Confirmed Speakers

Dr. Katerina Leftheris has spent over 25 years in small molecule drug discovery and early development from early screening for hits (HTS, DEL) to Phase II clinical studies. Throughout her career, she has built teams that have put over 15 compounds into the development/clinical space spanning many molecular targets and covering debilitating diseases in oncology, I/O, immunology, neuroscience, metabolic disease and fibrosis. She has a strong interest in introducing new technologies such as DEL, ML and automation to the drug discovery process. Katerina is currently the CSO of Vilya Inc, an Arch Ventures-backed biotech company advancing macrocycles as oral drugs using machine learning algorithms first developed by the D. Baker Lab at U. Washington. Previously, she was VP of Discovery Chemistry at Pliant Therapeutics, a biotech company focused on novel treatments for fibrotic diseases. She built a team and is co-inventor of multiple integrin inhibitors that have entered the clinic including Bexotegrast, an orally active v6/1 inhibitor currently in PhIIb for Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and Primary sclerosing cholangitis. Katerina has held multiple leadership roles in large pharma and biotech including SVP, Drug Discovery for Rheos Medicines, site-head of Discovery Chemistry for Celgene, and Sr. Director, Chemistry for Vitae Therapeutics. Earlier in her career, Katerina held positions of increasing responsibility in Discovery Oncology and Immunology Chemistry at Bristol-Myers Squibb. To date, Katerina has over 140 publications and issued patents. Katerina earned her B.A. in chemistry (emphasis on biochemistry and music) from Smith College, Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of California, San Diego and completed postdoctoral studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Katerina is an elected Industrial Councilor for the MEDI division of the ACS and is an Ironman endurance triathlete.

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Nicholas A. Meanwell joined Bristol Myers Squibb in 1982 and retired in 2022 after having led drug discovery programs in the cardiovascular, neurosciences and virology therapeutic areas, work that resulted in the advancement of 33 clinical candidates. Nick and his team were involved in the design and development of flindokalner (MaxiPost®) (P3 for the treatment of stroke), the HIV-1 attachment inhibitor fostemsavir (RukobiaTM), the HIV-1 maturation inhibitors BMS-955176, fipravirimat and zegruvirimat, the HCV NS5A inhibitor daclatasvir (DaklinzaTM), the HCV NS3 protease inhibitors BMS-605339 and asunaprevir (SunvepraTM), and the HCV NS5B inhibitor beclabuvir, marketed as XymencyTM, a fixed dose combination with daclatasvir and asunaprevir. Nick has authored/co-authored more than 300 publications, review articles, book chapters and editorials, is a coauthor of more than 200 meeting abstracts and has presented more than 180 invited lectures at National and International meetings, Universities and Schools on Medicinal Chemistry. He is named as an inventor/co-inventor of 144 issued U.S. Patents. Nick has organized/co-organized more than 60 sessions at National and International Meetings, ACS Webinars in Drug Discovery, ACS Prospectives Meetings and Short Courses on aspects of drug design. He is currently an Associate Editor for the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry with co-responsibility for Perspectives articles. Nick was the recipient of the 2015 Philip S. Portoghese Medicinal Chemistry Lectureship Award administered jointly by the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry and the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. He was inducted into the ACS Division of Medicinal Chemistry Hall of Fame in 2015, was the co-recipient of “Heroes of Chemistry” Awards sponsored by the American Chemical Society in 2017 and 2023 and was the recipient of the 2022 Alfred Burger Award in Medicinal Chemistry sponsored by the American Chemical Society. He was appointed a Fellow of the American Chemical Society in August 2022 and is named as the recipient of the 2024 Antonín Holý Memorial Award administered by the International Society for Antiviral Research. Nick received his Ph.D. degree from the University of Sheffield under the supervision of Dr. D. Neville Jones and competed a post-doctoral fellowship with Professor Carl R. Johnson at Wayne State University.

