Lorena Pantano

Lorena Pantano serves as the Director of the Bioinformatics Platform at Harvard Chan Bioinformatics Core. She is responsible for leading the integration of new technologies to expedite the decision-making process in research projects for HCBC collaborators. With 13 years of experience in computational biology, Lorena has established herself as a visionary leader in the field, excelling in genomic and data visualization to accelerate decision-making processes. Lorena’s educational background is in Biochemistry, and she holds a Ph.D. in Biomedicine. During that time, she developed the first tool for discovering small ncRNAs in brain samples using NGS data. Following this, Lorena utilized her genomics expertise to conduct research at the Harvard School of Public Health for 5 years. In 2019, she transitioned to the biotech industry and has worked with innovative companies since, such as cell gene-editing of pig genomes for xenotransplantation at eGenesis, and target discovery of novel non-coding RNA at NextRNA. Additionally, in 2016, Lorena founded the ‘Women in Bioinformatics’ Meetup, aimed at fostering collaboration and networking in the computational biology field in the Boston area. In her free time, she spends time meeting other women in the field to support them in any way they need, as a mentor, colleague, and friend.