Svetlana Belyanskaya

VP of Biology, Anagenex

Dr. Belyanskaya is an accomplished scientific leader in the field of small molecule drug discovery and an expert in DNA encoded library platform. She was involved in the development of the DEL platform for 20 years. Svetlana has made significant contributions to the design and development of the DEL technology at Praecis Pharmaceuticals and, later at GlaxoSmithKline. She was instrumental in discovering the first DEL-sourced molecule to progress into clinical trials, a potent and selective inhibitor for enzyme soluble epoxide hydrolase (hsEH). At GSK, Svetlana successfully led a team of scientists on multiple scientific programs. Currently, Svetlana helps to build a novel ML oriented drug discovery DEL platform at Anagenex, a seed stage biotechnology company, with a goal to discover novel quality leads (potential drugs) for a treatment of diseases with unmet medical needs.

Tracy Qiuxia Chen

Director of Biology, Assay and Screening, HitGen Inc.

Dr. Chen received her PhD in Pharmaceutical Analysis from Zhejiang University, China. She has been with HitGen for more than 5 years and is a leading biologist specializing in biochemical/biophysical assays and DNA encoded library (DEL) screening. She has worked with > 100 targets covering different classes and diseases in DEL selection.

Yun Ding

GSK Fellow, Scientific Leader, GlaxoSmithKline

Dr. Yun Ding received her Master degree in Organic Chemistry from Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1996 and her Ph.D in Organic Chemistry from University of Florida in 2002. She then conducted her post-doctoral research at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego. Following this in Feburary 2004 she began her professional career at Praecis Pharmaceuticals (subsequently acquired by GlaxoSmithKline in 2007). She played a key role in the DNA-encoded library technology platform, including delivery of the first clinical candidate from ELT, development of chemistry applicable to ELT and subsequent application to the design and synthesis of DNA-encoded libraries.

Timothy L. Foley 

Primary Pharmacology Group & DNA-Encoded Library Selection, Pfizer

Tim first obtained his BSc in cell biology and biochemistry and then a MSc in organic chemistry at the University of California - San Diego (UCSD). Still at UCSD, he pursued inhibitors of bacterial natural product biosynthesis and received his Ph.D. in chemistry in 2010. He conducted his post-doctoral studies at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) at the NIH from 2010 to 2014. In this position, he further developed his knowledge of enzymology and molecular pharmacology in the context of high throughput screening.

Tim joined Pfizer in February 2014 to support the Pfizer Centers for Therapeutic Innovation portfolio and the Serine Hydrolase Gene Family platform. Tim’s lab guides pharmacology assay design and execution for projects to support hit discovery and compound optimization into clinical candidates. Over the past two years, has been leading the organizational effort to develop hit identification capabilities with DNA-encoded library technologies.

Gwenn Hansen

Chief Scientific Officer, Nurix Therapeutics

Gwenn is Chief Scientific Officer at Nurix Therapeutics, a company focused on discovering and developing next-generation targeted protein modulation therapies. Since joining Nurix in January of 2016, Gwenn has focused on developing a robust pipeline for early stage discovery by developing a platform based on DNA encoded library technology and leveraging it across a range of target classes, particularly E3 ubiquitin ligases. Prior to joining Nurix, Gwenn spent one year as an Associate Professor in the Center for Drug Discovery at Baylor College of Medicine and over 13 years in a variety of discovery-focused roles at Lexicon Pharmaceuticals, both located in Houston, Texas. Gwenn received her PhD in Biomedical Sciences from Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 1998 and completed postdoctoral training at MD Anderson Cancer Center.

Christopher Hupp

Associate Director of Discovery Chemistry, X-Chem Pharmaceuticals

Chris joined X-Chem in October 2010 and now serves as the Associate Director of Discovery Chemistry. Chris has over 10 years of experience in discovery chemistry and in the design, preparation, and application of DNA-encoded libraries for early drug discovery. He received his B.A. in chemistry from Kalamazoo College, Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Michigan State University, and postdoctoral training in medicinal chemistry at Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital.

