Ana Moreno, PHD

Ana Moreno received a bachelor’s in Biosystems Engineering from the University of Arizona with a focus on biosensors; and a master’s and doctorate in Bioengineering from the University of California San Diego, with a research focus on developing CRISPR-Cas9 platforms to broaden their applications to also include genome regulation. Her work included the first published work to demonstrate the in vivo use of a nuclease-null Cas9 (dCas9) that resulted in a phenotypic improvement, specifically in a mouse model of retinitis pigmentosa. In addition, Moreno also demonstrated the utility of dCas9 in amelioration of chronic pain in various pain models. For her graduate work, Moreno received CONACYT and UCMEXUS fellowships and the Engelson PhD Thesis Award. In 2018, Moreno founded Navega Therapeutics, a startup tackling the opioid epidemic via gene therapies for chronic pain. In 2020, she received the NIH Mitchell Max Award for excellence in pain research.