Daniel Romdensune

Background

About Daniel Romdensune

Throughout my journey in the medical sciences I have always strived to get closer and closer to therapeutics that touch human lives. From my humble beginnings in a neurology lab studying stress effects on hormone levels I have been fascinated by the human body. From there I migrated to a microbial testing lab where we ensured that meat products were free of contaminants and safe for human consumption. During that time, I felt the strong pull to return to academic sciences and that lead me to my graduate work at the University of Albany (SUNY) where I developed a project centered around identification of microRNAs produced by HSV-1. Following my graduate experience, I joined the lab of Dr. Jill Slansky at the University of Colorado which was actively exploring T cells circulating in breast tumors. I developed an emulsion RT-PCR technique that could isolate and amplify the T cell receptor pair from an individual cell, giving us the ability to define the population of cells present in the tumor down to the receptor level. I was able to identify common T cell receptors across patients that could be used as therapeutic targets by peptide vaccines to activate the cells. After completion of my post-doctoral work, I landed at Atara Biotherapeutics. Atara combined the work that I had done in my graduate work, the the immunological focus on T cells that I had developed during my post-doc, treating diseases using virus (specifically EBV) specific T cells as a platform for edited cell therapies containing CARs. Working in the Translational Sciences group, I developed numerous assays to define the pharmacological aspects of Atara's clinical stage therapeutics. I was able to work closely with the Quality, Clinical Operations, Manufacturing, and Process Development groups during my time. Following my work at Atara, I stepped into a more senior management role at Artisan Biotechniologies as an Associate Director. While my role in supporting the company jumped around during my time at Artisan, goal was always on high efficiency cell editing using a proprietary Cas12a nuclease and guide system. We utilized this system to enable partner companies in their cell edit processes. Artisan was acquired by Kytopen, where I continued my role developing applications for the novel electroporation instrument that Kytopen developed. I worked with partners to enable transition to the instrument and also developed data sets for our BD colleagues to show to partners. Moving forward, I am looking to continue to learn and expand my career in the biotherapeutics space.