David Israel

Vice President of Lead Discovery Sciences, HitGen Inc., Chengdu China

David has spent his career working on the discovery and development of small molecule, peptide and protein drugs, and supporting drug discovery technologies. David is currently Vice President of Lead Discovery Sciences at HitGen Inc., (Chengdu, China) where he oversees use and advancement of HitGen’s DNA encoded library (DEL) platform. Prior to joining HitGen, David was Scientific Director at GSK, where he helped embed DEL technology into their drug discovery process, and expand application of the technology to cell membrane targets.  He was scientific leader of the first DEL project to yield a molecule that progressed into clinical trials, an inhibitor of the enzyme soluble epoxide hydrolase. David was Vice President of Cell and Molecular Technologies at PRAECIS Pharmaceuticals (acquired by GSK), where he was instrumental in the discovery and early clinical development of the peptide-based drug abarelix, and in the design, development, validation and industrialization of the DEL platform. David started his industrial career at Genetics Institute (now Pfizer), where he worked on the engineering of mammalian cell expression vectors and development of cell lines and production processes for recombinant proteins, several of which are successful commercial products (recombinant Factor VIII and bone morphogenetic protein-2). He has published widely in these fields, and is an inventor on numerous patents related to drug discovery and development.

David received his BA degree in Biology from the State University of New York at Binghamton, and his PhD in Pharmacology from Stanford University. He lives in Sugar Hill, New Hampshire and Concord, Massachusetts.

Letian Kuai

Letian Kuai, Executive Director of HitS-RSD and CSO of Crelux; WuXi AppTec

Letian Kuai received his Bachelor’s degree from Nanjing University, China and Ph.D. in Biochemistry from University of Rochester, NY, where his research focused on genome wide RNA degradation with Microarray technology. After graduation, he joined the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard as postdoctoral associate and research scientist, where he worked on cell-based high content HTS and target identification with integrative chemical genomics and proteomics. Since joining GSK in 2010, he has mainly focused on technology improvement of DNA encoded library technology and platform capability expansion. In this capacity, he initiated and led a variety of projects outside the traditional hit identification space including drug delivery, PK extension and advanced manufacturing technologies. He joined WuXi AppTec in 2018 to lead the DNA Encoded Library platform. Current he serves as the head of science and strategy of HitS-RSD and CSO of Crelux, A WuXi AppTec Company.

Sarine Markossian

Editor-in-Chief, Assay Guidance Manual; Lead, Translational Science Resources Program, NCATS

Dr. Sarine Markossian is the lead of the Assay Guidance Manual (AGM) translational science resources program at National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) and serves as the Editor-in-Chief of the AGM. Prior to this role, she was a specialist in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco in the laboratory of Dr. Michelle Arkin. At UCSF, she co-led the Drug-Induced Liver Injury (DILI) team at the Accelerating Therapeutics for Opportunities in Medicine (ATOM) consortium. She completed her postdoctoral training at the National Institutes of Health and received her Ph.D. in molecular genetics from The Ohio State University.

Lisa Marcaurelle

Senior Scientific Director of Chemistry, GlaxoSmithKline

Dr. Lisa Marcaurelle is currently a Senior Scientific Director of Chemistry at GlaxoSmithKline in Cambridge, MA where she leads the DNA-Encoded Library Chemistry platform. Prior to joining GSK in 2018, Lisa worked at various Cambridge-based biotech companies, including Warp Drive Bio (Sr. Director, Chemistry 2016-2018), H3 Biomedicine (VP, Discovery Chemistry, 2011-2016) and Infinity Pharmaceuticals (Lead Sr. Scientist, 2002-2007). From 2007-2011 Lisa worked at the Broad Institute (Director, Chemistry, 2007-2011) where she led the creation of the Broad’s diversity-oriented synthesis (DOS) screening collection. Lisa is an active volunteer for the American Chemical Society (ACS), currently serving as Past Chair of the ACS Division of Organic Chemistry, Councilor for the local Northeastern Section of the ACS and as an Associate Member of the ACS Women Chemists Committee. Lisa obtained a Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2001 from UC Berkeley working with Prof. Carolyn Bertozzi and did post-doctoral work at MIT with Prof. Peter Seeberger. She received her undergraduate degree in Chemistry from the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA.

