John Schmidt Jr., M.d.

Biography

Dr. John A. Schmidt, also known as Jack, Jr., M.D. served as Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President of Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc. from October 2008 to August 2009. Dr. Schmidt has over two decades of experience in leading drug discovery. He served as Vice President and US Member of the Sanofi-Aventis Global Discovery Leadership Team where he was also responsible for biotherapeutics, external innovation and discovery initiatives in China. At legacy Aventis, Dr. Schmidt served as Vice President and Head of the Respiratory and Rheumatoid Arthritis Disease Group where he worked closely with Aventis colleagues and collaboration partners at Millennium Pharmaceuticals and Coley Pharmaceutical Group to advance more than 15 NCEs into preclinical development. Dr. Schmidt served as Senior Director of Immunology and Rheumatology at Merck Research Laboratories where his group conducted fundamental work on interleukin 1 beta, particularly its cognate processing enzyme, caspase 1. He has been a Director at PhaseRx, Inc. since December 2010. He is author or co-author of more than sixty scientific papers in various peer-reviewed journals including Science, Nature, The Journal of Experimental Medicine, The Journal of Clinical Investigation, The Journal of Biological Chemistry, The Journal of Immunology and The Journal of the American Medical Association. Dr. Schmidt received his undergraduate degree from St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia before completing his MD, internship and residency in Internal Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Research Interest

Blood Research & Hematologic Diseases