Jean-Daniel Brion is currently Professor of Medicinal Chemistry at the School of Pharmacy of the University Paris-Sud (Châtenay-Malabry) and mission head at the Institute of Chemistry of CNRS sincel four years. As pharmacist, he defended his PhD thesis in Medicinal chemistry in 1978, then passed the Aggregation of Pharmacy in 1983. In the same year, he was appointed as Full Professor at the university of Nantes. From 1989 to 1995, he was director of a medicinal chemistry division at Servier Research Institute at Suresnes (near Paris).

In 1995, Jean-Daniel Brion was appointed as Full Professor at the University of Paris-Sud. From 1998 to 2007, he was head of a joint research centre of CNRS (UMR CNRS 8076 BioCIS) at the Paris-Sud University. The activity of this unit is essentially centered on chemistry in natural products, new methodology development in organic and organometallic synthesis and medicinal chemistry. In recent years, he was appointed as director of the Federative Institute of Research (IPSIT, Institute Paris-South of Therapeutic Innovation) at the University of Paris-Sud, which gathers more than five hundred scientists, among them, there are chemists, biologists, clinicians and engineers.

Jean-Daniel Brion and Mouad Alami team is a member of research unity UMR 8076 BioCIS and a member of the Laboratory of Excellence in Research on Medication and Innovative Therapeutics (LabEx LERMIT) and it consists of more than twenty scientists.
Their group is involved in the design, synthesis, and evaluation of biologically active agents. Current therapeutic areas include mainly cancer, but also pulmonary arterial hypertension, epilepsy and neurodegenerative diseases. These projects require the development of synthetic methods and structure-activity studies aimed at improving the therapeutic efficacy of lead compounds, including natural products and hits from high throughput screening.

J.-D. Brion is the co-author of more than 200 scientific publications in peer-reviewed journals and co-inventor of 20 patents. He was also a co-author in the series of the handbook of Medicinal chemistry (AFECT, 7 volumes). He is also a member of the National Academy of Pharmacy and Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite.

Bernhard Kuster is a chemist by training and obtained is PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Oxford. He went on to do a PostDoc funded by an EMBO long-term fellowship at the EMBL in Heidelberg and the University of Southern Denmark in Odense. After seven years at the biotech firm Cellzome, he became full professor of Proteomics at the Technische Universität München in 2007 where he is also the Chair of the Department for Biosciences and Co-Director of the Bavarian Biomolecular Mass Spectrometry Center. Bernhard’s research focuses on mass spectrometry based proteomics and its application to chemical and systems biology.

Andrew Zhang is a Senior Scientist in Chemical Biology within Discovery Sciences at AstraZeneca R&D Waltham.
His research field of interest is target deconvolution, using chemoproteomics as a primary method for identifying targets, profiling selectivity, and confirming engagement. Previously, he has conducted research at the interface between small molecules and antibodies, on small molecule immunomodulators as well as antibody-drug conjugates.
He obtained his Bachelors of Science at the University of California, Berkeley, and conducted PhD training with Professor David Spiegel at Yale University.
Prior to joining AstraZeneca, he spent one year in the Drug Discovery Program at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (Toronto, Canada) as a postdoctoral fellow.

Edward Tate is Professor of Chemical Biology in the Department of Chemistry at Imperial College London. He completed his Ph.D. in organic chemistry at the University of Cambridge in the group of Prof. Steve Ley.
Following postdoctoral research in chemistry and biology on an 1851 Research Fellowship at Ecole Polytechnique and the Pasteur Institute in Paris, he moved to Imperial College London where he now leads a team of more than 40 scientists working on the design and application of chemical approaches to understand and manipulate living systems, with a particular focus on drug target discovery and validation.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Societies of Chemistry (FRSC) and of Biology (FRSB), and received the 2012 Wain Medal, the 2013 MedImmune Protein and Peptide Science Award, and the 2014 Norman Heatley Award in recognition of his group’s research in chemical biology and drug discovery.