Jeff Messer

Director Analytics, Encoded Library Technologies, GlaxoSmithKline

MS of Biochemistry from the University of New Hampshire. 20+ years with a foot in the lab and a foot on the carpet doing computation work in support of HTS, Biomarkers and encoded libraries. Currently at GSK in Cambridge, MA where he leads the Biophysics and Scientific Computing groups in support of GSK’s Encoded Library Technology.

Justin I. Montgomery

Associate Research Fellow, Discovery Sciences, Pfizer Inc.

Justin obtained his B.S. in Chemistry from Miami University in Oxford, OH then went on to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for graduate studies. His Ph.D. research, under the direction of Professor Scott Denmark, involved tandem cycloaddition reactions of nitroalkenes and N-vinyl nitrones. Justin joined Pfizer medicinal chemistry in 2006 and has worked in many areas over the last 15 years with focus on antibacterial chemistry, fragment-based drug design, HTS triage, design of covalent inhibitors, and more recently, design of protein degraders. Throughout his career, Justin has had a strong interest in data analysis and the use of visualization tools, which has led to his current role involving triage of all of Pfizer’s DEL screens to provide tractable chemical matter to project teams across various therapeutic areas.

Dario Neri

Professor at ETH Zürich and CEO of Philogen

Dario Neri was born in Rome on 1. May 1963 and grew up in Siena (Italy). He studied Chemistry at the Scuola Normale Superiore of Pisa and earned a PhD in Chemistry from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zürich), under the supervision of Professor Kurt Wüthrich. After a post-doctoral research internship (1992-1996) at the Medical Research Council Centre in Cambridge (UK), under the supervision of Sir Gregory Winter, he became professor at ETH Zürich in 1996. Dario Neri has been Full Professor of Biomacromolecules at the Department of Chemistry and Applied Biosciences, ETH Zürich. In October 2020, he moved full-time to Philogen (www.philogen.com), a Swiss-Italian Biotech Company which he had co-founded in 1996 and in which he currently serves as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Scientific Officer, while retaining the ETH Professor title. Philogen was listed on the Italian Stock Exchange on 3 March 2021.

The research activities of the Neri group and of Philogen focus on the engineering of therapeutic antibodies for the therapy of cancer and other angiogenesis-related disorders and on the development of DNA-encoded chemical libraries. Two of the antibody products of Philogen are currently being investigated in Phase III clinical trials in Europe and in the United States.

Dario Neri has published more than 400 articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals. He is the recipient of the ISOBM Abbott Prize 2000, of the Amgen-Dompe’ Biotec Award 2000, of the Mangia d’Oro 2001, of the Prous Award 2006 of the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry, of the Robert-Wenner-Prize 2007 of the Swiss Cancer League, of the SWISS BRIDGE Award 2008, of the Prix Mentzer of the French Medicinal Chemistry Society in 2011, of the Phoenix Prize 2014, of an ERC Advanced Grant in 2015 and of the 6th World ADC Award in 2019.

Paul Novick

Director of Cheminformatics and Machine Learning, Nurix Therapeutics

Paul Novick, Ph.D., is a trained computational chemist and cheminformatician currently serving as Director of Cheminformatics and Machine Learning at Nurix Therapeutics. His research interests lie at the cross section of biology, computer science, and engineering, with a particular focus on the application of informatics and computational techniques towards advancing early drug discovery projects. Dr. Novick received his Ph.D. in Chemistry from Stanford University, where he studied in the lab of Vijay Pande, as well as B.S. and B.A. degrees from Duke University. 

