Editorial Board
Editor-in-Chief
Prof. Natalia Tretyakova,
University of Minnesota - Twin Cities
Department of Medicinal Chemistry and the Masonic Cancer Center
Past Chair, ACS Division of Chemical Toxicology
Director, Epigenetics Consortium
Distinguished McKnight University Professor,
Natalia Tretyakova began her independent scientific career in 2000 as an Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota, where she currently holds the position of Distinguished McKnight University Professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and the Masonic Cancer Center. Her research lies at the interface of chemical biology, toxicology, and epigenetics, with a focus on DNA and protein adducts, epigenetic deregulation, and the molecular mechanisms underlying cancer and age-related diseases. Her laboratory integrates mass spectrometry, synthetic chemistry, and multi-omics approaches to uncover the biological consequences of DNA-protein crosslinks and to develop targeted epigenetic therapies. Natalia is the founder and director of the University of Minnesota Epigenetics Consortium and serves on multiple editorial boards and national committees. Her work aims to translate chemical insights into therapeutic strategies that promote human health and environmental safety.
Associate Editors 
Hiroshi Abe
Department of Chemistry
Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University, Japan
Hiroshi Abe received his Ph.D. from Hokkaido University under the supervision of Professor Akira Matsuda and subsequently conducted postdoctoral research with Professor Joanne Stubbe at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Professor Eric Kool at Stanford University. Before joining Nagoya University in 2015, he served as a Researcher at RIKEN and as an Associate Professor at Hokkaido University.
Professor Abe’s research focuses on the chemical biology of nucleic acids and RNA therapeutics, particularly the precise chemical synthesis and modification of mRNA and circular RNA. His work has contributed to the development of advanced RNA technologies for improved translation efficiency and therapeutic applications.
Dr. Sudhir Agrawal
ARNAY Sciences LLC
Sudhir Agrawal, FRSC, is the Founder and President of ARNAY Sciences LLC. He currently serves as a Visiting Professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and is a member of the Business Advisory Board for the Initiative for RNA Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
With a career spanning over three decades, Sudhir has been deeply engaged in the discovery and development of RNA therapeutics. He is a founder of Idera Pharmaceuticals, where he held several leadership roles—including Chairman, CEO, President of Research, and Chief Scientific Officer—until 2017. He continues to contribute to the field as a member of the scientific advisory boards of multiple biotechnology companies.
Sudhir’s research has led to over 300 published papers and more than 400 patents worldwide. He has also edited four books on oligonucleotides and antisense technology, including Advances in Nucleic Acid Therapeutics (Royal Society of Chemistry, 2019), reflecting his commitment to advancing translational science and therapeutic innovation.
Dr. Vitor Bernardes Pinheiro
Department of Pharmaceutical and Pharmacological Science
Rega Institute for Medical Research, KU Leuven
Vitor B. Pinheiro, trained as a biochemist (University of Cambridge – Natural Sciences), Vitor did his doctoral research in bacterial pathogenesis (University of Cambridge – Prof. David Ellar) before pursuing research on protein engineering and synthetic biology at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology (Cambridge, UK). Having pioneered the development of the first synthetic genetic materials, Vitor started his independent scientific career at UCL (London, UK) continuing that work and developing multidisciplinary approaches for directed evolution. Having joined KU Leuven in 2018 as an Associate Professor, Dr. Pinheiros’ research continues focused on directed evolution and applications thereof, particularly towards functional nucleic acids.
William C. K. Pomerantz
Department of Chemistry
University of Minnesota
William C. K. Pomerantz is a McKnight Presidential Fellow and Merck Professor Chemistry in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Minnesota. Prof. Pomerantz received his B.S. in chemistry from Ithaca College in 2002, followed by a Fulbright Fellowship at ETH, Zürich with Professors François Diederich and Jack Dunitz. He obtained a Ph.D. in chemistry under Professors Sam Gellman and Nick Abbott at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and was a postdoctoral fellow under Prof. Anna Mapp at the University of Michigan. He joined the chemistry faculty at the University of Minnesota in 2012, was granted tenure in 2018, and promoted to full professor in 2023. His research focuses on the development of chemical biology and medicinal chemistry approaches for modulating transcription factor function through disruption of protein-protein interactions. Several areas of innovation have included the application of protein-observed 19F NMR (PrOF NMR) for fragment-based drug discovery, development of new epigenetic inhibitors of BET and non-BET bromοdomains, the design of highly fluorinated molecules for 19F MRI, and sustainable organofluorine chemistry.
Prof. Pomerantz’s research and teaching had been recognized through several awards including a Sidney Kimmel Cancer Scholar award, an NSF CAREER award, a Cottrell Scholar Award, an ICBS Rising Star in Chemical Biology award, a McKnight Land Grant award, a George W. Taylor Distinguished Teaching award and Morse/Alumni Association Teaching award. At UMN, He is currently the co-director of the NIH T32 Chemistry Biology Interface Training Grant, and was a former WEC liaison for the department of chemistry. He has published over 100 manuscripts and book chapters and has given over 140 seminars on his lab’s research. Further details about his research can be found here: https://pomerantz.chem.umn.edu/
Rakesh N. Veedu
Personalised Medicine Centre,
Health Futures Institute, Murdoch University.
Rakesh N. Veedu is an internationally renowned expert in RNA therapeutic development including the design, screening, lead molecule identification, preclinical studies and manufacturing chemistries. He completed PhD from the University of Queensland (UQ) in May 2006 after MSc from Griffith University, Australia. Later, he joined the Nucleic Acid Center at the University of Southern Denmark (2006-2010) as a Postdoctoral Fellow. In July 2010, he returned to UQ and established an independent research group focused on RNA drug development. In 2015, he moved to Murdoch University as a Research Head of Nucleic Acid Therapeutics Group within the through Perron Institute.
He has published >115 research articles in internationally reputed journals, published a book, and also an inventor on multiple patents/patent applications. He is the Founder, Director & CTO of ‘SynGenis Pty Ltd’ - Australia’s commercial oligonucleotide and diagnostic manufacturing company, and the Co-Founder & MD of ‘ProGenis Pharmaceuticals’ -Australia’s leading RNA drug development company.
Dr. Alex Gregory Waterson
Departments of Pharmacology and Chemistry
Vanderbilt University School of Medicine
Alex G. Waterson, is currently a Research Professor of Pharmacology and Chemistry at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, USA. Trained as a synthetic organic chemist, he earned his Ph.D. under the mentorship of Professor Al Padwa at Emory University and completed postdoctoral research at Colorado State University in the group of the late Professor Albert I. Meyers. In 2001, Alex joined the medicinal chemistry team at GlaxoSmithKline in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, where he contributed to the discovery of covalently modifying ErbB inhibitors and the B-RAF inhibitor Dabrafenib, among other projects.
After transitioning to Vanderbilt in 2008, he played a key role in establishing the university’s participation in the National Cancer Institute’s Chemical Biology Consortium. He also joined Professor Stephen Fesik’s fragment-based drug discovery team, serving as a medicinal chemist and project leader. In addition, he serves as Associate Director of Medicinal Chemistry for the Vanderbilt Institute of Chemical Biology, collaborating with multiple research groups to guide hit-to-lead and lead optimization efforts toward probe and therapeutic discovery.
Alex has led and contributed to numerous oncology-focused drug discovery projects, including those targeting direct and indirect inhibition of K-RAS, as well as proteases, epigenetic regulators, and cancer metabolism pathways. More recently, his work has expanded into the area of Targeted Protein Degradation.