About the authors

Antonin de Fougerolles

Antonin de Fougerolles is a senior director of research at Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, a biopharmaceutical company at the forefront of developing novel therapeutics based on RNA interference (RNAi). He completed his Ph.D. in immunology at Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and following postdoctoral studies, he joined Biogen Idec where he led several drug-discovery programmes focussing on the treatment of autoimmune, inflammatory and fibrotic diseases. He joined Alnylam Pharmaceuticals in 2003 and has published on various aspects of RNAi therapeutics, including the first report on the presence of TLR7-dependent immunostimulatory motifs. His areas of research include: development of RNAi therapeutics for the treatment of human disorders, including infectious and inflammatory diseases, and investigation into RNAi delivery technologies.

Hans-Peter Vornlocher

Hans-Peter Vornlocher is a managing director of research at Alnylam Europe AG. He received a Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of Bayreuth, Germany, in 1995, and spent 3 years doing postdoctoral research at the University of California Davis, USA, studying mechanisms of protein synthesis. He also worked as a researcher at the Institute for Molecular Biology and Tumour Research in Marburg and the Max-Planck-Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, Germany, where his work focused on the characterization of the structural dynamics of the spliceosome. Hans-Peter Vornlocher joined Alnylam Europe AG (then Ribopharma AG) in 2001 and since then has focused on the development of RNAi-based therapeutics. He has published a series of papers on different aspects of RNAi therapeutics, including the first report on therapeutic silencing in the liver mediated by systemically administered siRNAs.

John Maraganore

John Maraganore is President and Chief Executive Officer of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals. Prior to joining Alnylam in 2002, he served as an officer and a member of the management team for Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Inc. As senior vice president of Strategic Product Development for Millennium he was responsible for the company's product franchises in oncology and cardiovascular, inflammation and metabolic diseases. Before Millennium he served as Director of Molecular Biology and Director of Market and Business Development at Biogen Idec. At Biogen, John Maraganore led the discovery and development of Angiomax (bivalirudin for injection, formerly HirulogTM) currently marketed by The Medicines Company. Prior to Biogen, he was a scientist at ZymoGenetics, Inc. and the Upjohn Company. He received his M.Sc. and Ph.D. in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of Chicago, Illinois, USA.

Judy Lieberman

Judy Lieberman is a senior investigator at the CBR Institute and Professor of Paediatrics at Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts, USA. She directs the Division of AIDS at Harvard Medical School. She received a Ph.D. in physics from Rockefeller University and an M.D. from Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a board-certified haematologist. She has been at the forefront in harnessing RNA interference for disease prevention and therapy, especially for viral diseases and cancer. She was the first to show that RNAi could be used to protect mice from disease. Her laboratory also studies how cytotoxic T lymphocytes kill viral infected or cancerous target cells, and how T-cell effector immune responses are regulated in the setting of chronic infection.