Confirmed Speakers

Olivier Baudoin completed his PhD in 1998 in the group of Jean-Marie Lehn in Paris. After a post-doctoral stay with K. C. Nicolaou in the Scripps Research Institute, he joined the Institut de Chimie des Substances Naturelles, Gif-sur-Yvette, in 1999 as a CNRS researcher, where he became fully independent in 2004. In 2006, he became a Professor at Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 and was promoted to First Class Professor in 2011. In 2015, he moved to the University of Basel where he is currently Full Professor of Chemistry. He received the CNRS Bronze Medal in 2005, the Scholar Award of the French Chemical Society, Organic Division, in 2010, and was a junior member of Institut Universitaire de France in 2009-14. His current research focuses on the development of new synthetic methods to functionalize C(sp3)-H bonds using transition-metal catalysis, and their application to the synthesis of natural products and active ingredients.

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Current position: Senior Head of Research Group, The Institute of Organic Chemistry and Biochemistry of the Czech Academy of Sciences
Research field: organic chemistry of fluorine and main group elements Education: PhD – University of St Andrews, UK; BSc & MSc – University of Pardubice, CZ
Former experience: Postdoc – Loker Hydrocarbon Research Institute and University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA

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Dr James M. Bradner, also known as Jay, M.D., has been President of Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research, Inc. at Novartis AG since March 1, 2016. Dr. Bradner is the Scientific Founder of Acetylon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Dr. Bradner is the Founder of C4 Therapeutics, Inc. He is a Scientific Founder of Acetylon Pharmaceuticals, TetraLogic Research and Development Corporation and Tensha Therapeutics, Inc. He serves as Staff Physician at Dana Farber Cancer Institute. He serves as Physician-Scientist, Chemical Biology Group, Broad Institute; Associate Physician, Brigham and Women's Hospital; and Instructor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School. He leads a chemical biology group at the Broad Institute investigating cellular function of histone deacetylases and the role of autophagy in hematologic malignancies. His group applies forward and reverse chemical genetic platforms, high-content screening and small-molecule microarrays for ligands modulating autophagy. Dr. Bradner is Associate Director of the Center for the Science of Therapeutics (CSofT) at the Broad Institute where he has worked since 2004. He serves as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He was an Associate Professor at Harvard Medical School. He is the Scientific Founder of Syros Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He serves as a Director of Tensha Therapeutics, Inc. He serves as a Director of TetraLogic Research and Development Corporation. He serves as a Member of Scientific Advisory Board at Acetylon Pharmaceuticals, Inc. He served as a Member of the Supervisory Board at Qiagen NV since June 2015 until December 31, 2015. He served as a Director and Member of Scientific Advisory Board at Syros Pharmaceuticals since April 2013 until October 2015. He served as a Member of Scientific Advisory Board at Agios Pharmaceuticals, Inc., since November 24, 2008. Dr. Bradner has co-authored more than 130 scientific publications and 30 United States Patent applications. He is attending physician in the Department of Hematology-Oncology at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Dr. Bradner received his AB in Biochemical Sciences from Harvard University in 1994, his M.D. from the University of Chicago in 1999 and his M.M.S. from Harvard Medical School.

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Mark Bunnage is senior vice president and site head for Boston Research at Vertex Pharmaceuticals. Mark studied chemistry at the University of Durham and conducted postgraduate research with Professor SG Davies at the University of Oxford. He then moved to The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, USA to work with Professor KC Nicolaou as a NATO postdoctoral fellow. In 1996, Mark joined Pfizer in the UK as a medicinal chemist, and, in 2010, he became executive director, head of Medicinal Chemistry, Sandwich Laboratories. In 2011, Mark was appointed vice president, worldwide Medicinal Chemistry, and relocated to Cambridge, MA. In that role, Mark was responsible for small-molecule drug discovery support across two Pfizer Research Units (Inflammation & Immunology, Rare Diseases) and acted as chemistry lead for Pfizer's CTI (Centers for Therapeutic Innovation) network. In August 2016, Mark moved to his current role at Vertex where he leads research at the Boston site. Mark has broad interests in drug discovery, is an author or inventor on over 50 publications and patents, and is editor of the book ‘New Frontiers in Chemical Biology’. Mark is also a visiting professor in Chemistry at the University of Oxford.

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Roland Bürli is Senior Director heading medicinal chemistry in the IMED Neuroscience at AstraZeneca in Cambridge UK. His current research interests focus on the discovery and development of novel therapies for neurodegenerative diseases and psychiatric disorders. He studied chemistry and obtained his PhD from ETH in Zürich followed by postdoctoral work at Caltech in Pasadena. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Roland worked in small and large Biotech companies in the USA and the UK (BioFocus, Amgen, GeneSoft). During this period, he worked on various preclinical projects in the areas of inflammation, CNS and antibacterials.

