Chase Kelley, PhD

Chase is a Senior Associate focused on transformational early-stage life sciences technologies at both Foresite Labs and Foresite Capital. His responsibilities include scientific and technical analysis of early-stage concepts, thesis synthesis, and the creation and application of data science tools to facilitate data-driven decision making across the incubation and investment process.

Chase received his Ph.D. in genetics and genomics as an NSF Graduate Fellow from the University of Florida in Prof. Eric Wang’s lab, where he worked at the intersection of subcellular RNA localization, repeat expansion disease mechanisms, and synthetic biology strategies for gene therapy. Chase led and collaborated on studies in both experimental and computational biology, the latter of which included building high-throughput automated image analysis methods for single-molecule RNA imaging. He also participated in the first cohort of the Foresite Fellows Program.

Prior to his graduate studies, Chase was a research associate in protein and RNA engineering at Editas Medicine in Cambridge, MA, where he led projects on directed evolution of Cas9 and guide RNAs. He received his B.S. in chemical engineering and physics from Northeastern University in Boston, MA, and during his undergraduate training he built additional experience in nanoparticle drug delivery, protein engineering, and gene editing through internships in academia and industry.