# Meet The Scientists Powering Siren’s Progress! 🧪 | Siren Biotechnology

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- Published at: 2025-08-28 18:25:11 UTC
- Updated at: 2025-08-28 18:25:37 UTC

## Author
Dr. Akela Kuwahara, PhD

## Subject
Siren Biotechnology

## Content
Siren’s Preclinical Team is where cutting-edge ideas turn into tangible results. They’re designing and executing the animal and cell-based experiments that are defining SRN-101’s safety, tolerability, and expected effects — and getting us one step closer to the clinic.Here are the experts leading the charge behind our universal gene therapy:👩‍🔬 Lauren Kelly, MS - Director of Preclinical Research“I love working at Siren because whenever we face challenges, I’m reminded that everything we're doing is part of a tangible, meaningful goal. The preclinical team is working constantly to define the safety, tolerability, and expected treatment effects of this treatment so we can make the transition from nonclinical research to treating patients in need. What we do is no longer a far-off, decades-long R&D goal anymore. It's real and it's now!”Lauren manages our entire preclinical department at Siren. She brings over 7 years of experience in translational development across multiple biologic therapy types and diseases. At Catalyst Biosciences, she ran early animal proof-of-concept studies for their complement degrader pipeline and advised on reverse-translational strategies.Earlier in her career at Omniox, she contributed to the IND filing for acute ischemic stroke by studying oxygen delivery in brain tumor and stroke models. She’s a graduate of Cal Poly’s CIRM-funded Regenerative Medicine MS Program, with thesis work at Capricor Therapeutics, an innovator in exosome-based therapeutics.🧪 Chris Lovejoy, MS - Scientist I“One of my best memories at Siren is presenting our work at the American Society of Cell and Gene Therapy, where I got to showcase our team's success in eliminating brain tumors from mice.”Chris specializes in developing translational analyses in cells and animal tissues to evaluate how SRN-101 behaves in the body — from pharmacokinetics to mechanism of action. His background includes biotech roles focused on therapeutic profiling across small molecules and biologics.Chris’s research roots trace back to Dr. Marc Aucoin’s lab at UNR, where he co-developed a rapid diagnostic for Y. pestis, the bacterium responsible for the plague. Today, his work underpins many of the insights from our 550+ animal model studies.🧬Justin Lee - Associate Scientist“I joined Siren because I wanted to help fight cancer and potentially make a huge positive impact on patients.”Justin brings 10 years of immuno-oncology experience, with deep expertise in cell-based assay development. At Pionyr Immunotherapeutics, he supported the advancement of PY314 and PY159, two drug candidates that entered clinical trials for cancer.He began his journey in immunology at UC Berkeley, and has since dedicated his career to building tools that uncover how therapies activate immune responses inside tumors — key to validating SRN-101’s mechanism of action.Chris and Justin perform all in-house assay development and sample analysis — the hands and minds behind our data engine. Right now, they’re working through hundreds of samples from our ongoing large animal safety studies, a key step in preparing for human trials. The boxes pictured below are just the first shipment of many from our animal study facility!Lauren, Chris, and Justin are also the team that generated the incredible efficacy data in mice — foundational proof for everything we’re building at Siren.This powerhouse team is bringing us one step closer to a universal treatment for many cancers. 💫If you believe in the work we’re doing and are ready for a future where cancer is treatable, join us!💡 Invest now or increase your investment — AkelaChief of Staff, Siren Biotechnology