Confirmed Speakers

Dr. Crews is the John C. Malone Professor of MCDB and professor of Chemistry and Pharmacology at Yale University. He graduated from the U. Virginia with a B.A. in Chemistry and received his Ph.D. from Harvard University in Biochemistry. On the faculty at Yale since 1995, his laboratory has developed the use of small molecules to control intracellular protein levels. In 2003, he co-founded Proteolix, Inc., whose proteasome inhibitor, Kyprolis™ received FDA approval for the treatment of multiple myeloma. Dr. Crews’ lab is also credited with founding the field of ‘Targeted Protein Degradation’ drug development technology, i.e., PROTACs, which has the potential to target currently ‘undruggable’ disease causing proteins. Dr. Crews has launched the New Haven-based biotech ventures, Arvinas, Halda Therapeutics, and Siduma.

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Laura Kiessling is an institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, a member of Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT, and the Novartis Professor of Chemistry at MIT. Prior to MIT, she was the Laurens Anderson Professor of Biochemistry and the Hilldale Professor of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin, where she also directed the Keck Center for Chemical Genomics. She has received a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (1998) and a Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship (2008). In 2018, Kiessling was the first woman to receive the Tetrahedron Award. Kiessling is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2003), a Member of the American Academy of Microbiology (2007), the American Philosophical Society (2017), the National Academy of Sciences (2007) and the National Academy of Medicine (2022).

Kiessling began her undergraduate studies at UW-Madison but transferred to MIT after spring break trip to Boston, because she saw so many women excelling in science there. She earned her BS in Chemistry from MIT where she carried out research into asymmetric organic transformations with Professor Bill Roush. She followed her interest in organic synthesis to Yale, where she worked in the group of Stuart Schreiber. Her graduate research laid the foundation for the group’s synthesis of the ene-diyne core natural product calicheamicin γ, a DNA-cleaving compound with anticancer activity. She postulated that the sugars of this natural product were critical for DNA recognition, a hypothesis that was later borne out in subsequent research by the Danishefsky and Kahne groups. Kiessling’s interest in DNA recognition led her to postdoctoral studies at Caltech with Peter Dervan. There she synthesized the first non-natural bases to recognize mixed DNA sequences via triple helix formation.

Kiessling’s graduate and postdoctoral studies sparked an interest in understanding the recognition mechanisms of glycans. Because individual protein-glycan interactions are weak (Kd 10-3 M), she sought to understand and leverage multivalency to explore these processes. She recognized that defined multivalent ligands could serve as mechanistic probes and leads. Her approach to generate such ligands was to use controlled living polymerizations, such as the ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP). Indeed, she was the first to use ROMP to synthesize bioactive polymers. She also pioneered the concept of “post-polymerization modification” to generate a series of polymers whose activities can be compared directly.

Kiessling used her access to synthetic ligands to show that low affinity, multivalent binding interactions can be remarkably specific. She also showed that multivalent ligands generated through this method could mimic mucins, and she generated the most potent ligands known for L-selectin, a protein involved in the inflammatory/immune response. These ligands functioned by recruiting an endogenous cell surface protease—an early demonstration that protease recruitment can downregulate a protein and the first example on the cell surface.

Kiessling studies of multivalent recognition led her to introduce the concept of using bifunctional ligand to recruit natural antibodies to cells for destruction of tumor cells. In addition, she has shown that viruslike particles can be adorned with glycans to deliver antigens to dendritic cells. The result is an anticancer (Th2) immune response. In summary, Kiessling’s interdisciplinary research has elucidated and exploited the mechanisms of cell surface recognition processes. She has pioneered the synthesis of multiple types of molecular arrays and used them to elucidate the principles underlying multivalent interactions. She leveraged these findings to achieve cell specific recognition, elicit and illuminate mechanisms underlying signal transduction. Her recent studies focus on understanding the role of multivalent lectins in cell recognition.

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Klaus Urbahns is Head of Discovery and Development Technologies at EMD Serono. Based in Billerica MA, Klaus is working with his team to discover new small molecule drugs and protein therapeutics in the area of oncology and immunology. Klaus is a chemist by training and worked previously at Bayer and AstraZeneca.

