Drug Discovery & Development 2021

Dr. Yamina A. Berchiche is the founder of Dr. GPCR, an ecosystem designed to bring together stakeholders interested in using G-Protein Coupled Receptors (GPCRs), that control virtually everything in the body, as drug targets. The mission of Dr. GPCR is to accelerate GPCR drug discovery by sharing the latest research and technology advances in the field and provide exposure to scientists through the Dr. GPCR podcast. Dr. Berchiche obtained her Master’s and Ph.D. in Biochemistry at the University of Montreal in Canada before training at The Rockefeller University in New York and the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. She developed expertise over the past 2 decades studying structure/function relationships of GPCRs using live cell bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET). Her work focused on chemokine receptors, members of the GPCR family that control cell movement in the body.

As a recruiter with over 20 years of professional and executive search industry experience, Don Alexander has spent more than 16 years focusing exclusively on talent acquisition and recruiting, nationwide, for seasoned professionals in the Life Sciences sector (Biotechnology, Pharmaceutical, Medical Device, Diagnostics and supporting Services and Tools). He has successfully completed hundreds of recruitment projects that involved senior level individual contributors through C level executives, with particular emphasis on sales, business development, marketing, product development, project management and pre-clinical R&D. Throughout his recruiting career, Don has finished in the top 10% and consistently finished in the top 25% of his peer group, as ranked by revenues. An enabler of relationships that have resulted in quantifiable goodwill for his constituency, he is recognized by clients, candidates, and colleagues for routinely creating value through a robust network and deep industry perspective. Prior to working at the intersection of Life Sciences and recruiting, Don spent the first years of his career in the financial sector managing millions of dollars in assets. This uncommon background, and breadth of business knowledge, enables Don to understand the recruitment process in a much larger context than just the placement of a single individual. It’s about a business investing in its growth—and mitigating risks. In addition to actively volunteering to help others, he enjoys rooting for NCSU, reading, investing, traveling and playing guitar. He even played “Stairway to Heaven” in his high school band but that was a while ago.

Keith has worked in the Pharmaceutical industry for over 25 years, with experience in large Pharma, Biotech and the contract services sector. He has held positions of both scientific, project and people leadership, with experience across the drug development pipeline, from HTS to through to early clinical development support, including biomarker and translational science studies.

Jason Frazier is the Director of Scientific Operations for Presage Biosciences, a Phase 0 clinical research organization.  He oversees Presage’s testing lab and preclinical research lab operations in support of partner sponsored clinical and preclinical research.  He has spent the past ten years at Presage working to develop and expand the novel CIVO micro-dosing platform as well as implementing new assay technologies to assess biological responses in CIVO micro-dosed patient tumor studies.  Prior to joining Presage, he worked as a scientist at Targeted Growth and at Rosetta Inpharmatics/Merck Research Laboratories working on development of a lentiviral shRNA High Throughput Screening platform for Merck biomarker and target discovery efforts.

Roger Hayes, PhD, is the Vice President of Bioanalytical Services with the ICON Laboratory Services group. Roger joined ICON (Dublin, Ireland) in December of 2018. In this role, Roger holds overall management responsibility for our bioanalytical laboratory in Whitesboro, New York supporting pharmacokinetic, pharmacodynamic, immunogenicity and biomarker assays for large- and small-molecule drug development. Dr Hayes has held numerous leadership positions in the global life sciences industry and academia, leading teams in the development of state-of-the-art bioanalytical and analytical techniques, including mass spectrometry, chromatography, immunology and automation in bringing medical and chemical products to market. For nearly two decades, he led strategic and research initiatives for large pharmaceutical companies that included both GLP and non-GLP preclinical studies as well as clinical trials.

As VP of Nonclinical Sciences, Joseph Senn oversees all nonclinical development, Toxicology, pathology, DMPK, Clinical pharmacology and in vivo pharmacology, across Moderna and its ventures. Prior to joining Moderna, Dr. Senn was director and site head for Drug Safety Evaluation and therapeutic area lead for immunology at Takeda Pharmaceuticals.  . Dr. Senn is a board certified toxicologist who received his PhD in Pharmacology and Physiology from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.  He has held joint faculty positions at the Medical University of South Carolina as assistant professor of pediatrics and pharmacology prior to entering industry.  In industry, his focus has been on immunotoxicology, investigative, discovery and development toxicology.  Over his time in industry he has supported the development of programs in a wide range of therapeutic areas including immune modulators, oncology, neurology, inflammatory and infectious diseases.  He has led multiple regulatory filings for modalities ranging from small molecules, biologics and antibody drug conjugates and most recently modified messenger RNA.

