Ikena Oncology, Inc. announced the appointment of Richard Wooster, Ph.D., to its Board of Directors. Dr. Wooster brings more than 30 years of experience in oncology drug discovery and development and dissecting the genetics of cancer and will provide invaluable insight to Ikena as the Company progresses several programs to benefit patients with difficult-to-treat cancers.
Dr. Wooster is a veteran in the drug discovery industry with more than 15 years of experience leading oncology programs for pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies. He most recently served as the Chief Scientific Officer at Translate Bio, which was acquired by Sanofi in September 2021. Dr. Wooster joined Translate Bio from Tarveda Therapeutics where he was Chief Scientific Officer and President of R&D. In addition to advancing multiple programs from early-stage discovery into the clinic, Dr. Wooster helped the company raise multiple rounds of private funding to advance the business. Prior to Tarveda, he was Vice President and Discovery Performance Unit Head in Oncology at GlaxoSmithKline. Dr. Wooster began his career in academia at the Institute of Cancer Research where he discovered the BRCA2 gene and as a founder of the Cancer Genome Project at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute where mutations in BRAF were first discovered. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Dundee in the UK and has co-authored over 100 publications, book chapters, and patents.