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Giulia Bergonzini is an Associate Principal Scientist at Early CVRM Medicinal Chemistry R&D BioPharmaceuticals, AstraZeneca (Sweden) where she focuses on medicinal chemistry and synthetic organic chemistry with a special interest in visible-light photocatalysis and its application to medicinal chemistry projects. She is currently seconding to Discovery Sciences, where she took on a Director role leading the DNA-Encoded and Compound Collection Libraries team within Compound Synthesis and Management. Giulia obtained her BSc and MSc in chemistry from the University of Bologna (Italy) and her PhD in organic chemistry and catalysis at ICIQ-Institute of Chemical Research of Catalonia (Spain) in 2013 under the supervision of Prof. Paolo Melchiorre. She did a sabbatical at Boston University (USA) under the supervision of Prof. Corey Stephenson and carried out her postdoctoral research at Gothenburg University (Sweden) before joining GSK (UK) as a Process Development Chemist. In 2017 she started her career at AstraZeneca (Sweden) as a Senior Research Scientist. Current academic collaborations include Prof. Burkhard König (University of Regensburg) and Prof. Belén Martín-Matute (Stockholm University).1,2 [1] M. Schmalzbauer et al., Redox-neutral Photocatalytic C–H Carboxylation of Arenes and Styrenes with CO2. Chem 2020, 6, 2658-2672. 2 T. D. Svejstrup et al., Effects of Light Intensity and Reaction Temperature on Photoreactions in Commercial Photoreactors. ChemPhotoChem 2021, 5, 808-814.

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Alessio Ciulli studied chemistry in Florence, Italy, and obtained his PhD from the University of Cambridge, UK, in 2006. After postdoctoral research in Cambridge and a brief visit at Yale University in the USA, he returned to Cambridge in 2009 to start his independent laboratory. In 2013, he moved to the University of Dundee, UK, where he was promoted to full professor in 2016. He has received numerous awards, including most recently the Prous Institute – Overton and Meyer Award for New Technologies in Drug Discovery. He is the scientific founder of Amphista therapeutics, a targeted protein degradation company spin out of his laboratory, and the founder of the University of Dundee’s new Centre for Targeted Protein Degradation which he directs and opened in January 2023.

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Dr Cournia is a Senior Researcher – Associate Professor level at the Biomedical Research Foundation, Academy of Athens, where she works on anticancer drug and materials design using High Performance Computing (http://www.drugdesign.gr). She is currently teaching at the Master’s program “Data Science and Information Technologies” at the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications, National University of Athens. She graduated from the Chemistry Department, University of Athens in 2001 and received her PhD at the University of Heidelberg in Germany in 2006. She then worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the Chemistry Department, Yale University, USA, on computer-aided drug design and in 2009 she became a Lecturer at Yale College. She has served as a member of the Infrastructure Advisory Group (INFRAG) of the European High Performance Computing Joint Undertaking in 2018-2021 and since 2022 she is appointed as the Greek representative in the Innovative Health Initiative Joint Undertaking. She is an Executive Editor at the Journal of Chemical information and Modeling, American Chemical Society and the National representative of Greece in the Division of Computational and Theoretical Chemistry in the European Chemical Society. She is also a member of the EFMC Computational Chemistry Group (EMFC2).

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Chris de Graaf has over 21 years of experience as a computational chemist, of which over 16 years in GPCR drug discovery research. Following a PhD in computational medicinal chemistry and molecular toxicology at VU University Amsterdam, Chris did his postdoc at the University of Strasbourg and AstraZeneca on the development and application of novel GPCR structural modeling and virtual ligand screening techniques. Chris de Graaf then was appointed Assistant Professor in the Department Medicinal Chemistry at VU University Amsterdam to develop and apply computational medicinal chemistry and structural bio/cheminformatics methods to complement medicinal chemistry, pharmacology, biophysics, and structural biology driven GPCR drug discovery research programs. Since 2018 Chris de Graaf is Head of Computational Chemistry at Sosei Heptares, world leader in GPCR Structure-Based Drug Discovery, where he is leading the development and application of bio/cheminformatics and CADD approaches across the GPCRome to help Sosei Heptares advance a broad and deep pipeline of partnered and in-house drug candidates in multiple therapeutic areas. Chris de Graaf is the author of more than 140 scientific publications.

