Alonso serves as the chief scientific officer of Mariana Oncology. Before joining Mariana, Alonso was an entrepreneur-in-residence at RA Capital Management.
Prior to this, Alonso was chief technology and innovation officer at Ra Pharma (NASDAQ: RARX) until its acquisition by UCB Pharma. Alonso has more than a decade of drug discovery and development experience leading scientific programs across multiple therapeutic programs including immunology, metabolic diseases, and oncology. While at Ra Pharma, Alonso led the discovery and early development of several experimental drugs, including Zilucoplan an immune modulator peptide currently being evaluated in several Phase 2/3 trials and MK-0616, a first in class, orally available peptide targeting PCSK9. Alonso was formerly a professor at the Universidad de los Andes in Bogota, Colombia, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Fellow at Harvard University. He obtained his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Florida and was a postdoctoral fellow at the Foundation for Applied Molecular Evolution, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University.