Dr. Blakney is an Assistant Professor in the Michael Smith Laboratories and School of Biomedical Engineering at UBC, a Tier II Canada Research Chair in Nucleic Acid Bioengineering, Michael Smith Health Research Scholar, and Gairdner Early Career Investigator. She was part of the team at Imperial College London that performed the first-in-human trial of a self-amplifying RNA vaccine against COVID-19, and is co-founder of VaxEquity, a UK company that is developing this technology in partnership with AstraZeneca. She has developed molecular and biomaterial engineering strategies for delivery of self-amplifying RNA and will work with Eric Jan to select mRNA designs with 5’ and 3’ UTR elements and structure-optimized coding sequences conferring high stability and robust expression in vivo.

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