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Dr Maria DUCA is head of Targeting of Nucleic Acids research group in the Institute of Chemistry of Nice (Université Côte d’Azur - CNRS). After undergraduate studies in Pharmacy and Medicinal Chemistry (Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Bologna, Italy), she obtained her PhD in Molecular Biochemistry under the supervision of Dr Paola B. Arimondo (National Natural History Museum, Paris, France) working on topoisomerase II inhibitors. A 2-year post-doctoral training in Sydney Hecht’s lab (Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia, USA) allowed her to pursue the study of nucleic acids working on targeted protein mutagenesis. After CNRS recruitment as a Research Scientist in 2008 and promotion to Director of Research in 2022, her research activities focus on the targeting of non-coding RNAs using synthetic small molecules toward innovative therapeutic approaches for anticancer, antiviral and antimicrobial applications. She has been awarded the Michel Delalande award from the Académie de Pharmacie as well as national and international grants including H2020 grants. She is Associate Editor for RSC Medicinal Chemistry journal, chair of the Chemical Biology Initiative of EFMC as well as vice-president of the French medicinal chemistry society.

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Daniel A. Erlanson is Senior Vice President of Innovation and Discovery at Frontier Medicines. Before that, he co-founded and served as VP of Chemistry for Carmot Therapeutics. Dr. Erlanson received his BA in Chemistry at Carleton College and his PhD in Chemistry at Harvard University in the laboratory of Gregory L. Verdine. He was an NIH postdoctoral fellow with James A. Wells at Genentech. From there he joined Sunesis Pharmaceuticals at its inception and went on to develop fragment-based technologies and to lead medicinal chemistry programs. As well as co-editing two books on fragment-based drug discovery, Dr. Erlanson is editor of Practical Fragments (http://practicalfragments.blogspot.com/).

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Amanda E. Hargrove is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at Duke University. Prof. Hargrove earned her Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Texas at Austin followed by an NIH postdoctoral fellowship at Caltech. Prof. Hargrove’s laboratory at Duke focuses on developing small molecule probes to investigate the structure and function of RNA molecules relevant to human disease. The lab works to understand the fundamental drivers of selective small molecule:RNA recognition and to use this knowledge to functionally modulate viral and oncogenic RNA structures.

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Project Leader (Toxicology) focused on New Modalities at F. HOFFMANN-LA ROCHE AG
Prior to this: Mechanistic Pharmacologist at AstraZeneca & Team Lead at MiNA Therapeutics (saRNAs)
Postdoctoral fellow at ETH Zürich in the group of Jonathan Hall
Doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge in the groups of Shankar Balasubramanian & Eric Miska

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During his MSc at the University of Toulouse and ENSIACET Fabio went on to do a 6-month placement with Prof. Stephen Buchwald at MIT to work on C–N cross-coupling reactions (2013). He then did a PhD with Prof. Steven Ley at the University of Cambridge, UK (2014–2018), where he developed photoredox C–C cross-coupling reactions using boronic acid derivatives. He then completed a Postdoctoral stay with Dr. Joerg Sedelmeier at Novartis to develop new flow chemistry methods to access functionalized heteroarenes and applied these methods to the alternative synthesis on manufacturing scale of INC280 (Capmatinib). Fabio then joined the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research (NIBR) in 2019 to start the Catalysis Lab for Global Discovery Chemistry. Since then, he has built a state-of-the-art high-throughput experimentation (HTE) Chemistry platform focusing on quick methodology development to impact medicinal chemistry projects across the NIBR portfolio. Notably, his laboratory developed workflows and methods to rapidly tackle Cross-Coupling reactions, Asymmetric Hydrogenations, and Carbonylations. Over the years his methodologies enabled the synthesis of challenging targets, efficient SAR explorations and scale-ups, as well as (Micro)libraries campaigns in multiple projects unlocking the access to challenging chemical matter. During his career Fabio co-authored 12 publications and 4 patent applications and is currently involved in academic collaborations with Prof. Paul Knochel and Prof. Marcos Suero, he is also representing Novartis on the advisory board of the Open Reaction Database.

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Deborah Mortensen, Ph.D., is a Scientific Director in Oncology Chemistry West, BMS San Diego. Since joining Celgene (now BMS) in 2000, Deb has worked on a variety of drug discovery programs, in Oncology, Fibrosis and Inflammation therapeutic areas. She has served as Project Team Leader on a number of programs and has contributed to multiple compounds that have advanced into clinical studies. Deb currently oversees a small group of chemists working on multiple programs in the protein degradation field, with efforts in both molecular glue and bifunctional degrader space. Dr. Mortensen holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Illinois.

