William (Wes) Salomon, PhD
Senior Director, Tessera Therapeutics
Former RTI Lab: Zamore Lab
Training Period: 2009 - 2015
Prior Academic Degree Institution: WPI
Wes is a Director at Tessera Therapeutics where he leads the Delivery Biology team. He has been with Tessera since early 2019 and manages a group of Scientists and research associates whose focus is on translating discoveries in GeneWriting, Tessera’s platform technology, by using relevant delivery reagents, primary cell models, and in vivo proof-of-concept experiments. Prior to joining Tessera, Wes was at Intellia Therapeutics where he left as a Principal Scientist that led a group of researchers that investigated the kinetics of CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing in mammalian cells using in vitro, cell, and in vivo-based systems. Wes applies his skills and thinking as a biochemist to understand genetic medicine-based therapeutics by focusing his team’s research on the kinetics and rate-limiting steps of these new medicines. Wes’s team’s use of quantitative measures to understand key steps or properties with a therapeutic allow them to merge biology with engineering approaches to overcome limitations to efficacy.
Wes’s training has been centered in Worcester where he earned a Bachelor of Science from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in Biotechnology, concentrated in Molecular and Cellular Biology. After working as a technician at local biotech companies, he went on to earn a PhD from the Morningside Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at UMass Chan Medical School in 2015. He did his doctoral research focused on the biochemistry of RNAi in the Zamore lab at the RNA Therapeutics Institute and Biochemistry and Molecular Pharmacology departments.