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Matthew Hayward, Ph.D. is Vice President of Drug Discovery at Magnet Biomedicine. Matt has over 26 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry. Prior to joining Magnet, Matt spent 26 years as a medicinal chemist at Pfizer Inc. During his time there, he contributed to the discovery of 8 clinical candidates in the fields of inflammation, neuroscience, immunology, and oncology, penned 30 peer reviewed publications, and was an inventor on 26 patents. At Pfizer, Matt led the successful Scripps Research collaboration with Professor Benjamin Cravatt and his lab for over a decade, helping to advance the Cravatt lab’s industry leading chemoproteomics platform. Matt is currently the CFO for the Medicinal and Bioorganic Chemistry Foundation, a not-for-profit group established for the arrangement and sponsorship of international conferences, symposia, and educational programs dedicated to the advancement of bioorganic, synthetic, and medicinal chemistry. The foundation runs the popular biennial MBCF conference in Steamboat, Colorado. Matt received his B.A. from Connecticut College, a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Yale University, and was also an NIH postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University.

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Dr. Kat Kayser-Bricker, Ph.D. is an accomplished drug discovery leader with experience across several therapeutic areas, with core expertise in small molecule cancer therapies. She joined Halda Therapeutics shortly after founding, bringing her enthusiasm for company building, oncology and platform innovation. Through her scientific and organizational leadership Halda has invented a new drug modality called RIPTAC™ Therapeutics to address unmet medical need in cancer via a unique induced proximity mechanism to selectively treat tumors including cancers that have developed resistance. Previously, Dr. Kayser-Bricker spent 10 years as a key scientific leader at FORMA Therapeutics, a public company that was acquired in 2022 by Novo Nordisk. She held several roles with increasing responsibility, including Head of Early Discovery Chemistry. She received her Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Yale University and BS in Biochemistry from the University of Maryland, College Park.

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Dr. Markella Konstantinidou is a postdoctoral scholar in Michelle’s Arkin lab at the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco. Prior to joining UCSF, she obtained a degree in Pharmacy and a M.Sc. in Medicinal Chemistry from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. She then moved to the Netherlands for her Ph.D. in Alexander’s Dӧmling lab at the University of Groningen, as a Marie Curie fellow. The focus of her graduate work was on multicomponent reactions, their applications in medicinal chemistry and new modalities, including proteolysis targeting-chimeras. Her current research focuses on the discovery of molecular glues for the stabilization of native protein-protein interactions.

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Dr. Lingling Shen is the Associate Director of Data Science at Discovery Sciences, Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research (NIBR), responsible for small molecular discovery informatics support and chemo-informatics platform development. Before this, she spent 9 years at NIBR Informatics focusing on scientific informatics algorithms, pipelines, and systems. Dr. Shen graduated from Peking University with a B.S. in Chemistry in China, then she completed her postgraduate work in the US by receiving a M.A. in Organic Chemistry from Brown, a M.Sc. In Biostatistics from Harvard, a M.Sc. in Information Technology, and a Ph.D. in Computational Chemistry from RPI. After a postdoctoral training at UT Austin Dr. Robert Pearlman’s lab, she worked for several pharma/biotech (including Pfizer), as chemo-informatician and computational aid drug designer (CADD). Currently at Novartis, her research area are NIBR chemo-informatics TPD GLUE platform and machine learning models, 3D generative chemistry screening pipeline (Pocket Crafter), and NIBR ligand based virtual screening pipeline (Expansion Master).

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Magnus is Senior Vice President Chemical Sciences and Development at Monte Rosa Therapeutics. Before joining Monte Rosa Magnus led Abbvie's Discovery Research Organisation in Germany focused on Alzheimer and Parkinson’s disease as Senior Director and Senior Research Fellow in Neuroscience since 2018. Prior to that Magnus held several positions at Eli Lilly where he worked for 17 years. These included Chief Scientific Officer for global Neuroscience Medicinal Chemistry and Head of Chemistry UK. Magnus started his career as team leader working for AstraZeneca after receiving his DPhil from the University of Oxford and a master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Bonn.

