Shinu John, PhD

Shinu John is SVP of Ther­a­peu­tic Dis­cov­ery at Serif and brings over 10 years of expe­ri­ence in biotech as a strate­gic R&D leader, spear­head­ing pro­grams from dis­cov­ery to ear­ly-stage clin­i­cal devel­op­ment, aca­d­e­m­ic col­lab­o­ra­tions, and indus­try part­ner­ships. She is an immu­nol­o­gist with deep exper­tise in autoim­mune dis­eases, infec­tious dis­ease vac­cines, immune tol­er­ance, and nucle­ic acid platforms.

Pri­or to join­ing Serif, Shinu was VP of Immunol­o­gy at ReNA­gade, where she led and sup­port­ed in vivo CAR‑T, in vivo gene-edit­ing, and extra-hepat­ic LNP deliv­ery efforts focused on immune and hematopoi­et­ic stem cells. She played a piv­otal role in secur­ing part­ner­ships with Mer­ck for infec­tious dis­ease vac­cines (as part of a joint ven­ture with oRNA) and with Ver­tex for an SCD/TDT pro­gram. Pri­or to ReNA­gade, Shinu held roles of increas­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty at SQZ and Mod­er­na, lead­ing anti­gen-spe­cif­ic tol­er­ance ther­a­pies and mRNA vac­cines, respec­tive­ly. At Mod­er­na, she led sev­er­al latent viral mRNA vac­cine pro­grams into devel­op­ment can­di­date nom­i­na­tion and ear­ly clin­i­cal devel­op­ment, includ­ing the mul­ti-anti­genic CMV vac­cine mRNA-1647, which she sup­port­ed through Phase 2 trials.

Shinu received her PhD in bio­chem­istry from the Uni­ver­si­ty at Buf­fa­lo and com­plet­ed her post­doc­tor­al train­ing in immuno­bi­ol­o­gy at Yale School of Med­i­cine. She has co-authored numer­ous pub­li­ca­tions in high-impact sci­en­tif­ic jour­nals. She has a strong track record of lead­ing mul­ti-dis­ci­pli­nary teams and a pas­sion for men­tor­ing the next gen­er­a­tion of scientists.