Dr. Juan José Fung is a Principal Scientist at GPCR Therapeutics, Inc, a drug discovery company focused on targeting GPCR heteromers in cancer, located in Seoul, Korea. Dr. Fung received his Ph.D. from the Stanford University School of Medicine under the mentorship of Dr. Brian Kobilka, studying dimerization of GPCRs. Dr. Fung continued his Postdoctoral training in Dr. Kobilka’s lab contributing to the elucidation of high-resolution structures of GPCRs. Dr. Fung has spent significant time in industry studying membrane proteins, antibodies and HTS methods for drug discovery. His current work is mainly focused on assay development to bridge the gap between in vitro and in vivo GPCR pharmacology.

Aarti Kawatkar was trained as an organic chemist, obtaining her M.S. from the University of Georgia at Athens in 2005 with Prof. Geert-Jan Boons. She started her industrial career as a medicinal chemist at Vertex, and in 2008, she moved to AstraZeneca as a lead chemist in both oncology and the fragment based lead generation group contributing to the discovery of several clinical candidates. In 2013 she joined AstraZeneca’s newly created Chemical Biology group, focusing on small molecule target deconvolution and target engagement, supporting multiple drug discovery projects at different stages from hit identification to lead optimization to clinical candidates selection. In the chemical biology group, Aarti has championed the application of the CEllular Thermal Shift Assay (CETSA) and in-cell Chemoproteomics to measure cellular target engagement and target validation for multipass transmembrane protein receptors. Aarti’s efforts in studying difficult targets was recognized in 2017 with AstraZeneca’s Breakthrough Scientist of the Year award for "Innovative techniques for profiling target engagement and selectivity for multipass transmembarne proteins".  Again in 2020, she was awarded for finding the target of a small molecule modulator of inflammation.

Dr. Mark Kiel is Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer at Genomenon, where he oversees the company's scientific direction and product development. After spending 15 years preparing for a life of academic research, Mark became convinced that revolutionary change in genomics was more likely to emerge out of industry. In 2014, he founded Genomenon - an A.I.-driven life science company addressing the challenge of connecting pharma researchers with evidence in the literature to help diagnose and treat patients with genetic diseases and cancer.

After receiving his PhD on membrane biology and biophysics, Dr. Christian Klose did a post-doc on mass spectrometry-based lipidomics. In his role as CTO, Christian focusses on the development of novel shotgun lipidomics technology and is responsible for product development and regulatory affairs.

Steven Anderson is senior vice president and chief scientific officer for Covance Drug Development. He has worked for LabCorp for 30 years and has held a variety of positions, including director of operations for ViroMed Laboratories, director of operations for Monogram Biosciences, director of operations for the Center for Molecular Biology and Pathology, director of operations for Integrated Oncology and Integrated Genetics, national director of research and development, and global head of LabCorp Clinical Trials.  His research interests include Molecular Pathology and Oncology based biomarkers, and that work has resulted in the development and validation of multiple companion diagnostics and pharmacogenomic assays in clinical use today. He holds a doctorate in genetics from Iowa State University and was an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellow at the Waksman Institute of Microbiology at Rutgers University.

Dave Mason is a Technical Specialist in Image Analysis supporting Visiopharm’s UK and European Sales team. Trained as a Cell Biologist and Microbiologist he has spent over a decade in Academia specializing in Light Microscopy and Digital Image Analysis.

Rouba Najjar is has worked in the Biotech industry for 10+ years. Currently responsible for GenScript's Gene Editing and Molecular Biology products, acting as the voice of customer. Before joining GenScript, Rouba held various roles with a focus on automated solutions including Product Manager at Hamilton Robotics and Automation Team Lead at Baylor College of Medicine.

Dr. Reid Olsen is the head of GPCR Pharmacology at Exscientia Ltd. (Exscientia.ai), an AI-driven drug discovery biotechnology in Oxford, England. Dr. Olsen received his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill under the mentorship of Dr. Bryan Roth. Dr. Olsen’s research spans multiple domains within pharmacology and neurobiology, but has been primarily focused on the development of biological tools for the study of GPCR signaling in vitro and in vivo.

Joseph Pearson is the Global Product Manager for QIAGEN OmicSoft products, which enable scientists to harness the breadth of deeply-curated ‘omics data to accelerate biomarker and target discovery research. Prior to joining QIAGEN, he earned his Ph.D at the University of California, San Diego, where he used computational and experimental approaches to decipher cis­-regulatory codes controlling epidermal wound responses in Drosophila. During his post-doctoral research at University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, Dr. Pearson continued to explore the diversity of cis­-regulatory mechanisms, using genomics, transgenics, microscopy, and bioinformatics to isolate and dissect enhancers responsible for early nervous system gene expression.