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Rong obtained her BS in pharmacy and MS in pharmaceutical sciences from Tongji Medical University. After teaching at Tongji for 2 years, she came to Purdue to pursue a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry with Richard Borch in 2001. She worked on the design, synthesis and evaluation of prodrugs to disrupt SH2 domain-mediated protein-protein interaction. After graduation, she did her postdoc training with Phil Cole at Johns Hopkins University, where she developed a method to site-specifically introduce acetyl-Lys mimics into proteins, as well as worked on histone demethylase enzymology and inhibitor discovery. In 2011, she joined Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Medicinal Chemistry as an Assistant Professor. In 2017, Rong returned to Purdue as an Associate Professor and was promoted to Full Professor in 2023. Huang Lab applies an interdisciplinary approach to understand the molecular mechanisms of methyltransferases and acetyltransferases, design and synthesize selective and potent inhibitors to manipulate the epigenetic pathways, and to develop novel and targeted epigenetic drugs.

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Matt has more than 25 years of post-Ph.D. experience in chemistry and drug discovery. Currently Senior Vice President of Drug Discovery at Mirati, Matt built a department comprising synthetic chemistry, medicinal chemistry, protein chemistry, crystallography, computational chemistry and drug metabolism. This team has delivered Krazati® (adagrasib, a KRAS G12C), MRTX1133 (KRAS G12D, Phase 1), MRTX1719 (PRMT5/MTA inhibitor, Phase 1), MRTX0902 (SOS1 inhibitor, Phase 1) and MRTX2219 (EED inhibitor, licensed to ORIC as ORIC-944, Phase 1) while building a multi-disciplinary drug discovery group and robust discovery portfolio of additional targeted therapies. Previously, Matt was Senior Director and Head of Chemistry at Takeda California, responsible for a portfolio of oncology, immunology and cardiovascular/metabolic chemistry projects using structure-based and fragment-based drug design and biophysical screening, delivering 8 development candidates and 4 INDs across oncology, metabolic diseases and inflammation/immunology (BTK, MetAP2, mTOR, PHD2, PI3Ks, SYK and TBK1). The Takeda team successfully transitioned over two dozen projects from initiation to lead optimization and validation. Development candidates for Pfizer were delivered for S1P1, VEGFR, and AKT and INDs for Aur2, Tie2, FAK, SMO and PI3K/mTOR. Lead development/validation studies were completed for over one dozen additional projects. Matt was the Medicinal Chemistry Gordon Conference Vice-Chair in 2016 and Chair in 2017. Matt has also been active in the Chemistry in Cancer Research working group of the AACR, where he has served as an abstract reviewer, program committee member, CICR Steering Committee Member and for several years was the co-Chair of the Drugs on the Horizon major symposium. Matt earned his B.S. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of California, Berkeley, working in the lab of professor Paul Bartlett for his Ph.D. work. He was an NIH post-doctoral fellow in the lab of professor Stephen F. Martin at the University of Texas, Austin.

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John A. McCauley is a Senior Director in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry at Merck in West Point, PA. Over the past 25 years, John and his group have been involved in the design and synthesis of fifteen compounds entering clinical development, including the combination therapy for the treatment of hepatitis C virus infection, ZEPATIER (elbasvir/grazoprevir), and HCV NS3/4a protease inhibitor VANIHEP (vaniprevir). John currently has responsibility for Infectious Disease and Neglected Tropical Disease programs. He has co-authored 50 publications, is a co-inventor on 62 issued patents and patent applications and has given 50 invited lectures. John was awarded the Gordon E. Moore Medal from the Society of Chemical Industry, for Early Career Success in Innovation in 2015 and was recognized with an American Chemical Society Heroes of Chemistry Award in 2017 as part of the ZEPATIER team. John graduated from Swarthmore College with honors in chemistry. He received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania in 1996, working with Professor Amos B. Smith, III. Following graduate studies, John worked with Professor Yoshito Kishi at Harvard University as an NIH postdoctoral fellow.