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Christa Müller studied pharmacy at the University of Tübingen, Germany, and received her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical/Medicinal Chemistry from the same university. After postdoctoral stays with John W. Daly in the Laboratory of Bioorganic Chemistry at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, USA (1989-1990 and 1992), she became Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at Würzburg University in Germany. Since 1998 she is full professor of Pharmaceutical & Medicinal Chemistry at Bonn University and a founder of the Pharma-Center Bonn and the Bonn International Graduate School of Drug Sciences (BIGS DrugS). Her scientific interests are focused on the medicinal chemistry, structural biology, and molecular pharmacology of purine-binding membrane proteins (purine receptors, ectonucleotidases), orphan G protein-coupled receptors and G proteins, and recently also on coronavirus therapeutics. Disease indications include neurodegenerative and inflammatory diseases, cancer, and infections. She has published more than 500 scientific papers and patents in the field of medicinal chemistry and pharmacology. Among a number of awards, she received the Nauta Pharmacochemistry Award for Medicinal Chemistry and Chemical Biology by the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC) in 2018. Since 2021, she acts as Editor-in-Chief of ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science.

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Chris is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry at Scripps Research. His lab’s research focuses on employing chemoproteomic platforms to develop useful small molecules to modulate complex biological processes and illuminate mechanisms of disease, such as cancer and immune conditions. Chris obtained his B.S. in Chemistry at Case Western University in 2007 and his Ph.D. in Chemistry at Yale University in 2013 under the guidance of Professor David Spiegel. He performed postdoctoral work as an American Cancer Society fellow at Scripps Research with Professor Ben Cravatt, and in 2018 he joined the faculty.

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Benika Pinch is a Principal Scientist II at Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, where her research is focused on applying chemical biology to exploratory drug discovery projects. She received her B.A. in Biochemistry and M.S. in Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 2014, and her Ph.D. in Chemical Biology from Harvard University in 2019. At Harvard, she worked in Dr. Nathanael Gray's laboratory characterizing bifunctional kinase degraders and developing covalent chemical probes.

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Justin Rettenmaier is Senior Director and Head of Early Discovery at the Boston-based biotech Jnana Therapeutics, where he leads the Biochemistry, Biophysics, Assay Development, and Data Science functions. While at Jnana, Justin co-invented a ligand discovery technology called RAPID, which is a novel chemoproteomics platform that enables the identification of lead-like small molecule binders to any target of interest inside of a living cell. Jnana is leveraging RAPID to unlock historically difficult-to-drug targets, including transcription factors, molecular scaffolding proteins, and SLC metabolite transporters. Prior to Jnana, Justin completed postdoctoral training in Discovery Biology at the Whitehead Institute with Susan Lindquist. He obtained his PhD in chemical biology working with Jim Wells at UCSF to discover small molecules targeting allosteric sites and protein-protein interfaces.

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Tiago Rodrigues is currently an Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Lisbon. He has published >70 papers in top tier journals, is inventor in 4 patents and leads the DigiChem Lab that focuses on merging machine learning with experimental medicinal chemistry and chemical biology. He is also a co-founder of TargTex SA, an European biotech company developing innovative medicines for Glioblastoma Multiforme.

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Woody Sherman is CEO at Psivant Therapeutics. Prior roles included Chief Computational Scientist at Roivant Sciences, Chief Scientific Officer at Silicon Therapeutics, and Global Head of Applications Science at Schrodinger. Woody received his B.S. in Physical Chemistry and B.A. in Creative Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara where he studied nonlinear optical properties of organic polymers using computational quantum mechanics methods. He completed his Ph.D. at MIT working in Professor Bruce Tidor’s lab where he examined the role of electrostatics in protein-ligand binding and implemented a novel method for optimizing ligand binding specificity. As Global Head of Applications Science at Schrödinger, he led methods development, applications, the deployment of Python-based tools, and modeling services. He also worked closely with Pharma partners on research projects and collaborations. As CSO at Silicon Therapeutics, Woody was responsible for the development of computational methods and deployment in drug discovery projects. As Chief Computational Scientist at Roivant, Woody oversaw the development of the QUAISAR computational platform in addition to leading multiple drug discovery projects. Woody has published over 90 peer-reviewed papers on a broad range of topics.

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Eric Therrien is a Director in the Therapeutics Group at Schrödinger, New York. Since 2016, Eric has been working as a computational medicinal chemist leading efforts in collaborative and internal drug discovery programs with a focus in applying free energy perturbation methods. Before joining Schrödinger, Eric co-founded Molecular Forecaster, a McGill University spinoff company providing computer-aided drug discovery technology and expertise to biotechs and pharma companies. He obtained his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the Université de Montréal in 2005 and conducted post-doctoral research at McGill University in computational chemistry. Eric contributed to a variety of drug discovery programs including oncology, immunology, and neurology and he is co-author of over 30 publications and patents.

