Kah-Whye Peng, PhD

At-Large Director (2023-2026)

Kah-Whye Peng, PhD, is a professor of Oncology at Mayo Clinic and director of their virus and gene therapy Toxicology and Pharmacology service lab where she plays a pivotal role in enabling clinical translation of novel gene and virus therapeutics from bench to bedside. She is also a co-founder and Chief Technical Officer of Vyriad, where she currently leads cGMP manufacturing operations. She has a long-standing research interest in the clinical development of oncolytic viruses as anticancer therapeutics, viral vector targeting, and non-invasive imaging technologies to track cell and virus gene therapies through Imanis Life Sciences, a biotech she co-founded.

Dr. Peng's PhD research was in envelope modification of retroviral vectors to redirect their tropism to B cell malignancies. Her postdoctoral research focused on engineering the envelope glycoproteins of oncolytic measles virus and vesicular stomatitis virus to display single chain antibodies to redirect virus infection. Her research lab’s seminal work on HER-2 retargeted measles viruses demonstrated the role of ligand affinity and receptor density for viral entry.

For the past 25 years, Dr. Peng has been actively involved in the clinical translation of adenovirus, adeno-associated virus, measles virus and vesicular stomatitis virus from bench to first-in-human clinical testing; supporting pharm/tox studies, manufacturing and clinical trial operations. Her leadership and role in building the oncolytic virotherapy community was recognized recently by her peers with the Golden Virus Award.