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After nearly 25 years as a medicinal chemist at GlaxoSmithKline, David is currently a professor in the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy at UNC Chapel Hill. David’s group designs, synthesizes, evaluates, and shares small molecule tools for understudied proteins, with a focus on kinase inhibitors. One key output from the team is the Kinase Chemogenomic Set (KCGS), a set of narrow-spectrum kinase inhibitors available for other labs to screen in order to identify kinase vulnerabilities. David’s team is part of the Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) and is dedicated to open science. Our goal is to use our medicinal chemistry expertise to create and then share small molecule tools that help elucidate the function of understudied proteins and by doing so accelerate the drug discovery process.

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Dr. Jennifer E. Golden is an Associate Professor in the Division of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Department of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She also serves as the Associate Director of the UW-Madison Medicinal Chemistry Center and is the Chair of the Early Career Board of ACS Medicinal Chemistry Letters. She completed her Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry at the University of Kansas (Prof. J. Aube) and postdoctoral work at Stanford University (Prof. P. Wender). Dr. Golden’s laboratory focuses on the design and synthesis of small molecule inhibitors for viruses such as then encephalitic alphaviruses (e.g., VEEV, EEEV) and arthritis-causing alphaviruses such as Chikungunya (CHIKV). Jennifer’s experience in this area includes, in coordination with virologists, the identification and development of small molecules that potently attenuate replication of encephalitic alphaviruses in vivo. Dr. Golden brings nearly 20 years of synthetic medicinal chemistry experience from a career spanning industry and academia. At UW-Madison, she has established robust, well-funded, multidisciplinary drug discovery teams and a research platform that integrates the design, synthesis, and optimization of novel anti-infective agents directed at the improving human health scenarios for which few or no therapeutic options exist. She maintains highly collaborative relationships with biology experts to pursue drug discovery efforts, including programs directed at alphavirus intervention and parasitic diseases, both of which require design of specialized compounds that penetrate and spare cells in the CNS while effectively targeting pathogens of interest.

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Rebecca Abergel was raised in France and graduated from the École Normale Supérieure of Paris in 2002. She conducted her graduate studies in inorganic chemistry at UC Berkeley, under the supervision of Prof. Kenneth Raymond. Her doctoral work focused on the synthesis and characterization of siderophore analogs to probe microbial iron transport systems and design new iron chelating agents. As a joint postdoctoral researcher between the UC Berkeley Chemistry Department and the group of Prof. Roland Strong at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, she investigated the bacteriostatic function of the innate immune protein siderocalin in binding siderophores from pathogenic microorganisms such as Bacillus anthracis, for the development of new antibiotics. Abergel joined the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2009 and the Nuclear Engineering Department of UC Berkeley in 2018. She became the LBNL Heavy Element Chemistry Group Leader in 2018. Her research program is dedicated to investigating the fundamental coordination chemistry and biochemistry of heavy and f-elements, with therapeutic and environmental applications such as chelation, separation, bioremediation of toxic metals, and design of alpha-immuno therapy agents. She leads a large collaborative effort on the development of new drug products for the treatment of populations contaminated with heavy metals and radionuclides. One of these products was granted an Investigational New Drug status from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in 2014 and is now in a Phase I clinical trial. She currently serves as the chair of the LBNL Radioactive Drug Research Committee and is an associate editor for the International Journal of Radiation Biology and a corresponding member (USA) for Radioprotection. Abergel was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2019 and received two U.S. Department of Energy 2020 Secretary of Energy Achievement Honor Awards for her contributions as a member of the National Virtual Biotechnology Laboratory and DOE National Laboratories’ COVID-19 Clinical Testing teams. She is the recipient of a WCC Rising Star award from the American Chemical Society (2017), an Early Career award from the U.S. Department of Energy (2014), and was selected as an Innovator under 35 – France by the MIT Technology Review in 2014. She received a Junior Faculty NCRP award (2013) from the Radiation Research Society, and a Young Investigator Research Fellowship (2010) from the Cooley’s Anemia Foundation. Twitter handle - @bioactinide Group URL – abergel@lbl.gov

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Mark Petersen is a senior medicinal chemist scientist in the ADC therapeutic development group at Zymeworks, BC, Canada where he is has contributed to and lead the development of multiple cytotoxic ADC platforms. Prior to joining Zymeworks in 2017, Mark studied natural product synthesis in the lab of Prof. Gary Keck at the University of Utah followed by a NIH postdoctoral fellowship with Prof. Michael Kay focusing on chemical protein synthesis and peptide drug discovery.

