Progressing genetic medicines at the interface of gene therapy and gene editing

Albert Seymour, PhD, serves as the Chief Scientific Officer of Homology Medicines and has spent more than 20 years coupling the discipline of Human Genetics with Pharmaceutical RD resulting in the delivery of multiple therapeutic programs into development. At Homology, Dr Seymour is responsible for translating the Company’s dual in vivo gene therapy and gene editing platform into treatments for rare genetic disorders. Through his leadership, Homology’s phenylketonuria (PKU) program advanced from scientific concept to the world’s first gene therapy clinical trial for PKU in just under 3 years, in addition to building a pipeline of genetic medicine programs in late stage preclinical development. Prior to Homology, he was the Senior Vice President and Global Head of Research and Nonclinical Development at Shire Pharmaceuticals where he led a team responsible for the delivery of a sustained flow of rare disease therapeutics from idea to IND and supported the full RD portfolio in the areas of toxicology, bioanalytics, and Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics. Prior to that role, Dr Seymour served as the VP and Head of Drug Discovery and Translational Research at Shire where he doubled the rare disease discovery portfolio in three years. Subsequent to joining Shire, he spent 14 years at Pfizer leading a team in the application of human genetics and computational biology to discover and develop therapeutics and pharmacogenomics strategies in diabetes, inflammatory diseases, and oncology. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Ensoma. Dr Seymour received his undergraduate degree in Biology from the University of Delaware and MS degree in Molecular Biology from Johns Hopkins University where he focused on the molecular genetics of cancer. He received his PhD and post-doctoral training in Human Genetics at the University of Pittsburgh.