Ona Miller

Ona Miller joined Flagship Pioneering as an Associate in 2023 working with Origination Partner Kyle Chiang, where she focuses on venture creation for the team led by Ignacio Martinez. Ona works closely with a diverse team of entrepreneurial scientists to explore novel biological applications and advance Flagship’s early-stage biotechnology ventures by contributing to the definition of scientific vision, business strategy, and intellectual property.

Ona brings expertise in structural biology and biochemistry, and prior to joining Flagship, held multiple positions in small biotechnology companies focused on developing therapeutics in oncology and auto-immunity. She supported multiple rounds of financing from Series A through IPO at Pyxis Oncology, where she engineered the lead molecule against KLRG1 to support its successful IND application. Ona also served as program co-lead at Seeker Biologics, and later as both the first operational hire and Project Manager at TigaTx. Prior to joining Pyxis Oncology, Ona trained as a post-doctoral fellow under the mentorship of Professor Michael S. Gilmore at Harvard Medical School where she focused on the characterization of surface polysaccharides in vancomycin-resistant enterococci.

Ona earned her Ph.D. under the guidance of Dr. Ulrich Schwarz-Linek performing foundational studies to structurally and functionally characterize bacterial ‘TIE proteins’ – a class of proteins capable of forming autocatalytic intramolecular covalent bonds, the chemistry for which serves as the basis for multiple biochemical tools prolific within drug discovery (such as Spy-tagging). Her work has been featured in journals such as Nature and e-Life, and has been presented internationally through invited seminars and conferences.

Ona holds a Ph.D. in Biochemistry and B.Sc. in Molecular Biology (First Class Honours) from the University of St Andrews.