Caroline Köhrer

Vice President, Discovery Platform, Alltrna

Dr. Caroline Köhrer is an RNA biology professional with more than 25 years of experience in both academic and industrial research & development (R&D). Prior to Alltrna, Caroline served as the Director of RNA Science at Moderna, where she led the RNA Science Department within Moderna’s R&D Platform, developing mRNA-based technology for application as a new drug modality in infectious disease, personalized cancer medicine, oncology, autoimmune, and rare disease. Under her leadership, Moderna expanded the mechanistic understanding of mRNA design principles underlying current and future mRNA therapeutics, including Moderna’s SpikevaxⓇ mRNA vaccine for COVID-19.

Previous to Moderna, Caroline spent 20 years at Massachusetts Institute of Technology performing research focused on protein synthesis across all kingdoms of life, with a particular emphasis on the role of transfer RNA (tRNA) and RNA modifications in translation, rules of mRNA decoding, genetic code expansion, and ribosome biogenesis.

She has co-authored more than 40 publications, book chapters, and patents. Her peer-reviewed publications include PNAS, Nature Communications, Cell Metabolism, and Nucleic Acid Therapeutics. She has co-edited a book on ‘Protein Engineering’ published by Springer and contributed a chapter entitled, ‘Specialized Components of the Translational Machinery for Unnatural Amino Acid Mutagenesis: tRNAs, Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases, and Ribosomes.’ She recently co-authored a review article for JBC entitled, "Ushering in the Era of tRNA Medicines." Caroline earned her M.S. and Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of Innsbruck, Austria.