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Sharsti Sandall, PhD, has spent the last 10 years at Seagen where she has initiated, led and contributed to several different therapeutic ADC programs. She is a passionate and effective scientific leader that utilizes her deep cell biology background to develop and better understand cancer therapeutics. In her current position, she is a Sr. Director in the IND-to-Medicine Research Department overseeing the research for 10 different therapeutics spanning IND-candidate therapeutics to clinical stage projects and approved medicines. Prior to joining Seagen she was a Damon Runyon Postdoctoral Fellow studying the adult tissue stem cell niche at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. She earned her BS in Microbiology from California State University, Long Beach and her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from the University of California, San Diego where she studied mechanisms of mitotic spindle function. In her spare time, she loves spending time outdoors with her family and dog, especially skiing, boating, surfing, and running.

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Dr. Arvin Dar is a Member and Professor in the Chemical Biology Program at the Sloan Kettering Institute, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, where he is also Vice Director of the Center for Experimental Therapeutics. Prior to joining MSK, Dr. Dar was a Professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, staring his independent laboratory in the winter of 2012. Dr. Dar graduated from the University of Western Ontario with a BSc in Chemistry and received his PhD from the University of Toronto, before postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Dar’s research is focused on the integration of genetics and small molecule chemistry to uncover basic principles of cellular communication, with a focus on kinases, GTPases, and higher-order protein complexes and assemblies. His lab has discovered several novel therapeutic modalities, including chemical switches and molecular glues to target genetically defined cancers driven by the RAS and WNT pathways. In addition, Dr. Dar co-founded Nested Therapeutics (nestedtx.com) to discover innovative therapeutics against challenging cancer targets and to expand the number of patients that benefit from precision medicine. Dr. Dar has received numerous awards and honors for his research, including the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award, Damon-Runyon Rachleff Innovation Award, the Pew Charitable Trusts Pew-Stewart Scholarship for Cancer Research, Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance Award, Junior Faculty Award at Mount Sinai, Friedman Brain Institute Scholar Award, and the Mark Foundation for Cancer Research Aspire Award.

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John Tokarski, Ph.D., Senior Principal Scientist, Small Molecule Drug Discovery, Bristol Myers Squibb John Tokarski holds a Bachelor’s in Chemistry from Loyola University of Chicago and a Bachelor’s in Pharmacy from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). After practicing pharmacy for a few years John realized his true passion was in the science of drug discovery and subsequently obtained a doctorate in medicinal chemistry from the UIC under Prof. Anton Hopfinger. John joined Bristol-Myers Squibb in 1997 where he is currently working as a Sr. Principal Scientist in the Computer-Assisted Drug Design group. While at BMS, he successfully contributed to the advancement of numerous oncology and immunology discovery programs by applying modeling tools leading to the identification of multiple clinical drug candidates, several of which are currently in clinical trials. John helped in the development of ixabepilone (IXEMPRA®), which was approved for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer and the dual Src/Abl inhibitor dasatinib (SPRYCEL®) for patients with Philadelphia chromosome positive leukemias. He is a co-author and co-inventor on more than 50 peer-reviewed publications and patents and is a primary co-inventor of the newly marketed drug deucravacitinib (Sotyktu®) approved as a treatment for psoriasis. Currently John evaluates and assesses the druggability of potential new drug targets and employs machine learning and AI tools along with physic-based methods to assist in early lead identification and lead optimization to help in crafting clinical candidates to ultimately help patients.

