As a core member of the company’s steering committee for therapeutics discovery, oversee antibody discovery programs including portfolio strategies, target selections, and project progress reviews in immuno-oncology, oncology, autoimmune, inflammation, and other disease areas. Provide leadership and technical expertise that integrate in vitro discovery and in vivo efficacy pharmacology (assays and models), PK/PD, and safety in multidisciplinary, matrix project team environment. Build, manage, and mentor group of project managers for project management tasks.

To build the first-class preclinical CRO service platform closely aligned to drug discovery practices leveraging prior industry experience. Key responsibilities included strategic scientific planning, capability & platform establishment, pharmacology studies and new model development (in vivo, ex vivo, in vitro), lab operations, and support for marketing, and business development at company level. Member of site management team.

Project lead and core team member of projects targeting adaptive and innate immunity and core member of projects that delivered clinical candidates. Key project-related responsibilities include in vivo efficacy models, PK/PD studies, and in vitro assays to advance preclinical candidates. Managed domestic and international CROs. Also responsible for target selections that fit Bicycle’s unique technology platform. Established new laboratory operations in new lab space.

Championed and established new immuno-oncology (IO) capabilities and operations for the company including a scalable high throughput IO in vitro pharmacology assay portfolio. Provided scientific and technical expertise in building and managing the IO team. Also managed the automation and compound management groups with increased productivity.

Provided project leadership in a number of discovery projects in a multidisciplinary team environment under the NIH Molecular Library Probe Centers Network (MLPCN) and Broad internal discovery programs. Key responsibilities included design and implementation of discovery campaigns leveraging Broad’s fully and semi-automated high throughput screening platform. Go-to person for challenging and complex assays. Contributed to high quality publications including in journals of Cell, and ACS Chem Biol. Managed team. Partnered with medicinal chemistry, informatics, automation, compound management teams and external collaborators (including academic collaborators and CROs) to ensure smooth and timely transition and implementation of workflows integral to project progression.

Bionaut was a startup biotech company that utilized a proprietary technology targeting signal transduction pathways for therapeutics discovery. Designed integrated lead discovery plan that combined cell-based lead discovery and in vivo pharmacology-based proof of concept studies. Led projects from assay development, screening, hits identification, PK, MTD, in vivo rodent efficacy models, and MOA (PD) studies. Delivered lead molecule to company asset portfolio. Also supported discovery efforts in oncology and metabolic diseases.

Beta cell biology team lead, lipid metabolism team member, Metabolic Diseases, Millennium-Abbott Alliance. Used genetic, diet, and pharmacological animal models for target discovery and validation for both islet insulin release modulation and lipid metabolism. Established ex vivo beta cell biology expertise in house. Expertise in animal surgery for pancreas/islet isolation and functional characterization. Also set up cell-based lipid and carbohydrate assays. Applied the then new RNAi technology and adenoviral expression system to validating targets in lipid metabolism and insulin resistance pathways. Delivered candidates for lead discovery.

Ion Channel Target Discovery, Project Team Lead, Millennium-Wyeth (Pfizer) Alliance. Led project team in discovery and genetic and pharmacological validation of novel family of Kv4 (A-type) potassium channel auxiliary modulators (K channel interacting proteins (KChIP1-4)). Reconciled historic discrepancy between in vivo and in vitro behavior of A-type currents. Provided novel target complexes for hit discovery. Contributed to first author-ed publication in the journal of Nature and multiple senior-authored MOA studies in high quality journals. Established in house expertise for yeast 2-hybrid cDNA library construction and screening. Hired, appraised, and promoted research associates.