Christopher Chapron Email & Phone Number

Cambridge, Ma

Scholar Rock is discovering and developing a pipeline of innovative new medicines to treat a range of serious diseases with high unmet medical need, including neuromuscular disorders, cancer, fibrosis, and anemia. By focusing on the newly elucidated biology of growth factor activation, Scholar Rock has developed new insights which allow us to selectively target growth factors in the disease microenvironment, to achieve therapeutic effects specifically at the source of disease.

Cambridge, Ma

Developed 10 NS5a and NS5b intergenotypic HCV replicons to evaluate lead compound activity across a range of clinically relevant genotypesPerformed resistance selection experiments with specific nucleotide analogs in the cell based HCV replicon system to further characterize lead compounds. Utilized DNAStar and Vector NTi software for sequence analysis and primer design. Drug resistant mutants were generated via PCR site directed mutagenesisProficient in enzymatic assays to asses drug : target and off-target drug : host interactionsEvaluate and characterize lead compounds for activity against human cellular DNA and RNA polymerases to reduce potential compound liabilitiesHelped design, construct and purify multiple HCV NS5b polymerase enzymes for use in screening and characterization assays. Performed Barrier to Resistance and Time to Breakthrough assays for lead candidate HIV reverse transcriptase inhibitors in the MT-2 cell lineDeveloped Hepatitis B resistant mutants to clinically relevant nucleoside compoundsManaged a Research Associate II and Research Technician in their daily research projects to achieve their yearly goals resulting in promotions and special achievement awardsManaged daily laboratory operations for the Biology discovery groupScreened non-nucleoside (NNRTI) drug compounds against HIV reverse transcriptases using an in-house developed screening methodAssisted in tracking all service contracts and maintenance visits for laboratory equipment repairsExperimental skills include: assay-development, site-directed mutagenesis, tissue culture, qRT-PCR, primer design, transformation, plasmid construction, western blotting, northern blotting, transient transfections, endogenous polymerase assays, ELISA, DNA sequence analysis, drug-drug interaction studies, stable cell line generation, radiolabeled nucleotide incorporation assays

Organized and tracked 20+ extramural research projects supported by the Technical Assessment CommitteeDeveloped, evaluated and optimized the use of consensus primers for the detection of high risk Human Papillomaviruses in cervical tissue specimens which could be used on patient specimens for enhanced screening and detection of cervical cancerUtilized a peptide nucleic acid clamping method to block the PCR amplification of low risk HPV genotypes in preserved tissue specimensUtilized chemical and co-culture methods to stimulate the expression of matrix-metalloproteinases in immortalized lung cell lines