Priya Venkatakrishnan

Priya earned her B.S in Pharmacy (2001) at BITS Pilani, India and M.S in Toxicology (2006) at the University of Kentucky. Following that, Priya earned her Ph.D in Biological Sciences at the University of Texas at El Paso (2009) where she focused on studying the effect of Redox-Cycling Agents on Nitric Oxide Synthase(NOS) and the subsequent modulation of protein expression using various enzyme biochemistry assays, SDS-PAGE and other molecular techniques. Following graduation, Priya was a postdoctoral researcher at the UT Health Science center, San Antonio in the lab of Dr. Bettie Sue Masters, a pioneer in CYP450 and NOS where she utilized her analytical skills to further understand the involvement of NOS in oxidative/nitrosative stress in C2C12 skeletal muscle myotubes. Later, Priya started her industry journey in 2012 at Integrity Bio (currently known as Curia), a formulation fill finish CRO, where she managed accelerated and long term stability studies of proteins using multiple analytical methods. In 2017, She joined BBRAUN GMP Injectable Manufacturing Facility where she was supervising operations related workflow and worked with Quality towards product validation and process validation. In early 2021, Priya joined Molecular Templates where she was managing stability studies as well as phase-appropriate validations for fusion proteins. Priya has since moved to Merck in the Biologics-Analytical Research & Development (B-AR&D) group in 2022, and works on method development and characterization using techniques such as CE-SDS, UPSEC and more. Outside of work, Priya likes to spend time with family and friends, travel to explore various places with her kids. She enjoys cooking, loves to do handicrafts and other art work with kids.