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Werngard Czechtizky studied Technical Chemistry at TU Graz, Austria, and obtained her PhD in Organic Chemistry at ETH Zürich. After a postdoctoral stay at Harvard and a number of projects on GPCR lead ID in a global Chemical Biology platform at Aventis, she worked on several medicinal chemistry projects in the therapeutic areas of CNS and CV at Sanofi. In 2010, she became leader of a medicinal chemistry section with a focus on Diabetes programs. Since 2014, she is Head of Medicinal Chemistry at Sanofi R&D Germany.

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Huw M. L. Davies was born in Aberystwyth, Wales, UK. He received his B. Sc. degree from University College Cardiff, Wales (1977) and his Ph. D degree from the University of East Anglia (1980). After a post-doctoral position at Princeton University (1980-1983), he joined the faculty at Wake Forest University (1883-1995). After being promoted to full professor he moved to the University at Buffalo, the State University of New York (1995-2008) where he held the positions of UB Distinguished Professor and Larkin Professor of Organic Chemistry. In 2008 he moved to Emory University as the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Chemistry.

Professor Davies’ research emphasizes the development of new enantioselective synthetic methods and their applications in total synthesis and drug discovery. A major current theme of his program is catalytic asymmetric C–H functionalization by means of rhodium-carbene induced C–H insertion. He is currently the Director of the NSF Phase II Center for Chemical Innovation for Selective C-H Functionalization, which brings together 23 faculty members from 15 universities.

Professor Davies is actively involved in the chemical community, having served as the Executive Officer of the 2003 National Organic Symposium, the 2005 Program Chair of the Gordon Conference on Heterocyclic Compounds, the 2005 Chair of the Organic Division of the American Chemical Society, and Co-Organizer of the ACS Organic Division Assistant Professor Symposium at the Fall ACS meeting since 2006. He is an Associate Editor for Chemical Society Reviews and Organic Syntheses. Recent awards include the American Chemical Society Cope Scholar Award (2005), Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (2007), Fellow of the American Chemical Society (2009), Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2012), 2013 eEROS Reagent of the Year Award, Fellow of the National Academy of Inventors (2015), and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Award (2017).

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Scott E. Denmark obtained an S. B. degree from M.I.T. in 1975 and D. Sc. Tech degree from the ETH-Zürich (with Albert Eschenmoser) in 1980. That same year he was appointed as assistant professor at the University of Illinois and since 1991 has been the Reynold C. Fuson Professor of Chemistry. Professor Denmark’s research involves the invention of new synthetic reactions, mechanistic and stereochemical aspects of C–C bond forming reactions and the design and development of asymmetric catalysts using chemoinformatics. Professor Denmark has won a number of honors including the Pedler and Robert Robinson Medals (RSC), the Aldrich Award for Creative Work in Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Brown Award for Creative Research in Synthetic Methods, the F. S. Kipping Award in Silicon Chemistry (ACS) and the Prelog Medal (ETH-Zürich). He is currently the Editor in Chief of Organic Reactions.

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Thomas studied chemistry in France (ENSC, Montpellier) and the UK (UMIST, Manchester) and obtained a PhD degree from the university of Nottingham, UK. After research appointments at the School of Pharmacy in Nottingham and ETH Zürich, Thomas joined Lipideon Biotechnology AG in 2007. As Head of the Drug Discovery and Chemistry, he led a multi-disciplinary team that discovered a candidate for pre-clinical investigation (Non-Systemic Cholesterol Absorption Inhibitor). In 2011, Thomas co-founded SpiroChem AG and serves as CEO of the company. SpiroChem is a fine chemical company based in Switzerland specialized in the design of novel synthetic tools and molecules for rapid ADME optimization. SpiroChem is leading the way in the development of new concepts for bio-isosteric switches in medicinal chemistry. www.spirochem.com"

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Thomas Fuchß is Associate Director in Global Medicinal Chemistry at Merck Biopharma, Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany. Thomas received his diploma in chemistry at Universität Konstanz and his doctorate with summa cum laude in 1999 on the synthesis of functionalized carbon and sulphur glycosides of nojirimycin and N-acetyl glucosamine including glycoside hydrolase inhibitors and C-glycopeptides. During his initial industrial postdoctoral research at ALTANA AG, Thomas established a novel, safe and cost-effective synthetic access to the reversible, gastrointestinal PPI soraprazan. After different functions as lab head and facilitator of the ALTANA Research Institute in Waltham, MA while focusing on therapeutic areas inflammation & respiration as well as oncology, Thomas joined Merck in 2007. Following assignments in Medicinal Chemistry on topics in metabolic disorders and osteoarthritis, Thomas, as Principal Scientist and Project leader, identified and promoted several kinase inhibitors of different oncology targets which undergo active clinical development in the field of DNA-damage & repair, a major topic in today's clinical oncology. Thomas additionally leads the Global Scale-up Operations group within Discovery Technologies. He is author of more than 40 publications and patent applications.

