On a mission to bring genetic medicines to patients with inherited retinal diseases

Pamela Stetkiewicz, Ph.D. is the Chief Executive Officer of Lyora Therapeutics and a seasoned biotech executive with over 20 years of experience in drug discovery and development. She has a proven track record of building high-performing organizations, implementing scalable governance frameworks, and driving drug development programs from research through clinical execution. Pam has held senior leadership positions at Arbor Biotechnologies, Flagship Pioneering, Editas Medicine, and Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research, where she had roles as a scientist, program leader and business development executive.  She also has led CMC, Quality, Operations, Corporate strategy, Regulatory and Toxicology line functions.  She holds a Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University and a B.S. from the University of Rhode Island.

Rob Aboud, MSc, J.D. is the Chief Business Officer & Head of Legal/IP for Lyora Therapeutics, bringing more than 30 years of experience in biotech/biopharma with deep expertise in leading business development, IP strategy, R&D operational support and corporate legal.  He is an accomplished biotech executive and company founder who most recently co-founded and was Chief Legal Officer of Affinia Therapeutics, a cutting-edge gene therapy company.  Prior to Affinia, Rob was Principal at Faber, Daeufer & Itrato, PC, where he co-led the firm’s collaborations and licensing practice, guiding numerous prominent biotech companies in their key R&D licensing transactions.  Rob served as Vice President- Head of Business Strategy for GlaxoSmithKline's biotech partnering unit (the CEEDD) and was Assistant General Counsel supporting worldwide business development, where he led and completed strategic licensing deals for many of GSK's R&D units.  He is also a registered patent attorney and started his career as a research biochemist in a biopharma unit of Merck Research Labs.  Rob holds a J.D. from Temple University School of Law and a MSc. from Rutgers University in Biochemistry.

Chris Wilson, PhD is Head of Research at Lyora Therapeutics, where he leads research and development on gene therapies for inherited retinal diseases, including programs targeting USH2A-associated Usher syndrome and PRPF31-associated retinitis pigmentosa. Chris brings more than 25 years of experience building and leading R&D platforms across genome engineering, gene therapy delivery, and drug discovery.

Before Lyora, Chris was Senior Vice President of the Genome Engineering Platform at Stylus Medicine, where he built the company's platform organization and led development of novel engineered large serine recombinases now underpinning its in vivo CAR-T pipeline. Before that, he spent nearly eight years at Editas Medicine, ultimately as Vice President, Lead Discovery, where he built and led a 35-person technology platform spanning gene editing, AAV vector engineering, sequencing, and bioinformatics. His team supported Editas's AAV-based ocular gene therapy programs across multiple retinal indications — including EDIT-101, the first CRISPR-based in vivo gene editing therapy dosed in humans, along with the EDIT-102 and EDIT-103 programs — giving him direct experience with USH2A, AAV development, and the broader inherited retinal disease landscape well before joining Lyora.

Earlier in his career, Chris spent ten years at Novartis, where he led high-throughput biology and target discovery groups. He holds a PhD in Biology from MIT and a BA in Biology from Rutgers University, and has co-authored more than 45 scientific publications.

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Luk H. Vandenberghe, Ph.D. is founder and Chair of Lyora Therapeutics. He is an academic (Mass Eye and Ear, Harvard) and entrepreneur (Akouos, Affinia, GenSight, Odylia, etc.) who is compelled by the power of genetic medicine. Trained as a biochemist and engineer, his career has focused on finding ways to deliver gene therapy safely and effectively to therapeutic targets. His work has led to several technologies now in use in approved gene therapy products (e.g. AAV9) and programs at various stages of development in retinal, cochlear, metabolic, infectious, cardiovascular and neuromuscular disease. Luk holds an Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences and MSc in Chemical Engineering from the University of Leuven, Belgium and trained at the University of Pennsylvania in several translational gene therapy laboratories.

Eric Pierce, M.D., Ph.D. is a globally recognized clinician scientist, a co-founder and Board Director of Lyora Therapeutics. He is the Director of the Harvard Ophthalmology Ocular Genetics Institute and the William F. Chatlos Professor of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School. Dr. Pierce received his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and his M.D. from Harvard Medical School. He did his residency in Ophthalmology at Harvard and fellowship in Pediatric Ophthalmology at Children’s Hospital, Boston where he also took his first faculty position. He was then recruited to the department of Ophthalmology at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, where he was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. He returned to Harvard in 2011 to establish the Ocular Genomics Institute. Dr. Pierce is an ophthalmologist and molecular geneticist whose research program is dedicated to understanding the molecular mechanisms of inherited retinal degenerations (IRDs) and improving therapeutic interventions for these conditions.