Dr. Avery (Qinghong) Yan is the co-founder, President and CSO of Leverna Therapeutics, an RNA-targeting startup company. Avery was the Head of Biology at FUSION BioVenture of Fosun Pharma USA. Prior to joining FUSION Bioventure in 2020, she was the Cell and Molecular Biology team lead at the Translational Systems Biology group at Amgen. Avery obtained her Ph.D. in Neuroscience at Stony Brook University and completed her postdoctoral research at Columbia University. Avery has extensive experience in R&D, investment, business development and start-up incubation in biotech and pharma companies. Her drug development experience includes a broad range of modalities including small/large molecule, ASO, siRNA, CAR-T, TCR-T and PROTAC programs. She has a track record of leading projects, closing deals, attracting talent and building teams. At Amgen Avery led the predictive and mechanistic toxicology research and supported over 15 projects with 5 IND filings. At FUSION BioVenture, she led license-in of preclinical assets into Fosun Pharma and the incubation of a US-based newco (later Leverna). In 2022, Avery started running Leverna full time with funding from Fosun Pharma USA. Avery is also the co-founder and President of BioSpark Group, a biotech-focused non-profit organization based in Boston area.