Abhinav Dhall
Cell Biologist | Protein Engineer | Functional Genomics to Accelerate Drug Discovery
- Role
- Principal Scientist at Flagship Pioneering
- Location
- Boston, MA, US
- LinkedIn followers
- 500 followers
About Abhinav Dhall
Highly motivated drug developer with 10+ years of experience in translating early discovery research to proof-of-concept stage. I am passionate about combining small-molecule screening with genetic editing and functional genomics to discover novel therapeutics for diseases. My broad scientific training includes organic chemistry, protein biochemistry, genome engineering and wet-lab assisted AI/ML models of protein engineering, which gives me a multi-faceted perspective into preclinical drug discovery. During my master’s in Chemistry, I utilized organic synthesis techniques to synthesize drug candidates for neurodegenerative diseases. The excitement of scientific discovery motivated me to pursue doctoral studies in Chemical Biology/Chemistry at the University of Washington, Seattle, where I studied the molecular mechanisms of epigenetic transcriptional regulation through biophysical analyses of nucleo-protein chromatin complexes. This work involved purification and characterization of large protein complexes, peptide synthesis, protein engineering and extensive enzymology.I joined the Cell Biology/Newborn Medicine department at Harvard Medical School/Boston Children’s Hospital in 2017 to study the epigenetic and metabolic basis of leukemia progression. My postdoctoral work was published in Nature in 2025, where we described the identification of a novel drug combination through high-throughput screening of smalI-molecule libraries, followed by mechanism of action (MoA) studies and PDX models to elucidate a new transcriptional program in WNT driven cancers. Since 2021 I have led a team of Scientists and Associate Scientists at Vor Biopharma to engineer genetically edited HSPCs and T cells for hematologic disorders. This highly cross-functional work includes leveraging human genetic databases (UKBiobank, gnomAD, DepMap, HPA) for target receptor identification, genetically engineering novel epitopes in proteins for modulating antibody-antigen interaction, utilizing AI/ML models of protein engineering and advancing candidates towards IND submission in collaboration with computational biology, translational biology and process/analytical development teams.
Experience
Principal Scientist
Nov 2025 — Present · Cambridge, MA, US
Education
Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay
Bachelor's degree
2004 — 2009
University of Washington
Doctor of Philosophy - PhD, Chemistry (Chemical Biology)
2010 — 2016
Harvard University
Introduction to Translational Medicine
2017 — 2017
Skills
- Matlab
- Analytics
- Data Analysis
- Business Analysis
- Statistics
- Sas
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