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Ryan Gilmour (b. 1980) was born in Ayrshire, Scotland, and educated at the universities of St Andrews and Cambridge (Ph.D. with Prof. A. B. Holmes FRS). After post-doctoral stays at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung (Prof. A. Fürstner) and the ETH Zürich (Prof. P. H. Seeberger) he was awarded the Alfred-Werner-Assistant-Professorship. Between 2008 and 2013 he was an assistant professor of organic chemistry at the ETH Zürich. In 2013 he moved to the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster where he is full professor of organic chemistry and chemical biology.

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Véronique Gouverneur secured a PhD in chemistry at the Université Catholique de Louvain (LLN, Belgium), under the supervision of Prof. L.Ghosez. In 1992, she moved to a postdoctoral position with Prof. R. Lerner at the Scripps Research Institute (California, USA). She accepted a position of Maître de Conférence at the University Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg (France). She worked with Dr C. Mioskowski and was Associate Member of the ISIS Institute directed by Prof. J-M. Lehn during this period. She started her independent research career at the University of Oxford in 1998, as a faculty member of the Chemistry department. Her research aims at developing new approaches to address long-standing problems in the synthesis of fluorinated analogues of natural products, pharmaceutical drugs and probes for PET imaging. Since her appointment in Oxford, she holds a tutorial fellowship at Merton College. She is Professor of Chemistry at the University of Oxford since 2008, and her research has been published in > 170 peer-reviewed publications.

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Dr. Guido Koch, Director in Global Discovery Chemistry is responsible for strategies and technologies in synthesis. His focus is to enable challenging chemistry and apply innovative synthesis design for fast and high quality lead optimization in collaboration with Medicinal Chemistry teams. In addition the group evaluates, develops and implements new technologies in synthesis. He is member of the Global Discovery Chemistry leadership team. During his career at Novartis in different functions, Guido has contributed to drug discovery and development in different phases starting from target ID up to early clinical trials in man. In addition, Guido has been responsible for building and maintaining the Global Discovery Chemistry University relations network in Europe. Guido received his Diploma in Chemistry and Biochemistry from ETH Zürich in 1991 and a PhD in Chemistry from the University of Basel in 1996. After a postdoc at California Institute of Technology he joined Novartis in 1997 in Process R&D before moving into drug discovery chemistry in 2001.

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Nuno Maulide was born in Lisbon, Portugal in 1979 and is Full Professor of Organic Synthesis at the University of Vienna since 2013. After studies of Chemistry in Lisbon, Basel and Paris, he completed a PhD in Organic Chemistry (Prof. I. E. Markó) at the Universite catholique de Louvain (Belgium) in 2007. This was followed by a 1-year Postdoctoral stay at Stanford University (Prof. B. M. Trost) prior to taking a position as Max-Planck Research Group Leader at the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung (Mülheim, Germany) in 2009, from which he received the call to Vienna. His research interests cover a broad range of activities within organic synthesis, including asymmetric catalysis, sulfur chemistry, amide activation and sulfur (IV)-based transformations as well as total synthesis of biologically relevant natural products.

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Education:
- Ph.D. Degree, Organic Chemistry, 1979 - The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, England
Under the supervision of Dr. D. Neville Jones

- Post Doctoral Studies, 1979-1982 - Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan
In collaboration with Professor Carl R. Johnson

Industrial Experience:
Bristol-Myers Squibb Research and Development
1982-present

Current Position:
Executive Director, Department of Discovery Chemistry, Bristol-Myers Squibb Research and Development

Research Area:
Drug design and discovery in the field of antiviral and immunomodulatory agents and inhibitors of fibrosis

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Professor Gary Molander completed his undergraduate studies at Iowa State University under the tutelage of Professor Richard Larock. He earned his Ph.D. at Purdue University under the direction of Professor Herbert Brown and undertook postdoctoral training with Professor Barry Trost at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He began his academic career at the University of Colorado, Boulder, moving to the University of Pennsylvania in 1999, where he is currently the Hirschmann–Makineni Professor of Chemistry and Chair. His research interests focus on the development of new synthetic methods for organic synthesis using organotrifluoroborates and organobis(catecholato)silicates and the use of borazines as isosteres of all-carbon aromatic systems.