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Dr Angela Toms Senior Director, Nimbus Therapeutics Received a Ph.D in Chemistry from the University of Manitoba, Canada. Post-doctoral work at Cornell University under the supervision of Professor Steven Ealick and at the Harvard Medical School under the supervision of Professor Michael Eck. Joined Nimbus in 2019 and is currently Sr Director at Nimbus in Boston MA. Prior to joining Nimbus, had a leadership role in structural biology and protein sciences at Forma Therapeutics. Has 21+ years of experience in structural biology. Has worked mainly in the Oncology, Metabolic Diseases, and Inflammation therapeutic areas, and has been involved in the discovery of various clinical candidates. Is a co-author/co-inventor of peer-reviewed publications, patent applications, and presentations at major scientific meetings.

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Dr. Deepak Dalvie is currently a Vice President of drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics at Crinetics Pharmaceuticals. Prior to this he was a Scientific Executive Director of drug metabolism and pharmacokinetics at Bristol Myers Squibb in San Diego and a Research Fellow at Pfizer Global Research and Development in the Department of Pharmacokinetics, Dynamics, and Metabolism in La Jolla, CA. Dr. Dalvie received his bachelors and masters in India and his Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry at State University of New York at Buffalo, New York. After a postdoctoral fellowship in the areas of organic chemistry and drug metabolism under the supervision of Professors Richard Sundberg at the University of Virginia and Professor Neal Castagnoli at Virginia Tech, he joined Pfizer as a research scientist in 1992. Dr Dalvie is an author of several papers in the field of DMPK and is an Associate Editor of Drug Metabolism and Disposition. He also serves on the editorial board of other drug metabolism journals, including Drug Metabolism Reviews and Xenobiotica and is a reviewer for several ACS journals, including Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, ACS Medicinal Chemistry letters and Chemical Research in Toxicology. Dr Dalvie is also an affiliate faculty at Skaggs School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of California at San Diego.

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Benjamin Horning was born in Portland, Oregon, and lived in that region until he departed for graduate studies with Professor David W. C. MacMillan at Princeton University. After graduating, he departed for San Diego, California and performed postdoctoral studies in the lab of Professor Benjamin Cravatt. During his time in the Cravatt lab, he became fascinated by chemoproteomic screening of fragment electrophiles in native cellular environments, and chose to continue that line of research by joining Vividion Therapeutics where he is now a Associate Director in the Early Discovery group.

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Bernd Kuhn received his PhD at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Lausanne (with T. Rizzo) and did postdoctoral research with P. Kollman at the University of California, San Francisco. After one year at Prospect Genomics he joined F. Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel in 2001 and he is currently a Distinguished Scientist in the CADD group. His scientific focus has been on new structure-based computational methods and their application to drug design projects as well as on the study of molecular recognition of small molecules, which has led to a number of highly cited publications (h-index: 47). He has contributed to 10 compounds in clinical development and is co-author of ~140 patents. Among his awards are the Roche Patent Gold Medal, the Roche Leo Sternbach Award for innovation in chemistry, and the Senior Industrial Science Award of the Swiss Chemical Society.

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Veer is a drug discovery scientist and discipline leader, who leverages his broad background and experience to enrich all phases of the discovery process. He has over 20 years of industrial experience from BMS, Celgene, Pfizer, Pharmacia, Pharmacia & Upjohn. While at Pfizer, Veer made contributions to the discovery and development of two medicines - LITFULO (Ritlecitinib), a covalent JAK inhibitor for treatment of alopecia areata and ABRYSVO (Respiratory Syncytial Virus Vaccine) - recombinant RSV preF A and RSV preF B proteins that protects against lower respiratory tract disease. Currently at BMS, he has portfolio and people responsibilities for the computational sciences groups at Cambridge, San Diego, and San Francisco. His current interests are in novel modalities and next-generation medicine design. Veer is an active member of the American Chemical Society and has served on the ACS COMP Division as an Executive Committee Member and has contributed to various ACS National Awards, Nomination & Selection Committees. Veer was the Chair of the 2019 CADD GRC and Program Chair of the 2017 CADD GRC. He is a member of the JCIM Journal Scientific Advisory Board and was the 2015 Bonn-Aachen Information Technology Award recipient. Veer received his Ph.D. from State University of New York at Buffalo and conducted post-doctoral studies at Pharmacia & Upjohn in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