Minoru Yoshida is Chief Scientist at RIKEN. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Tokyo in 1986, where he started mode of action studies of natural products. He identified histone dacetylase and Crm1 exportin 1 as the specific targets of trichostatin A (TSA) and leptomycin B (LMB), respectively, which greatly contributed to the field of epigenetics and nuclear transport.
After he was promoted to Associate Professor in 1995 in the University of Tokyo, he moved to RIKEN and started the Chemical Genetics Laboratory as Chief Scientist in 2002.
In 2013, he was also appointed as Group Director, Chemical Genomics Research Group at RIKEN CSRS. At RIKEN, he identified spliceostatin, the first inhibitor of pre-mRNA splicing, and many other unique compounds.
His major interest is the interface between chemistry and biology.

In 1990 Alan joined Pfizer after completing his doctoral research with Ernie Colvin at the University of Glasgow.
He has worked as a medicinal chemist for over 25 years and has been involved in the discovery of multiple clinical development candidates across several therapeutic areas including pain, cardiovascular, allergy and respiratory, urogenital and sexual health and has also been involved in the discovery of candidates in several non-traditional areas of chemistry such as synthetic vaccines.
From 2011 to 2016 Alan was Head of Chemistry for Pfizer's Pain and sensory Disorders Research unit in Cambridge, UK.
Following the closure of that site earlier this year Alan has taken up the position of Director of Chemistry at Stratified Medical in London.

Dr. Sven Kühnert is heading the department of Drug Discovery Technologies at Grünenthal GmbH since August 2015, being responsible for parallel synthesis, compound management, compound characterization, molecular modeling and discovery informatics.
In the previous 13 years he has worked as Medicinal Chemist and Research Project Leader on various targets mainly GPCRs and Ion-channels from the field of pain and inflammation.
His experience includes steering of contract research organizations and leading IT projects. He has more than 50 scientific publications and patents/applications pending.
He studied chemistry at the Eberhard Karls University in Tübingen, Germany, from where he also received a PhD in natural product synthesis in 2002.

Current: Chief Scientific Officer and Executive Director, Oncodesign S.A., Dijon, France Research Field: Drug Discovery, kinase inhibition, macrocyclic chemistry, oncology, CNS, autoimmune diseases

Previous: - GNI Ltd., External Director, Tokyo, Japan - Johnson & Johnson, VP Europe Medicinal Chemistry and enabling technologies, Beerse, Belgium - AstraZeneca, VP Enabling Sciences and Technologies, Gothenburg, Sweden - Astra, Director Structural Chemistry Laboratory, Gothenburg, Sweden - Novartis, Head Structural Biology and molecular modeling, Basel, Switzerland - Marion Merrell Dow Research Laboratories, Research Scientist computational chemistry, Strasbourg, France

Education: PhD. Organic Chemistry, State University Ghent, Belgium

Santiago Rivera. Director of research at CNRS. Team leader at UMR7259 NICN, Marseille, France. Research field. Neuroscience and Alzheimer’s disease. Education
• 1990. Ph. D. Neuroscience. University of Barcelona.
• 1987. MSc Biochemistry and Physiology. University of Barcelona. Former professional experience
• 1999 - 2010. Researcher at CNRS and team leader.
• 1994 - 1998. Research associate, U29 Inserm, Paris.
• 1990 - 1994 Research associate, University of California, Irvine, USA

Dr Jean-Claude Ortuno, Scientific Director in charge of Exploratory Projects since 2015 in Chemistry Pole of Expertise, Institut de Recherches Servier, Suresnes France.
He obtained a PhD degree in Organic Chemistry in 1991 from Université d’Orsay (ParisXI) under the supervision of Prof Y. Langlois at the Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles Gyf sur Yvette and joined the Université Catholique de Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium as a Postdoctoral Researcher in the group of Prof. L. Ghosez.
He joined Les Laboratoires Fournier in 1993 where he was involved in cardiovascular projects. In the last 18 years at the Institut de Recherches Servier as a Medicinal Chemist then as a Division Director, he was involved in different therapeutic areas in particular Oncology and CNS.

