Romas Kudirka
Vice President - Antibody Drug Conjugates Ridge Biotechnologies, Inc.
Romas Kudirka is Vice President of ADCs at Ridge Bio, where he leads strategy and platform innovation for next‑generation antibody–drug conjugates. He previously served as Head of ADCs at Santa Ana Bio and spent six years at Bolt Biotherapeutics, advancing from Senior Scientist to Director of Chemistry & Bioconjugation. Earlier in his career, Romas contributed to foundational ADC technologies at Redwood Bioscience and Catalent, inventing multiple patented bioconjugation methods and engineering novel linker systems that advanced clinical candidates. With deep expertise in chemistry, linker design, and payload optimization, he has played a pivotal role in shaping modern ADC development.
Seminars
- Leveraging site-selective enzymatic conjugation platforms that recognize native peptide motifs to achieve precise, uniform drug attachment, resulting in ADCs with minimized reduced pre‑tumoral payload loss
- Understanding improvements in enhanced stability over maleimides, to overcome the instability and premature payload release associated with traditional maleimides, increasing in vivo linker durability and lowered systemic toxicity
- Expanding enzymatic conjugation repertoires capable of installing tunable, stimuli-responsive cleavage motifs to fine‑tune payload liberation, enabling highly controlled, tumor-selective drug release
