Member Spotlight - Taylor Cohen, PhD

Dr. Cohen is an experienced team leader/builder, with a background in inflammation, innate immunity and host-pathogen interaction. Currently leading efforts to develop novel antibodies for prevention and treatment of COVID-19. Taylor Cohen earned his PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Pennsylvania, following his undergraduate and Masters degrees in Mechanical Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis. He continued at Columbia University where he did a Post-doc with Alice Prince, working on host pathogen interaction in the lung. His work focused on the type III interferon and inflammasome signaling pathways contributed to the pathology following acute bacterial infection. Dr. Cohen joined MedImmune to develop antibodies targeting bacterial pathogens. He also continued to publish, demonstrating how opportunistic bacterial pathogens cooperate to potentiate infection and uncovering a novel mechanism through which a bacterial toxin modifies mitochondrial function to prevent anti-microbial activity in phagocytes. He built a team and lead efforts to utilize the microbiome as an engine to identify and develop novel therapeutics for the treatment of metabolic, renal and cardiovascular diseases, a new area of focus for AstraZeneca. Currently, leading global teams aimed at discovering and developing antibodies able to prevent and treat COVID-19.

• Multiple high impact publications including Nat Med, Science Translational Med, Science Advances
• Built microbiome group within AstraZeneca
• Lead SARS-CoV-2 antibody franchise

Contact: taylor.cohen@astrazeneca.com