During a few industry internships as part of my undergraduate studies, I discovered that I could use my skills as a chemist to help generate novel treatment options for patients. Consequently, I focused on synthetic organic chemistry for both my PhD with Prof. Johann Mulzer in Vienna, Austria and my postdoctoral work with Prof. Steven V. Ley in Cambridge, UK. Following my original passion, I then started to work with Novartis as a Medicinal Chemist, a role that still continues to challenge me some 19 years later.
During my career, I have worked on multiple Hit-to-Lead and Lead Optimization programs across target classes and indications. For several of these medium to large multi-disciplinary teams, I was fortunate enough to serve as a chemistry project leader and to help with the identification of development candidates.
These days, I enjoy mentoring, coaching, and developing junior investigators, students, and lab associates in addition to my scientific responsibilities. I have always been very keen on scientific exchange at conferences and over the years, I have developed a preference for smaller, high quality events with more opportunity for interpersonal exchange.
This was one of my key motivations to create the Alpine Winter Conference series together with Antonia and Karl Heinz. The overwhelming feedback we receive encourages me to strive for an excellent program for every new event.