Melissa Moore (scientist)

Melissa Moore (born 1962) is a biochemist, molecular biologist, former professor and chief scientific officer of biotechnology company Moderna Inc's mRNA research platform. In 2020, she was a leader of Moderna's ultimately successful efforts to develop a COVID-19 vaccine based on nascent Messenger RNA technology, achieving an efficacy rate of over 94% in Phase 3 clinical trials. On December 18, 2020, the company's vaccine received an emergency use authorization from the United States Food and Drug Administration. This marked the second time in history that an RNA vaccine was approved for use in the general population; the first was Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine, approved by the United Kingdom's Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency on December 2, 2020.

Early Life and Background

Moore grew up in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Her mother, Sylvia Moore, was a teacher and educational administrator. She has three siblings who all received higher education despite graduating from a high school with low college attendance rates.

Moore attended The College of William and Mary, graduating with Bachelor of Science degrees in Chemistry and Biology in 1984. She later earned her PhD in Biological Chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1989 and continued with postdoctoral work there studying technologies to join long mRNA molecules. Moore's postdoctoral advisor was geneticist Phillip Sharp, who received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1993 for his work with RNA splicing. Moore was working in his laboratory at the time of his prize win.

Moore has spoken about her experiences with sexism in the traditionally male-dominated field of biomedical science. During her time as a graduate student, she encountered a male student that would frequently interrupt her more than her other male classmates. Of the experience, she said: "Instead of just calling him out, I was able to put a stop to it by gathering precise data as to the frequency of his interruptions of me and others, and then presenting it to him in front of our peers. Thankfully, this put an end to his interrupting, but importantly, from this I learned that if something bothers you, not only do you need to speak up, but if you can support your issue with data, it's hard for people not to take you seriously."

Academic Career

After concluding her postdoctoral studies, Moore worked as a professor at Brandeis University. In 2007, she joined the faculty of the University of Massachusetts Medical School (UMMS). Her research focus areas there included structure and mechanisms of spliceosomes and RNA proteins, intracellular RNA transport and the exon junction complex, which she co-discovered. During her time at Brandeis and UMMS, she also served as an investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. While at UMMS, she co-founded the RNA Therapeutics Institute and also held the Eustis Farrington Chair of Cancer Research.

In 2017, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Moderna Career

Moore joined Moderna, Inc. in 2016 as the company's chief science officer of mRNA platform research. She got the job by sending a cold call email in 2013 to the company's then-chief scientific officer offering her expertise in messenger ribonucleoproteins (mRNPs), which led to her receiving a sponsored research agreement and later to serving on its scientific advisory board.

In her role with Moderna, Moore ushered in an increase in the company’s scientific publications and oversaw some of its first trials with mRNA vaccines for a variety of diseases including [blank]. During the 2020-2021 global COVID-19 pandemic, Moderna’s mRNA research platform turned towards rapid development of a vaccine. Building on previous mRNA delivery research by Moore and other scientists, Moderna was able to formulate a candidate vaccine for COVID-19 within two months of the virus’s gene sequence being published. Phase 1 study shots began to be administered on March 16, 2020, 63 days after sequence selection. On November 30, 2020, the company filed an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) with the Food and Drug Administration and a Conditional Marketing Authorization application with the European Medicines Agency. On December 17, 2020, Moore joined colleagues in presenting Moderna’s EUA application to the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee of the FDA. The application was approved the following day. In addition to being the second mRNA vaccine ever to receive approval from a government public health regulatory body, it also marked the first time that a Moderna vaccine candidate was approved for general use.

Personal Life

Moore lives in the Boston area with her wife, tech entrepreneur and CEO Janet Kosloff. They have three children.