Kristen Hopson is Senior Vice President of Translational Sciences at Metaphore. She brings deep experience in advancing therapeutic molecules from novel platform technologies, leading research organizations, and developing therapeutics leveraging machine learning and computational drug design methods. Kristen has experience across multiple therapeutic areas and multiple delivery modalities including mRNA, biologics and vaccine platforms.

Before joining Metaphore, Kristen was Vice President of Preclinical Discovery and Development at Generate Biomedicines. She built the research organization and supported the advancement of the company’s first two programs, which leveraged machine learning and computational drug design, into clinical trials. Prior to Generate, Kristen led preclinical cancer vaccine research at Moderna, and played a key role in taking the personalized cancer vaccine program from preclinical development into Phase 2 clinical development. At Moderna, Kristen also led the translational oncology team, driving biomarker development and execution across all oncology clinical trials at the company. She has previous experience in translational medicine and vaccine development in the context of T-cell vaccines targeting various oncology, viral, and bacterial targets.

Kristen received a PhD in molecular medicine from Boston University School of Medicine and completed her postdoctoral training at Harvard Medical School/MGH and Pfizer. She also holds two Bachelor of Science degrees in biochemistry, cell and molecular biology and in zoology from Connecticut College.

Leadership Team

Kristen Hopson, PhD

Senior Vice President of Translational Sciences, Metaphore