Akunna Iheanacho

Research Interests

Akunna Iheanacho, Ph.D. is the Director of Research and Development at Texcell – North America, Inc. where she supports novel assay and process development for viral clearance studies. She serves as a subject matter expert in the purification, recovery, and formulation of proteins, biologics, and gene therapies. Prior to joining Texcell, Dr. Iheanacho was a Senior Scientist at Paragon Bioservices, Inc., where she supported global therapeutic innovations and helped translate scientific discoveries into new pharmaceutical products and technologies. While at Paragon, she made significant contributions in transitioning projects from basic science discovery to GMP-ready processes by establishing critical process parameters and quality attributes for vaccines, AAV gene therapies, and reagents for diagnostics. During her graduate studies, she employed biochemical and biophysical techniques in her structural and functional characterization of proteins dysregulated in cancer and type II diabetes. Dr. Iheanacho received her Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Physiology from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, M.S. in Chemistry from the University of Virginia, and B.S. in Biology from Oakwood University in Huntsville, AL.