Following the acquisition of Pharmacopeia by Ligand in late 2008, managed three lead discovery programs within the framework of an alliance with Schering-Plough Corporation. • Achievement of Lead status (including in vivo activity) for programs in 2009 led to two $1M milestone payments to Ligand, plus eventual downstream milestones and royalties.• One of the leads discovered was the first known selective modulator of the biological target to show good oral bioavailability and good… Show more Following the acquisition of Pharmacopeia by Ligand in late 2008, managed three lead discovery programs within the framework of an alliance with Schering-Plough Corporation. • Achievement of Lead status (including in vivo activity) for programs in 2009 led to two $1M milestone payments to Ligand, plus eventual downstream milestones and royalties.• One of the leads discovered was the first known selective modulator of the biological target to show good oral bioavailability and good pharmacokinetic properties, permitting a first proof-of-concept study for a systemic drug using an animal pain model.• Achieved second lead, from initiation of screening to acceptance of lead status, in ten months. Show less

Managed successful Lead Discovery programs within a broad range of therapeutic areas, including pain, inflammation, metabolic disease and CNS disorders, for Pharmacopeia and its alliance partners, including Roche, Organon/Schering-Plough, GlaxoSmithKline, Boehringer-Ingelheim and Taiho Pharmaceutical Company. Supervised up to three Senior Research Associates. Coordinated work performed by contract research organizations and colleagues at alliance partners. Wrote quarterly reports and presented… Show more Managed successful Lead Discovery programs within a broad range of therapeutic areas, including pain, inflammation, metabolic disease and CNS disorders, for Pharmacopeia and its alliance partners, including Roche, Organon/Schering-Plough, GlaxoSmithKline, Boehringer-Ingelheim and Taiho Pharmaceutical Company. Supervised up to three Senior Research Associates. Coordinated work performed by contract research organizations and colleagues at alliance partners. Wrote quarterly reports and presented at Joint Research Committee meetings. Evaluated, recommended and implemented new screening technologies. Ran radiation safety program. Taught in-house courses on immunology and pharmacology.• Discovered lead series for several programs, which triggered substantial milestone payments, plus eventual downstream milestones and royalties.• Collaborated with engineering department on the design, specification and acceptance testing of a custom 1536-well reagent dispenser used for uHTS screening (BlueBiRD II). The completed dispenser greatly expanded Pharmacopeia’s ability to routinely screen its compound collection in 1536-well microtiter plates.• Developed new EBV-based episomal expression plasmids to reduce the time required for generating recombinant cell lines, from PCR to ready-to-use reagent, to approximately six to eight weeks. Furthermore, showed that multiple plasmids can be introduced into cells simultaneously, greatly reducing the time necessary to generate complex cell lines that overexpress both cell surface receptors and downstream effector molecules.• Conducted early studies to test Pharmacopeia’s core technology and show that encoded libraries of small organic molecules can be synthesized, eluted from their solid supports and screened against potential drug targets. In collaboration with others, created the basis of a sustainable ultra-high throughput screening platform. Show less

Collaborated with scientists at Columbia University to show that chemical libraries indexed with molecular tags can be synthesized, screened against biochemical targets, and the structure of compounds of interest decoded.

Laboratory of Dr. André G. Sentenac,. Cloning of genes coding for the subunits of transcription factor TFIIIC from yeast (τ factor). Work involved protein purification, expression library screening, PCR, DNA subcloning and sequencing, in vitro transcription and translation, expression of foreign proteins in E. coli, immunological methods and yeast genetics.