Timothy O'Donnell Email & Phone Number

Before starting my position in Analytical Method Development in the QC and R&D departments at Threshold Enterprises on July 1, 2024, I was working at Hexagon Biosciences from August 2022 until March 2024 as a Natural Product Scientist involved in the drug discovery process from both native strain fungi and heterologous expression of genes in model fungal organisms. My role was in extraction, isolation and characterization of bioactive small molecules with an emphasis on helping to build out our core instrumental process of HPLC, LCMS and NMR in a high-throughput drug discovery platform. I also utilized Molecular Networking and other metabolomic tools to complement our in house MS tools and algorithms to find potential compounds of interest. The work was incredibly engaging with an opportunity to learn and investigate fungal biosynthesis with industry experts on our NPC and Syn Bio teams. It also afforded me the opportunity to learn more detail about relevant bioassays and medchem efforts in an industrial setting.My path to this career has taken quite a few turns. After many years as an expat Chemistry teacher and school administrator, I matriculated at the University of Hawaii at Manoa as a Natural Products Chemistry PhD working under the supervision of Prof. Philip Williams from where I graduated in May 2022.My research focus in Grad school was on marine organisms, including basic culturing, harvesting and extraction methods for cyanobacteria with a focus on isolating (SPE, HPLC, etc.) and characterizing (NMR, LCMS, ECD, etc) new compounds. Additionally, I learned the fundamentals of computation, mainly for conformational analysis and NMR and ECD prediction using the Schrödinger software package that I applied to internal projects and as support for external researchers. My current objective is leaning how to code more effectively in Python. My research experience in grad school was also devoted to developing and performing metabolomic investigations utilizing Agilent’s Profinder and Mass Profiler Professional software packages, as well as, utilizing XCMS and GNPS.For about three years, I was the UH Chemistry Department's Mass Spectrometry Technician responsible for maintenance, managing supplies, organizing sample submission, scheduling instrument time and analytical support for internal and external research using our LCMS (QTOF, QQQ) and GCMS instruments.