Professor Pfleger is Director, Biomedical Innovation at The University of Western Australia (UWA) and the MTPConnect Western Australian Life Sciences Innovation Hub. He is also Head of Molecular Endocrinology and Pharmacology at the UWA Centre for Medical Research and Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research, Deputy Director of the Australian Research Council Centre for Personalised Therapeutics Technologies, Chief Scientific Advisor to Dimerix and co-founder of RAGE Biotech. Professor Pfleger currently serves on the Board of the Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists and is a member of the British Pharmacological Society International Advisory Group. Professor Pfleger has developed extensive expertise in profiling receptor binding and function at the molecular and cellular levels over the last 20 years, particularly involving G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). He also has globally-recognised expertise in the bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) technology, including his patented Receptor-Heteromer Investigation Technology (Receptor-HIT) for studying heteromers.

Dr. Marsha Pierce is an assistant professor at Midwestern University where she studies the role of oxytocin analogs in cellular signaling and neuronal morphology and marine natural products in neuroscience drug development. Dr. Pierce received her BS in biology and MS and PhD in biomedical sciences at Creighton University. Her postdoctoral research examined the role of natural variation in oxytocin and vasopressin ligands and receptors on pharmacological signaling profiles under the mentorship of Thomas Murray at Creighton University.

Dr Roche has a Degree and PhD from Trinity College Dublin and has since accumulated 20 years experience within the clinical trials industry with particular focus on the intricacies of biomarkers, associated laboratory methods and their ability to facilitate an efficient and accurate assessment of the clinical safety and efficacy of therapeutics moving through clinical trials.

Cynthia Rohde is currently an Associate Research Fellow in the Drug Safety Research and Development department at Pfizer, Inc. She been a drug development research scientist in the pharmaceutical industry for over 13 years with experience across various therapeutic areas and modalities, but is current focusing on Oncology therapies and Vaccines. Cynthia received her PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and is a Diplomate of the American Board of Toxicology.

Nishant Saxena is a product manager for protein and antibody purification portfolio in GenScript USA Inc. He has multiple years of lab experience in protein and antibody purification with a special focus on monoclonal antibody production using hybridoma technology. In this talk, he will present a newly designed automated protein and antibody purification platform, developed by GenScript, that is based on magnetic beads technology. Nishant holds a Ph.D. degree from Tsukuba University in Japan with double masters in biotechnology and nanotechnology.

Cindy Spittle is the Vice President of Scientific Affairs within the ICON Laboratory Services group. Dr. Spittle has over 30 years of experience in translational and clinical oncology biomarker research, diagnostic assay development and biomarker strategy for clinical drug development. She provides strategic scientific leadership related to the evaluation and implementation of new technologies and laboratory testing services.

Sarah Warren is the Senior Director of Translational Science at NanoString Technologies where she leverages multiplexed, molecular profiling technologies to address key research areas in oncology, immunology, and beyond. Her role enables her to work with academics, biopharmas, and clinicians to identify unmet needs in translational research and create novel products for transcriptional and proteomic profiling. She is also active in the immuno-oncology research community to promote the science and application of cancer immunotherapy to improve patient outcomes. Prior to joining NanoString, she was a founder and director of research at Oncofactor Corp., a Seattle biotech startup focused on developing therapeutics which targeted novel immune checkpoints. She has a PhD in immunology from the University of Washington and performed her graduate work at the Institute for Systems Biology.

Ajay Yekkirala is a co-founder of Blue Therapeutics, a platform company focused on utilizing the power of receptor-interactomicsTM to develop novel therapies.  He is the co-inventor of Blue’s core technology and has over 15 years of experience in GPCR and ion channel drug discovery and development. Ajay completed his doctoral studies with ACS hall of fame chemist, Dr. Philip Portoghese, at the University of Minnesota and postdoctoral training under renowned pain neurobiologist Clifford Woolf at Harvard. He has authored several papers published in high-impact, peer-reviewed journals, including book chapters and invited reviews. He is also a recipient of the Bacaner Research Award from the Minnesota Medical Foundation.

Currently responsible at GenScript for cell biology products development and management. Before joining GenScript, I had 10+ years’ research experience in disease mechanism and drug development in a wide range of fields including leukemia, and mechanism research of metabolism and reproductive endocrinology.