Dr. Sailaja Battula is the Chief Scientific Officer at Ankyra, where she is responsible for leading and managing Ankyra’s scientific research and development efforts.
Prior to Ankyra, she was a Director, IO at Immuneering Corporation where she led multiple projects across various stages of drug discovery. Before Immuneering, Dr. Battula was an Associate Director at Bicycle Therapeutics where she was a Project Lead for the BT7455 (a tumor targeted immune cell agonist) program, while also spearheading early discovery projects leading to the expansion of Bicycle’s IO pipeline. Dr. Battula also held roles of increasing responsibility at Forma Therapeutics with significant experience leading and contributing to various therapeutic programs through lead selection, lead optimization, IND-enabling studies, and IND submissions. Dr. Battula earned her PhD in Pharmacology from New York Medical College. She did her postdoctoral training at University of California, San Francisco where her research work focused on understanding the role of macrophages in mesothelioma chemoresistance.