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• Vice President, Head of Chemistry, PTC Therapeutics
• 17 Years at PTC developing splicing modifiers as therapeutics (Evrysdi, PTC518)
• Postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University under the direction of Eric Jacobsen
• Doctoral studies in organic chemistry at the University of Wisconsin under the direction of Samuel Gellman

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Christina M. Woo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University, and an affiliate member of the Broad Institute. Christina’s research focuses on the design of chemical approaches to alter post-translational modifications and the signaling outcomes they produce in cells. She obtained a BA in Chemistry from Wellesley College (2008). She obtained her PhD in 2013 from Yale University under the guidance of Professor Seth Herzon as an NSF predoctoral fellow in the synthetic and chemical biology studies of diazofluorene antitumor antibiotics. In 2013, Christina joined the laboratory of Professor Carolyn Bertozzi at the University of California Berkeley as a Jane Coffins Child postdoctoral fellow and continued at Stanford University (2015) as a Burroughs Wellcome Fund postdoctoral fellow, where she developed a mass- independent chemical glycoproteomics platform for the identification of non-templated post-translational modifications. Christina joined the faculty at Harvard University in 2016. Her research has been recognized by the Amgen Young Investigator Award, David Gin Young Investigator Award, Camille-Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, Sloan Research Foundation, NSF CAREER, Bayer Early Excellence in Science Award, the NIH DP1 Avenir Award, and the Ono Pharma Foundation Breakthrough Science Award.

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Andrew is a senior medicinal chemist at Astex Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge. He joined the company in 2001 and has worked on multiple fragment derived projects primarily in the area of oncology, a number of which have led to clinical candidates. His research interests include fragment screening, structure-based design, and the validation of novel binding sites. Andrew studied Applied Chemistry at De Montfort University, Leicester and began his industrial career at Wyeth working on CNS disorders (migraine and depression), then moved to Roche (inflammatory diseases - rheumatoid arthritis and anti-virals – Hepatitis C virus).

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Peng Wu is a Professor in the Department of Molecular Medicine. Dr. Wu received his Ph.D. from the Scripps Research Institute in 2005. From August 2005 to September 2008, Dr. Wu was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley. The research in the Wu laboratory integrates synthetic chemistry with glycobiology to explore the cellular and molecular mechanisms that control immune responses toward cancer and human pathogens. His most recent recognitions include Horace S. Isbell Award (American Chemical Society), Glycobiology Significant Achievement Award, and Horizon Prize (the Royal Society of Chemistry, with the teams of Sharpless, Kelly, Moses, Lu, Wolan, Hammock and Zuilhof).

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Mia received her MChem in Medicinal Chemistry from the University of Leeds, and spent a year working in Process Chemistry at GSK, Stevenage. She then began her DPhil at the University of Oxford in 2019, joining the Synthesis for Biology and Medicine Centre for Doctoral Training. In 2022, Mia spent 3 months at Vertex Pharmacetucials working on the electrochemical functionalisation of heterocycles, and currently works under the supervision of Professor Paul Brennan focusing on the development of chemical probes for GEF/GTPase complexes.

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In 2018, Alexandria received a B.S. in Chemistry and a B.S. in Biology from Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, CT. Shortly after, she started her Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy where she works under the supervision of Dr. Steven Fletcher. Currently, her research focuses on the discovery of small-molecule inhibitors, PROTACs, and molecular glues of proteins involved in the development and progression of hematological malignancies as well as other cancers.

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Concepción González-Bello obtained her PhD at the University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) in 1994. She did two predoctoral stays, first in the University of Gent (Belgium, 1991) with Prof. M. Vandewalle and then in the Scripps Research Institute (La Jolla, USA, 1992) with Prof. K. C. Nicolaou. After a postdoctoral stay in the University of Cambridge (UK) with Prof. Chris Abell (1994-96), she joined the University of Santiago de Compostela as an Assistant Professor in 1996, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2003 and to full Professor in 2022. She is author of about 100 scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals, 14 chapters in books and three European patents. She is one of the managers of the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI). Her main research interest is to develop precision antibacterial agents by selectively disabling unexplored targets in pathogenic bacteria by using diverse techniques such as protein X-ray crystallography, simulations of biomacromolecues and QM/MM studies.

