Stephen A. Scaringe, Ph.D., was the founder and CEO of the biotechnology company, Dharmacon, Inc. Dharmacon was a technology leader in the synthesis of RNA and RNA interference technology. Dr. Scaringe started Dharmacon in 1995 and built the company to 90+ employees with annual revenues over $15 million, before selling the company to Fisher Scientific (now Thermo Fisher) in 2004. Prior to Dharmacon, Dr. Scaringe earned his doctorate degree at the University of Colorado at Boulder, during which time he invented the RNA synthesis technology later commercialized at Dharmacon. During graduate school, Dr. Scaringe also consulted with a number of biotechnology companies, such as Ribozyme Pharmaceuticals, Pharmacia, and Monomer Sciences on a variety of RNA synthesis issues and applications. Prior to graduate school, Dr. Scaringe received BS degrees in both biology and chemistry from MIT. He was also a research assistant at MIT, where he managed a facility-wide oligonucleotide synthesis service, which later grew into the central facility for the MIT Cancer Center.
Founder
Dharmacon