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Dr. Tonge is a Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and of Radiology (by courtesy) at Stony Brook University, and Director of the Center for Advanced Study of Drug Action. Dr. Tonge earned his B.Sc. and Ph.D. degrees in Biochemistry from Birmingham University, UK, and was a SERC/NATO post-doctoral fellow in the Division of Biological Sciences at the National Research Council of Canada (NRCC). After positions as a Research Associate and Research Officer at NRCC, he was a Staff Investigator at the Picower Medical Research Institute before joining Stony Brook University. His awards include an Alfred P. Sloan Research Fellowship in 2000, and a Fellowship from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) in 2017 which funded a sabbatical at Genentech.

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Prof. Marcey Waters is the Glen H. Elder, Jr., Distinguished Professor of Chemistry at UNC Chapel Hill. She completed a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at UC San Diego in 1992 after beginning her scientific career in the laboratory of Professor Charles Perrin in physical organic chemistry. Dr. Waters a Ph.D. in chemistry from the University Chicago for her mechanistic studies of the Wulff-Dötz benzannulation reaction in the group of Bill Wulff in 1997. She pursued research in bioorganic chemistry as an NIH postdoctoral fellow with Dr. Ronald Breslow at Columbia University before joining the faculty of UNC Chapel Hill. Currently, her laboratory studies the fundamental aspects of biomolecular recognition, with a particular focus on the mechanisms of histone post-translational modification recognition. Dr. Waters recently served as the President of the American Peptide Society and has been recognized by UNC and the Association for Women Faculty and Professionals as a leader in mentorship for women and students from disadvantaged backgrounds. She has also received numerous teaching awards. She is a fellow of the AAAS and most recently she received the Vincent du Vigneaud Award for outstanding achievement mid-career from the American Peptide Society.

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Gaurav Bhardwaj, PhD Assistant Professor, Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Institute for Protein Design, University of Washington, Seattle Gaurav Bhardwaj is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicinal Chemistry and Institute for Protein Design at the University of Washington, Seattle. Gaurav received his Ph.D. from the Pennsylvania State University and later completed his postdoctoral training with Prof. Kit Lam at the University of California, Davis, and Dr. David Baker at the University of Washington, Seattle. As a postdoctoral fellow, he developed computational methods for the design of constrained peptides and macrocycles. He started his independent research group at the University of Washington in 2020. Since then, his lab has focused on developing computational and experimental methods for the high-throughput development of functional peptides. Gaurav is also the scientific co-founder of Vilya, an early-stage biotechnology company in Seattle and San Francisco.

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Dr. Leela Dodda is the Director of Computational Chemistry at Nimbus Therapeutics. Dr. Dodda's role at Nimbus entails supporting the discovery pipeline and developing machine-learning models for ADMET predictions. In particular, he is interested in leveraging the graph neural network’s ability to do multi-task learning and transfer learning from Quantum Mechanical data to create models that are not data-hungry. Before Nimbus, he worked at VantAI and Silicon Therapeutics. Dr. Dodda completed his Ph.D. in Computational Chemistry from Yale University, working with Prof. William Jorgensen on developing novel methodologies for structure-based drug discovery.

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Gavin Hirst, Ph.D. is the Chief Scientific Officer at Atomwise, a pioneer in AI an ML based small molecule drug discovery. Gavin is a seasoned drug discovery executive with more than 30 years’ experience in the biopharmaceutical industry across a range of therapeutic areas and is the co-inventor of vaborbactam, which was approved in combination with meropenem for the treatment of cUTI. Most recently Gavin served as Interim Chief Scientific Officer and Senior Vice President of Chemistry at the precision oncology company Turning Point Therapeutics, which was acquired in 2022 by Bristol Myers Squibb for $4.1 billion. During earlier work at Janssen, Gavin oversaw a broad portfolio of small-molecule programs targeting a diverse set of autoimmune diseases, including inflammatory bowel disease and psoriasis. He chaired the Global Medicinal Chemistry Council and was the global chemistry representative for the cheminformatics steering committee. Dr. Hirst guided his teams to deliver a number of clinical-stage assets, such as the Pan-JAK family selective inhibitor Lorpucitinib, that moved into clinical development for the treatment of familial adenomatous polyposis, a form of colorectal cancer. Earlier, Gavin was Vice President of Discovery Research, directing immunology, oncology, and metabolic diseases portfolios at Takeda, delivering multiple compounds to clinical studies. Gavin obtained his Ph.D in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from the University of Southampton, UK and continued his fascination with Organic Chemistry as a postdoctoral scientist at the University of California, Irvine with Prof. Larry Overman. Gavin has >100 scientific publications, presentations, patent and patent applications.

