Michelle Arkin

Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, University of California, San Francisco

Michelle is a Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California, San Francisco and an Adjunct Professor at the Buck Institute of Research on Aging. Her lab focuses on chemical biology of protein-protein interaction networks and other challenging targets in diseases such as Alzheimer’s Disease and cancer. Michelle co-directs the UCSF Small Molecule Discovery Center (SMDC), which works with investigators in academics, biotech, and pharma to develop first-in-class probes and drug leads for novel targets across therapeutic areas. Michelle is the President of the Academic Drug Discovery Consortium, a Director of the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening (SLAS), and a member of the Editorial board of the Assay Guidance Manual and other chemical biology journals. She represents UCSF in the National Cancer Institute’s Chemical Biology Consortium and the Accelerating Therapeutics for Opportunities in Medicine (ATOM) consortium. Before UCSF, Michelle was the Associate Director of Cell Biology at Sunesis Pharmaceuticals, where she helped discover inhibitors of protein-protein interactions, including IL-2/IL-2R, and LFA1/ICAM (lifitigrast).

Douglas Auld

Sr. Investigator I, Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research

Douglas Auld works at Novartis and has 19 years of experience in the drug discovery industry with a understanding of academic, government, biotechnology and large pharmaceutical company approaches that have been applied to enable drug discovery. Dr Auld received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of North Carolina with Prof Gary J Pielak in 1993; he studied Cytochrome c as a model of protein folding, using 2D-NMR to characterize mutants, which pointed to the role of weakly polar interactions in stabilizing the protein. This education was later applied to discover a potent inhibitor of nitric oxide synthase, which operates by inhibiting protein folding in cells, while he was also helping to pioneer combinatorial chemistry approaches to drug discovery at Pharmacopeia. He performed his post-doctoral training at MIT with Prof Paul Schimmel where he studied isoleucyl tRNA synthetase and the molecular recognition of RNA by these enzymes. In 2004, he helped start the NIH Chemical Genomics Center (NCGC). At the NCGC, his group was deeply involved in profiling the PubChem library in a wide-range of biochemical and cell-based assays. In these efforts, he applied innovative screening approaches, enzymology, biophysical techniques and high-content cellular analysis to guide chemical optimization efforts. The NCGC has now become NCATS. At Novartis, his labs provide assay development and resources for internal drug discovery efforts as well as providing resources and expertise to support academic collaborations. He is the author of >100 peer-reviewed scientific publications, a literature editor and contributor to Gen. Eng. News and Assays and Drug Development Technologies; he is a founding editor and contributor to the Assay Guidance Manual available as an eBook on the NCBI website, which aims to guide researchers in assay development and lead discovery approaches.

Thomas D.Y. Chung

Director, Translational Programs Outreach, Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute

Thomas “TC” Chung, Ph.D. is currently the Director, Translational Programs Outreach at the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) in La Jolla, CA. Previously, he was the Associate Director of the Office of Translation at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN, the Director of Strategic Alliances & Partnerships and Project Manager of the Molecular Libraries Program at SBP. He was also Chief Scientific Officer at Genoptix, Inc., an early stage drug discovery technology platform company. Prior to that he was the Sr. Director of the Leads Discovery Group at DuPont Pharmaceuticals where he built up the high-throughput screening department and technology development groups, and was responsible for completion of 35 HTS campaigns. He optimized and improved operations in compound management, IT infrastructure, and rapid lead characterization and optimization, especially analytical chemistry and ADME profiling. DuPont Pharmaceuticals was an integrated pharmaceuticals company with major products in cardiovascular, central nervous system, virology and medical imaging areas.

Dr. Chung received his B.S. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978, completed a year of graduate chemistry studies at Stanford University, followed by a year with the Biosciences group at Exxon Research and Engineering in New Jersey, working on metal catalyzed biotransformations. Dr. Chung received his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1986, where his thesis work concentrated on metal coordination complexes, metal ion chelation and transport in biology, with Prof. Kenneth N. Raymond.

Dr. Chung entered the pharmaceuticals field by completing post-doctoral appointments in the Departments of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at SmithKline & French Research Laboratories (presently, GlaxoSmithKline). He then held positions of increasing responsibility in Virology with Merck Sharp & Dohme and Bristol-Myers Squibb. His conversion away from core therapeutics areas and basic research, to the more multidisciplinary area of high-throughput screening, combinatorial chemistry and lead discovery was completed with his position as Research Fellow with Pharmacopeia in Princeton, New Jersey in 1993-1996. This was a formative experience in both the power of combinatorial chemistry coupled to sophisticated high-throughput screening automation and developing technology in a start-up company.

Dr. Chung has published 68 research papers and authored 7 book chapters in the fields of high-throughput screening, drug discovery, virology, bioinorganic chemistry, structures of metal coordination complexes, and has 4 issued patents and 9 patent applications. He also is currently the President-Emeritus of the Society for Biomolecular Screening, Scientific Advisory Board member for OyaGen, and an active advisor and informal consultant and thought leader in the HTS and technology development field targeted to the pharmaceutics industry.

