Terns Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced the appointment of Kerry Russell, M.D., Ph.D., as chief medical officer. Dr. Russell will report to Erin Quirk, M.D., who remains president and head of research and development. Prior to joining Terns, Dr. Russell was vice president of late clinical development at Dicerna Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (acquired by Novo Nordisk A/S in December 2021), where she led the development of siRNA therapeutics for rare diseases from June 2020 until May 2022.

Before that, she served as vice president of clinical development at resTORbio, Inc. She previously served as senior director of translational cardiovascular and metabolic medicine at Novartis Institute of Biomedical Research and was an NIH-funded associate professor at Yale University School of Medicine for more than 13 years. Dr. Russell received her Ph.D. in molecular oncology from The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center and her M.D. from the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. She completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at Yale New Haven Hospital and both her fellowship in cardiovascular medicine and postdoctoral fellowship in vascular biology at Yale University School of Medicine.

She received her B.S. in biochemistry and biology from Rice University.