ProQR names new AI chief and adds Hugging Face co-founder to board

ProQR Therapeutics N.V. (Nasdaq: PRQR) announced the appointment of Chris Hart, PhD, as Chief Data and AI Officer and Thomas Wolf, PhD, as a strategic AI advisor to its board of directors, the company said in a statement dated Sept. 23, 2026.

Hart most recently served as Vice President of Data Science and AI/ML in the Genetic Medicines team at Eli Lilly and Company. He previously founded Creyon Bio and spent seven years at Ionis Pharmaceuticals, where he led the company's functional genomics group. He holds a PhD from the California Institute of Technology and completed postdoctoral training at Yale University.

Wolf is co-founder and Chief Science Officer of Hugging Face, which Nvidia recently agreed to acquire for $12.9 billion. In his board role, Wolf will advise on technology strategy and the scaling of AI across ProQR's Axiomer RNA editing platform.

ProQR said its AI-enabled discovery process led to AX-0811, which achieved approximately 60% editing efficiency in humanized models, roughly six times higher than its predecessor AX-0810. The company said discovery timelines for the candidate were reduced from approximately three years to approximately three months.

AX-0811 is currently in clinical testing, with target engagement data from the first two cohorts expected in early January 2027. A second AI-identified program, AX-2911, targeting PNPLA3-associated MASH, is expected to enter clinical development in the coming months. ProQR also has AX-0422 for MPS I Hurler syndrome advancing toward the clinic.

The company said it expects up to five clinical data readouts over the next 12 months across four development programs. ProQR's partnership with Ginkgo Bioworks supports data generation through autonomous laboratories to accelerate AI model training.

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