Howard Wu | Co-Founder & Chief Scientific Officer
Full Circles Therapeutics

Howard (Hao) Wu, PhD has 25 years’ experience in gene editing technology and new drug discovery. He is specialized in overseeing R&D programs, new lab and research team set up in the biotech start-ups.   Dr. Wu is the co-founder and CSO of Full Circles Therapeutics, where he is dedicated to developing curative gene editing based gene/cell therapy. He is responsible for generating revenue through collaboration with MNC and biotech partners. Before founding Full Circles Therapeutics,  Dr. Wu was leading multiple discovery biology programs and disease prioritization in the genetic disease space at Fulcrum Therapeutics Inc. (NASDAQ:FULC), a Cambridge small molecule drug discovery biotech company. He had been with the company through the full development phases starting from the start-up, expansion, until post-IPO development, during which he led a cross-functional team for portfolio disease selection and prioritization of multiple disease programs including neuromuscular disease, cardiac disease, hematological and metabolic diseases, including two major partnership collaborations with MyoKardia and Acceleron.   Before joining Fulcrum, Dr. Wu was a senior research fellow at Whitehead institute, MIT. His research focused on neurological disorders utilizing a combination of CRISPR/Cas9 mediated genomic and epigenomic editing technology and stem cell technology. He did his PhD in Biochemistry and Structural Biology at Hongkong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Bachelor’s degree in Chemistry from Fudan University before he did his postdoctoral research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Howard Hughes Medical Institute. Dr. Wu has more than 40 journal publications, patents, and research and industry grants, including Cell, Nature Biotechnology, Neuron, Science Translational Medicine, Molecular Cell. For his work, he has received fellowship award from human frontier science program (HSFP) and NARSAD young investigator award.  He was also awarded the Alfred Blalock Young Investigator Award from JHMI and President’s award from Whitehead Institute, MIT.