Maria Colombo has over 20 years of experience in life sciences, biotechnology, and bioprocessing. Since 2021, she has been serving as Director of R&D, Nucleic Acid Services within the Pharma Services Group at Thermo Fisher Scientific. She leads activities related to the development of nucleic acids used in the production of viral vectors, modified cell-based therapies, and mRNA-based vaccines and therapeutics.
Previously, she worked at Kaneka Eurogentec, where she focused on addressing the needs in mRNA production and analysis, and contributed to the implementation of a C(D)MO service offering. Prior to that, she served as R&D Project Leader at Unisensor, where she developed diagnostic kits for the agri-food industry using lateral flow and flow cytometry technologies.
She holds a Ph.D. in Sciences and a Master’s in Biochemistry from the University of Liège, where she also completed a postdoctoral fellowship. She further pursued postdoctoral research at the University Hospital of Maastricht.