Pascal Furet
28 year experience as molecular modeller in the pharmaceutical industry (Ciba and Novartis- Basel) covering more than 30 research projects (enzyme, receptor and protein-protein interaction projects). Around 230 papers and patents published. Key contributions to marketed drugs Diovan®, Femara®, Tasigna® and clinical compounds (kinase inhibitors: Abl, EGF-R, VEGF, FGF-R, PI3K-mTOR and PPI inhibitors p53-MDM2).

CAREER HISTORY

• Since 2005: senior research investigator and now director in the global CADD (Computer-Assisted Drug Design) group of Novartis.
• 1997-2004: Lab head (molecular modeling and design) in the oncology research department of Novartis.
• During 1996: CAMM expertise coordinator in the core technologies department of Ciba.
• 1988-1995: research scientist in the CAMM (Computer-Assisted-Molecular Modeling) group of the pharma division of Ciba (Basel).
• Postdoctoral year during 1987 in molecular modelling (Ciba-Geigy. Basel)
• Teaching assistant in the chemistry department of the University of Houston (USA) during 1983-1985.
• Research work in synthetic organic chemistry in the petrochemical division of Rhône-Poulenc (Lyon) during 1982.

AWARDS

• American Chemical Society " Heroes of Chemistry" award (2000) for the discovery of the cardiovascular drug Diovan®
• Novartis "Leading Scientist" award (2000)
• Recipient of the first "Dolphin Prize" for scientific excellence of the Pharma Division of Ciba (1995).

DIPLOMA

• Ph.D. in Theoretical Chemistry-Chemical Physics (University of Houston-USA).
• Master degree in industrial chemistry (with emphasis on organic chemistry)-École Supérieure de Chimie Industrielle de Lyon (France).

EDUCATION HISTORY

• 1976: Baccalauréat-Scientific Option ("mention bien").
• 1976/1979: Classes de Mathématiques Supérieures et Spéciales- Lycée Châteaubriand (Rennes, France).
• 1979/1982: École Supérieure de Chimie Industrielle de Lyon.
• 1982/1985: Ph.D. program in theoretical chemistry-chemical physics of the University of Houston (USA).

James R. Henry, Ph.D, obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from Virginia Tech before earning his Doctoral degree from The Pennsylvania State University.
Following a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of Rochester, he joined the RW Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute as a medicinal chemist.
For the last 16 years, he has been in the Discovery Chemistry Department at Eli Lilly and Company where he currently holds the position of Research Fellow working primarily in oncology research.

Alain Wagner obtained his PhD in synthetic chemistry at the University of Strasbourg in 1991. During his post-doctoral training in a start-up of the Silicon Valley (Affymax, 1991-1994) he got interested in the promising domains of catalytic antibodies and combinatorial synthesis. Alain Wagner joined CNRS in 1994 to develop projects involving solid phase chemistry, combinatorial screening and medicinal chemistry. Between 2002 and 2008 Alain took a 5 years sabbatical to found and lead Novalyst Discovery SAS a chemical technology-based company. In 2008 Alain resigned from Novalix to return to academia and found the team of Functional ChemoSystem with the objective of investigating the possibilities offered by controlling exogenous chemistry in living organisms. In 2014 Alain participated in the creation of Syndivia SAS a start-up that ambition to become a key technology provider in the field of Antibody Drug Conjugates (ADC). Altogether Alain Wagner published more than 130 articles in peer-reviewed journals, he is an inventor of 17 patents and founder of 4 start-ups. He directed 18 PhD's and supervised more than 20 post-docs. Alain Wagner is currently Research Director 1st class at CNRS, Vice Director of LabEx MEDALIS and UMR 7199. He is member of the CoNRS section 16, and member of the scientific advisory board of eNovalys SAS, Inoviem SAS and Syndivia SAS.