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Dr. Jennifer Knight is a Director at Schrödinger, based in New York City. She received her Ph.D. in Chemistry & Chemical Biology with Ron Levy from Rutgers University and undertook postdoctoral training with Charles Brooks III at The Scripps Research Institute and the University of Michigan. Dr Knight joined the Scientific Development team at Schrödinger in 2012 and for the past seven years has been a member of the Schrödinger Therapeutics Group. She spearheads modeling teams employing the full spectrum of in silico strategies, including free energy calculations and machine learning approaches. She is a champion for workflow optimization and their implementation at-scale to help drive drug discovery projects forward.

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Pat Walters is Chief Data Officer at Relay Therapeutics in Cambridge, MA. Prior to joining Relay, he spent more than 20 years at Vertex Pharmaceuticals where he was Global Head of Modeling & Informatics. Pat is the 2023 recipient of the Herman Skolnik Award for Chemical Information Science from the American Chemical Society. He is a member of the editorial advisory boards for the Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling and Artificial Intelligence in the Life Sciences, and previously held a similar role with the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. Pat is co-author of the book “Deep Learning for the Life Sciences,” published in 2019 by O’Reilly and Associates. He received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Arizona where he studied the application of artificial intelligence in conformational analysis. Prior to obtaining his Ph.D., Pat worked at Varian Instruments as both a chemist and a software developer. He received his B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Santa Barbara.

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Dr. Matthew Welborn is the Executive Director of Machine Learning and a co-founder of Entos, Inc. The Entos platform combines state of the art AI-driven molecular design and cutting-edge high-throughput experimentation to deliver safe and highly targeted treatments. He holds a PhD in Physical Chemistry from MIT. Prior to Entos, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow and then Visiting Scientist at Caltech, and a Software Scientist for The Molecular Sciences Software Institute.

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Paramjit Arora is a Professor of Chemistry at New York University. His research focuses on designer protein mimics that modulate biomolecular interactions. Discoveries from his research groups have seeded three biotechnology companies focused on the development of cancer therapeutics.

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Maria is currently Vice President, Head of Chemical Sciences at Atavistik Bio in Cambridge, MA and the 2023 ACS Medicinal Chemistry Division Chair. Maria is an accomplished scientist and senior executive with a proven track record of discovering and advancing innovative therapies to patients for the last 25 years. Most recently, she served as Head of Chemistry and Senior Director at Sage Therapeutics impacting the portfolio from exploratory phase to clinical IND studies. Maria began her career at Eli Lilly and Company in Indianapolis where she held positions of increasing responsibility over 17 years, including Director of Discovery Chemistry Research & Technologies. Her leadership, creativity and strategic thinking have led to major contributions on new chemical modalities, chemical biology, protein-protein interactions, PET ligands, translational research and small molecule therapeutics primarily in neuroscience and oncology. Maria was part of the team that discovered FDA-approved Reyvow (5-HT1F) and has actively contributed to the delivery of 14 compounds to clinical studies. Maria obtained her BS and PhD degree in Organic Chemistry from the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. She held postdoctoral positions at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and at University of Strasbourg, France with Nobel Laureate Prof. Sauvage. Maria has >130 scientific publications, presentations, patent and patent applications. In 2021, she was inducted as an ACS Fellow for her lasting service to chemistry, society, and medicine.

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