Nathan P. Coussens, Ph.D.

Director, Molecular Pharmacology Branch Laboratories, Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research

Nathan P. Coussens, Ph.D., is the director of the Molecular Pharmacology Laboratories at the Frederick National Laboratory for Cancer Research, where he leads three teams focused on preclinical drug development to improve the treatment of recalcitrant, rare, and neglected cancers. Previously he was a senior research scientist in the Division of Pre-Clinical Innovation at the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), where he designed and optimized biologically relevant biochemical and cell-based assays for high-throughput screening and lead discovery. Dr. Coussens is an associate editor and former editor-in-chief of the Assay Guidance Manual, a growing online eBook of best practices for preclinical assay development and implementation that has become the go-to resource for scientists in industry and academia. Prior to joining NCATS, Dr. Coussens was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute where he combined biophysical studies, cell biology, and high-resolution imaging to interrogate signaling events initiated by the T-cell antigen receptor. He earned his Master of Science and doctorate degrees in biochemistry from the University of Iowa, where he applied structural and biophysical approaches to study host-pathogen interactions and, as a postdoctoral fellow of the Interdisciplinary Immunology Program there, utilized crystallographic and thermodynamic studies to inform the development of small molecules that target a host evasion mechanism exploited by pathogenic bacteria.

Viswanath Devanarayan

Senior Statistics Director, GlaxoSmithKline

Dr. Devanarayan has nearly 25 years of pharmaceutical research experience from mostly Eli Lilly, Merck, and AbbVie. In addition to leading global teams for several years, his scientific contributions cover a wide range of applications across basic science, drug discovery and clinical research. He has filed 10 patent applications, given over 100 invited talks, and co-authored over 65 manuscripts, which include several white-papers with regulatory, academic and industry scientists on high throughput screening, genomics, machine learning, bioanalytical methods, immunogenicity and clinical biomarker qualification. In recognition of these scientific accomplishments, he was inducted as a Fellow of the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists (AAPS) in 2014. He is one of the editors of the NIH Assay Guidance Manual and is on the editorial board of the Clinical & Translational Sciences journal of the ASCPT. He is currently serving as a Senior Director at GlaxoSmithKline and is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

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. 

Sam Hoare

Founder Pharmechanics, LLC

Sam Hoare, Ph.D. is a pharmacology data analyst and the founder of Pharmechanics LLC, a data analysis company supporting pharmaceutical, life science and academic scientists in the development of new therapeutics and the understanding of receptor systems. Dr Hoare specializes in kinetic analysis of drug action and is known for applying binding kinetics to the development of effective therapeutics, particularly CRF receptor antagonists. Before founding Pharmechanics in 2016, he was a pharmacology leader in the pharmaceutical industry for 15 years at Neurocrine Biosciences, guiding the in vitro biology for numerous drug discovery campaigns. Dr Hoare is known for demystifying complicated and newly-emerging pharmacology concepts, enabling them to be applied by project teams in optimizing new molecules. He completed postdoctoral training at the National Institute of Mental Health, researching pharmacological mechanisms of Class B GPCRs, and obtained his PhD in biochemistry, studying allosteric modulation of dopamine receptors, from the University of Kent, United Kingdom. 

Zsofia Lengyel-Zhand

Senior Scientist, Pfizer Inc.

Zsofia Lengyel-Zhand joined Pfizer in 2021 as Senior Scientist to support DNA-encoded library screening platform, pharmacology assay design and hit discovery within the Primary Pharmacology Group.

Zsofia received her PhD in Chemistry from Syracuse University, where she studied enzymology and protein biochemistry. She conducted her post-doctoral studies at Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania between 2019 and 2021. In this position, she focused on developing various high-throughput screening assays and radioligand binding assays.  

Travis Mathewson

Compound Management & Distribution, Pfizer

Travis Mathewson is a senior principal scientist who currently manages the Automation & Data Support (ADS) and Liquid Store functions within the Compound Management & Distribution Group (CMD) at Pfizer within Worldwide Research & Development under Discovery Sciences in Groton, CT. He has been at Pfizer for over 26 years, the last 6 years in current role managing the Pfizer compound collection and delivering continuous improvement solutions for automated sample management workflows. This includes inventory, tracking, metrics, data curation, automated instrument monitoring, instrument quality control, troubleshooting, and custom solutions. Travis has an undergraduate degree in Biology and a graduate degree in computer science. Prior to his current role, he held data related roles within the Data and Design Analytics (DADA) group and the Data Support and Management (DSM) group within the Analytical Chemistry & Sample Logistics (ACSL) group. In these roles he created and maintained new workflow solutions to support external screening data handling, compound purification support, data mining, and molecular properties screening support. Travis started his career at Pfizer in the New Leads high-throughput screening (HTS) group and by July of 1999, he received the Pfizer Central Research Achievement Award for pace-setting contributions to Exploratory Medicinal Science’s technology leadership and effectiveness, achieved by applying high-throughput methodologies to enhance productivity. 

