Morgan Urello
Principal Scientist, Nucleic Acid Delivery Biotech Startup
With over a decade of experience advancing nucleic acid delivery, Morgan Urello, PhD, is a scientist focused on engineering lipid- and peptide-based nanoparticles for therapeutic applications. She earned her PhD in Chemical and Biological Engineering from the University of Delaware, where her research developed biomimetic peptide-based strategies for efficient gene delivery with a focus on chronic wound care.
At her current company, she designs delivery systems through rational lipid design and targeted ligand strategies, aiming to balance precision, safety, and translational potential while expanding beyond traditional liver targeting to address respiratory disease.
Previously, Morgan spent more than seven years at AstraZeneca, where she led cross-functional programs in oncology, infectious disease, and immune-targeted therapies. Her work tailoring nanoparticle composition for diverse applications resulted in patents, publications, and platform innovations, and was recognized with the AstraZeneca Catalyst Award for innovation in drug delivery. She remains committed to accelerating the next generation of RNA therapeutics.
Seminars
- How to identify the most suitable targeting ligand modality for a specific target?
- How to effectively and uniformly integrate the ligand onto LNP formulations?
- How to ensure the chosen ligand is viable for large-scale manufacturing?
Building workflows to identify high performing targeting ligands and lipid components is essential for accelerating LNP development, however, ensuring speed is balanced with accuracy is vital. In this workshop, examine lipid type and ligand screening strategies and align these with complete targeted LNP formulations to enhance translation. Topics include:
- Exploring how to efficiently screen vast libraries of ligands for specificity, transfection, and immunogenicity
- Highlighting reliable strategies to identify lipids which will enable endosomal escape and extrahepatic delivery
- Improving targeted LNP screening to balance throughput with quality metrics like selectivity and safety