Brian M. Paegel

Professor, University of California, Irvine (Departments of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chemistry, and Biomedical Engineering)

Brian M. Paegel earned his undergraduate degree in chemistry from Duke University and his doctoral degree in chemistry from UC Berkeley working on miniaturized and integrated DNA sequencing technology development in collaboration with the Human Genome Project. He pursued postdoctoral studies in chemical biology and molecular evolution at Scripps Research. There, he studied the continuous evolution of catalytic RNAs, developing microfluidics for automation, reaction monitoring, and droplet compartmentalization. He was the recipient of both a NIH National Research Service Award (F32) and a Pathway to Independence Award (K99/R00). In 2008, Paegel was appointed to the Scripps chemistry faculty, starting his independent career at the new east coast campus of Scripps Research in Jupiter, Florida. He received the NIH Director’s New Innovator award and an NSF CAREER award in recognition of his contributions in reaction miniaturization for enzyme evolution, and Scripps granted him tenure in 2017 for his work in the field of DNA-encoded libraries and drug discovery technology development. In 2019, Paegel rejoined the University of California System where he is Professor in the Departments of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chemistry, and Biomedical Engineering at Irvine. His laboratory aims to deliver advanced parallel synthesis and screening platforms to support cross-disciplinary translational research initiatives. Paegel is deploying these platforms to eliminate the canonical sense of what is “druggable” within the cellular milieu and to democratize the discovery of new medicines.

Ryan Potts

Head of Induced Proximity Platform, Amgen Inc.

Ryan Potts, Ph.D. obtained his B.S. in Biology from the University of North Carolina and his Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology from UT Southwestern in 2007. In 2008 he was awarded the Sara and Frank McKnight junior faculty position at UT Southwestern Medical Center. During this time his lab focused on answering a long-standing question in cancer biology regarding the cellular function of cancer-testis antigen (CTAs) proteins. In 2011 he was appointed Assistant Professor in the Departments of Physiology, Pharmacology, and Biochemistry at UT Southwestern Medical Center. His lab’s work defined a function for the enigmatic MAGE gene family in protein regulation through ubiquitination. In 2016 his lab moved to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital where he was an Associate Member in the Department of Cell and Molecular Biology. There his lab continued to work on CTAs, with a focus on elucidating the biochemical, cellular, physiological and pathological functions of the MAGE gene family. In 2020 he moved to Amgen, Inc. in Thousand Oaks, California to build a new department called the Induced Proximity Platform (IPP) that is focused on drugging the “undruggable”.

Anton Simeonov 

Scientific Director, Intramural Division of Preclinical Innovation, NCATS

Anton Simeonov is the scientific director of the intramural Division of Preclinical Innovation at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), National Institutes of Health (NIH). The author or inventor on more than 230 peer-reviewed scientific publications and patents, Simeonov has a truly diverse background, ranging from bioorganic chemistry and molecular biology to clinical diagnostic research and development. He received a Ph.D. in bioorganic chemistry from the University of Southern California and a B.A. in chemistry from Concordia College. Simeonov then trained as a postdoctoral fellow at the Scripps Research Institute under Richard Lerner and Kim Janda. Prior to joining NIH in November 2004, Simeonov was a senior scientist at Caliper Life Sciences, a leading developer of microfluidic technologies, where he was responsible for basic research on novel assay methodologies and development of microfluidic products for research and clinical diagnostics.

Pengyu Yang

Associate Director of Discovery Chemistry, Plexium

Dr. Pengyu Yang is the Associate Director of Discovery Chemistry at Plexium. Pengyu joined Plexium in 2018 and is leading teams to identify multiple novel monovalent degraders. He has made significant contributions to the company’s pipeline and buildup and development of its unique DELPhe platform. Previously, Pengyu was an Institute Fellow at TSRI/Calibr, where he started his drug discovery career. He has authored >50 peer-reviewed papers and patents. Pengyu received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from National University of Singapore and did his post-doctoral training at The Scripps Research Institute under Peter Schultz.

Gang Yao

Scientific Leader, Encoded Library Technologies, R&D Medicinal Science and Technology, GlaxoSmithKline

Dr. Gang Yao earned his Ph.D. degree from Boston University in Organic chemistry. Dr. Yao is currently a team leader at GSK, responsonle for the hit confirmation and optimization of small molecule hits derived from DNA-encoded libraries.