Lane Milde

Senior Scientist, Compound Management & Distribution, Pfizer

Lane Milde is a Senior Scientist supporting laboratory automation and liquid handling workflows and instrumentation for Compound Management & Distribution at Pfizer within Worldwide Research & Development under Discovery Sciences in Groton, CT. He has been at Pfizer for 10 years and has over 18 years of experience in highly automated laboratories within academic, biotechnology, and pharmaceutical settings. Lane started his career at the University of Wisconsin working as a scientist in molecular biology and high-throughput screening. He spent several years at a small biotechnology company developing automated in-vitro diagnostic devices before joining Pfizer in 2012. In his current role, he is responsible for managing automated microplate and liquid handling instrumentation in support of sample management for early drug discovery. This includes the management of an instrumentation quality control program, maintenance and troubleshooting, LIMS integration, and equipment succession planning as well as developing and maintaining automated workflows and solutions supporting a wide range of sample management workflows.

Terry Riss

Scientific Ambassador, Cell Health Promega Corporation

Dr. Riss received a PhD from the University of Illinois in 1978 in the field of mammary gland biology. He did postdoctoral work at the University of Texas Medical School purifying growth factors involved with breast cancer and developing serum-free media formulations to implement bioassays. He moved to the Biotechnology division of Schering Plough in 1988 to develop interleukin/cytokine bioassays to support IND filings. Dr. Riss started the Cell Biology program at Promega Corporation in 1990 and has held several R&D and Project Management positions. He managed development of cell viability, cytotoxicity, apoptosis, and protease assay systems and lead efforts to identify and promote multiplexing assays to determine the mechanism of cell death. Dr. Riss now serves as Scientific Ambassador, Cell Health involved in outreach educational training activities. Dr. Riss is co-editor of the in vitro cell based assays section of the Assay Guidance Manual hosted by NIH and is an active member of AACR, SIVB, SLAS, SOT, ESTIV & ASCCT. 

Joe Trask

Product Line Leader & Senior Application Scientist, Cellular Imaging and Analysis, Americas PerkinElmer

Joe Trask is a Product Line Leader and Senior Field Application Scientist in the Cellular Imaging and Analysis group at PerkinElmer. He is instrumental in strategic customer support through teaching, training, and collaborations. He brings over 20 years of experience in high content screening technology from academia (Duke University and The Ohio State University), pharmaceutical industry (Abbott Laboratories and Sphinx Laboratories, Division of Eli Lilly & Company), and biotechnology (The Hamner Institute for Health Sciences and ScitoVation LLC). Joe has extensive experience in cell based technologies from flow cytometry, confocal microscopy and computer-assisted automated microscopy studying cancer, immunology, neurodegeneration, and toxicology. Joe has published several research articles and book chapters in High Content Imaging field, and is an author and co-editor to the NIH/NCATS Assay Guidance Manual. Joe was a co-founder and first President of Society for Biomolecular Imaging and Informatics (SBI2) and co-editor of a recent book “High Content Screening: A Powerful Approach to Systems Cell Biology and Drug Discovery”.

Xin Xu

Senior Scientist, NCATS

Dr. Xin Xu is a senior scientist and the director of pharmacokinetics (PK) in the Therapeutics Development Branch of the Division of Pre-Clinical Innovation (DPI) at NCATS. She oversees in vitro absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion (ADME) and pharmacokinetic studies for projects administered through Therapeutics for Rare and Neglected Diseases (TRND) program, Bridging Interventional Development Gaps (BrIDGs) program, NIH HEAL Initiatives, COVID-19 Therapeutic Development, and Platform Vector Gene Therapy (PaVe-GT) program. Dr. Xu has more than 20 years of industrial experience in non-clinical Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK) research field. She was the PK representative for three Merck products: Singulair, Cancidas, and Invanz. She also contributed to the filing of Infuse (rhBMP-2) and Enbrel (anti-TNFa Fc fusion protein) at Genetics Institute/Wyeth. Dr. Xu has extensive experience in investigational new drug (IND) filings of novel therapeutics, ranging from small molecules to biologics, such as monoclonal antibody, engineered protein, nanobody and protein-drug conjugate.

Dr. Xu obtained her B.Sc. degree from the School of Pharmacy, Peking University Health Science Center, Beijing, China. She earned her Ph.D. degree in pharmacokinetics from the Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Toronto, where she also completed her post-doctoral training in controlled release formulations. Dr. Xu has authored 235 publications — 115 journal papers or book chapters, and 120 conference presentations and abstracts — and is the co-inventor for five patents.