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Dr. Felicia Pagliuca joined Vertex in 2019 and is the company's Vice President and Disease Area Executive for Type 1 Diabetes. She is also a member of the Vertex Cell and Genetic Therapies leadership team. In this role, Dr. Pagliuca leads the cross-functional type 1 diabetes disease strategy team and is responsible for driving the strategy and execution of the program. Previously, Dr. Pagliuca co-founded Semma Therapeutics, which was acquired by Vertex in 2019. While at Semma, she served as Vice President of Cell Biology Research and Development, where she led the development of novel cell therapies for the treatment of type 1 diabetes. Prior to Semma, Dr. Pagliuca worked with Dr. Douglas Melton to discover how to generate stem cell-derived pancreatic beta cells, and is one of the inventors of Semma's key technology. Dr. Pagliuca received a B.S. from Duke University and a Ph.D. from Cambridge University where she was a Marshall Scholar. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship with Dr. Melton at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute.