Nicole Paulk

Dr. Nicole Paulk is the CEO, Founder, and President of Siren Biotechnology and has dedicated her career to advancing the field of gene therapy. With nearly 2 decades of expertise, Nicole has been at the forefront of developing cutting-edge advances to propel gene therapy forward for a wide range of diseases.

Before founding Siren, Nicole held various leadership positions in academia and industry. Nicole has a BS in Medical Microbiology, a PhD in Viral Gene Therapy and Regenerative Medicine from OHSU, and completed her Postdoctoral Fellowship and Instructorship in Human Gene Therapy at Stanford University before starting her lab at UCSF. Nicole is a pioneer in the development of next-generation AAV platforms for gene repair, gene transfer, and gene editing, directed evolution for novel engineered capsid evolution, and comparative multi-omic approaches to interrogate translational AAV biology.

Nicole is a renowned expert in gene therapy and has consulted extensively for industry, written draft CMC guidance for the FDA, and sits on the Scientific Advisory Boards for Sarepta, Astellas, Metagenomi, Dyno, CEVEC, GRO Biosciences, Excision BioTherapeutics, WhiteLab Genomics, Johns Hopkins Gene Therapy Initiative, the Gene Therapy for Rare Disorders Searchlight Program, and several stealth startups. She has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The Boston Globe, Endpoints, STAT, Phacilitate, GEN, BioPharma Dive, Evaluate Vantage, SF Business Times, Wired, Drug Discovery World, MIT Tech Review, and C&EN. She sits on the Scientific Editorial Boards of the journals Gene Therapy and Human Gene Therapy. She is the outgoing Chair of the American Society of Gene and Cell Therapy Translational Science Committee and sits on the Biocom California Cell and Gene Therapy Committee. She has invented numerous AAV gene therapy technologies that have been shared or licensed to dozens of companies and nonprofit groups working on rare diseases and cancer.