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Nathalie Grob earned her undergraduate degrees in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Basel in Switzerland and Uppsala University in Sweden. She subsequently pursued a PhD at ETH Zurich with Prof. Roger Schibli, where she worked on the development of radiolabeled peptides for cancer diagnosis and treatment. Since March 2020, Dr. Grob is a postdoctoral associate in the lab of Prof. Bradley Pentelute at MIT. Her postdoctoral research focuses on early-stage drug discovery of small molecules and peptides and was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation with a postdoc mobility fellowship.

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Johanna has a background in synthetic organic chemistry, specifically in the chemistry of carbohydrates and nucleotides. After her PhD, she combined chemical and in vitro biological studies to optimize nucleotide analogues with potential broad-spectrum antiviral activity. Her contributions have been recognized with several early career awards. Johanna continues her work at the interface of chemistry and biology in her current position at Fraunhofer ITMP where she’s building an integrated screening and knowledge platform for the discovery of molecular degraders.

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Steffen Lindert is an Associate Professor of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Ohio State University. Prof. Lindert earned his Ph.D. in Chemical and Physical Biology from Vanderbilt University. He subsequently did his postdoctoral work at UCSD, before joining OSU as an Assistant Professor. Prof. Lindert’s laboratory at OSU focuses on the development and application of computational techniques for modeling biological systems, with the goal of gaining a deeper understanding of biomolecular processes, predicting protein structure de novo with the use of sparse experimental data, and discovering new drugs.

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Susruta (Sush) Majumdar is an Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Pharmacology at UHSP and Washington University. Dr. Majumdar received his PhD from University of Florida College of Pharmacy, Gainesville in Medicinal Chemistry and then did a Postdoc in Neuropharmacology from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, NY. The Majumdar lab focuses on the Chemical Biology of Opioid Receptors integrating Medicinal Chemistry with Structural biology and Pharmacology to develop safer analgesics as well probes which show biased signaling.

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Dr Miller’s research began in natural product total synthesis in Alison Frontier’s Lab of at the University of Rochester, where he earned a B.S. in Chemistry (2009). He went on to grad school at Emory University, joining Dennis Liotta’s Lab and applying organic synthesis to discover new medicines. After earning his Ph.D. (2015), Dr. Miller continued on as a Postdoctoral Fellow with Prof. Liotta, in collaboration with Bristol-Myers Squibb, to develop best-in-class orally bioavailable CXCR4 antagonists. Continuing this research and initiating several new discovery programs in parallel, he quickly rose through the staff scientist ranks and was recently promoted to Instructor at the Junior Faculty level in the Emory University School of Medicine. From pure organic synthesis, to medicinal chemistry, to pharmacology, immunology, and chemical biology, Dr. Miller’s career is dedicated to training the next generation of biomedical scientists by leveraging chemical innovation to discover, develop, and advance novel therapeutic agents to treat viral infections, neurodegenerative disorders, and cancer.

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Sergey Ryabukhin shares his time between academia and industry. He is a senior scientific advisor at Enamine LTD and professor, head of the supramolecular chemistry department at the Institute of High Technologies, Taras Shevchenko National University Kyiv. He has 15+ years' experience in managing combinatorial chemistry departments as well as chemical outsourcing projects, having previously worked in different leading positions. Now he is also co-head of Enamine's staff & training program. Prof. Ryabukhin is an expert in combinatorial and medicinal chemistry, early drug discovery, organometallics (organofluorine, organosilicon, and organoboron), heterocyclic chemistry, new methodologies in organic synthesis, catalysis, chemical education

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Kristian Strømgaard obtained an MSc degree in Chemical Research from University College London, and continued as a PhD student in medicinal chemistry, part-time at H. Lundbeck. He did a post doc at Columbia University (New York), and shortly after, he was appointed H. Lundbeck Professor at the age of 36 to establish research in Chemical Biology. He won the ‘Teacher of the Year’ award from the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Science (Univ. Cph.) in 2009. In 2012, he co-founded Avilex Pharma. In 2014, he was appointed Director of Center for Biopharmaceuticals, where he has headed a research center on peptide and protein engineering. Recently, he was visiting professor at Harvard Medical School (Boston) to explore medical research and innovation. A particular focus since 2006 has been on research management, including a course at Harvard Business School and he is an often-used speaker and teacher in courses on research management. In 2021 he was awarded the 2021 University of Copenhagen Innovation Award and appointed Novo Nordisk Foundation Distinguished Innovator.

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