CEO
Jeff Abbey has been CEO of RNatives since May 2025. He brings over two decades of leadership experience in the biopharmaceutical industry with a successful track record in company building, business development, and fundraising across both public and private global markets. Jeff spent over 16 years at Argos Therapeutics, serving as CEO for over eight years and, prior to that, as VP, Business Development and then CBO. He led Argos through completion of a pivotal phase 3 trial, raised over $250 million in equity financings, including an IPO on NASDAQ, and completed numerous partnering transactions with international biopharmaceutical companies.

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CSO
Mikko Turunen, PhD, Docent of Molecular Medicine at the University of Eastern Finland, has +25 years of experience in the development of gene therapies. Throughout his career, his research focus has been non-coding RNAs, cardiovascular disease, and gene delivery to animals. He was the first to show transcriptional gene activation by small RNAs in vivo (2009). Turunen has 67 scientific articles, over 3100 citations, and H-index of 26.

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CDO
Tiia Turunen, PhD, is a co-founder of RNatives. She has +14 years of experience in the research and development of Epigenetherapy. She obtained her PhD in 2016 from University of Eastern Finland and completed her post-doctoral training 2017-2018 in Samir EL Andaloussi’s laboratory in Karolinska Institutet, Sweden. She has strong expertise in non-coding RNAs, epigenetics, extracellular vesicles and laboratory leadership.

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COO
Juhani Lahdenperä, M.Sc., is a seasoned COO with over 15 years of experience in the biotechnology business management and leadership – he was previously eight years as a start-up CEO in PlexPress and Hermo Pharma, and afterward, he has been helping early-stage programs in their commercialization via Biotech Start-Up Management. He has received five innovation awards personally or the companies he´s represented in the past. During the early academic career, he published in Nature amongst other peer-reviewed journals. His key reference is former Roche executive Professor Jonathan Knowles.

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