her B.S. In Psychology and Biomolecular Sciences at Central Connecticut State University.

Sanjana Manja is a Principal Associate Scientist within the Translational Biology Team at Strand Therapeutics. In her role, she will be executing in vivo and ex vivo oncology studies to support pre-clinical development efforts. She will also be executing multiparameter spectral flow cytometry assays to analyze the response of immune cells for drug discovery. Prior to Strand, Sanjana was a Senior Research Associate at SQZ Biotechnologies, where she worked on developing mRNA-based cell therapy for HPV-16 positive tumors. Being a key contributor in IND-enabling studies at her previous company, she brings extensive expertise in cell and product characterization via Flow cytometry along with other luminescent/ luciferase-based assays. She is experienced in designing and performing functional assays to characterize immune cells. She also brings 4+ years of experience in in vivo handling, rodent behavior studies, as well as ex vivo studies. Sanjana received her Master’s in Biotechnology with a Thesis track from University of Central Florida and holds a Bachelor’s in Biotechnology Engineering.