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Christos A. Nicolaou has been working in the area of chemoinformatics for over 15 years. Currently he is a Principal Research Scientist with the Computational Chemistry and Chemoinformatics (C3) group of Eli Lilly, USA. Prior to joining Lilly, he has held positions in academia and industry including posts at the High Performance Computing center of the Cyprus Institute, the University of Cyprus, and Bioreason, Inc. His research interests include algorithm development for drug design and chemical space exploration, pharmaceutical data mining and, chemical synthesis automation and optimization. He received a PhD in Computer Science from the University of Cyprus (M.Sc. Computer Science Florida State University).

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Education:
- Schools in Avellino, Italy
- Graduation in 1978 at the University of Naples, Italy, Prof. A. Panunzi
- PhD in 1983 at the ETH/Zürich, Prof. P. Pino
- At Roche Basel since 1984 working in the Catalysis & Process R&D area
- In 1990-91 worked at Roche Nutley (USA) in the Kilolab Area
- Since 1995 Head of the Catalysis Laboratory at the Process R&D Department
- In 2010 and 2013 Winner of Roche’s Technical R&D Green Chemistry Award
- In 2015 promotion to Distinguished Scientist (highest for scientists at Roche)
- In 2015 Senior Industrial Investigator Award of the Swiss Chemical Society

Professional experience:
Originally an organometallic chemist, Michelangelo Scalone is a Process R&D chemist with particular experience in homogeneous and heterogeneous catalytic reactions, especially asymmetric reactions (e.g. hydrogenations, carbonylations, cyclizations, cyclopropanations, metathesis etc.) and in the synthesis of chiral homogeneous catalysts. His task is, together with his team, to create short, efficient, reproducible, safe, ecological and economical syntheses with technical potential for new pharmaceutical development compounds. This requires the command of “standard” organic chemistry as well as the rapid employment of diverse catalytic methodologies, their re-shaping in view of large scale application and sometimes the synthesis of new catalysts and ligands. Co-author of 46 patents and 55 papers.

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Franziska Schoenebeck was born and raised in Berlin, Germany. From 2001-2004, she studied Chemistry at the Technical University of Berlin and the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK. She undertook her PhD in experimental organic chemistry in the group of Prof. John A. Murphy at the WestCHEM Research School in Glasgow, Uk. In 2008 she moved to California to work with Prof. K. N. Houk at UCLA, where she was involved in computational studies of organic reactivity. In 2010, Franziska joined the faculty of the ETH Zürich as Assistant Professor. Since 2013, she has been Professor at the RWTH Aachen University.

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Antonia F. Stepan is a Senior Principal Scientist and Project Team Leader in the Neuroscience and Pain Department at Pfizer. Antonia received her undergraduate degree from the ETH Zurich, Switzerland, and her Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, UK, under the guidance of Professor Steven V. Ley. After two years of postdoctoral studies with Professor K. C. Nicolaou at the Scripps Institute in La Jolla, California, Antonia joined the Pfizer Medicinal Chemistry Department at the end of 2008. Her research interest focuses on the discovery of novel medicines for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases. She has co-authored more than 35 peer-reviewed papers, reviews, and patents and was recognized as a ‘Young Investigator in Medicinal Chemistry' by the American Chemical Society in 2015.

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1997. 09 - University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Assistant Professor Line
2001. 08 - University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Associate Professor
2003. 04 - RCAST, The University of Tokyo (UTokyo), Associate Professor
2005. 01 - RCAST, UTokyo, Professor
2010. 04 - Graduate School of Science, UTokyo, Professor

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Dirk Trauner was born and raised in Linz, Austria, studied biology and chemistry at the University of Vienna, and received his undergraduate degree in chemistry from the Free University, Berlin. He then pursued a PhD in chemistry under the direction of Prof. Johann Mulzer, with whom he moved to the University of Frankfurt and then back to Vienna. Following a mandatory stint in the Austrian Army, he became a postdoctoral fellow with Prof. Samuel J. Danishefsky at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. After two great years in New York City, Dr. Trauner joined the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, where he rose through the ranks to become an Associate Professor of chemistry (with tenure). He was also appointed as a member of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In the summer of 2008, he moved to the University of Munich, where he served as a Professor of Chemical Biology and Chemical Genetics. On March 1, 2017 he will return to New York City and become the Janice Cutler Chair of Chemistry at New York University. He will also hold a position as an Adjunct Professor of Neuroscience at the NYU Langone Medical School. Dirk Trauner has been awarded the 2016 Emil Fischer Medal and the 2016 Otto Bayer Award, two the most prestigious scientific honors in Germany. He is a Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry. He is also the recipient of the Kitasato Medal, the Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship, an ERC Advanced Grant, and the Austrian Chemical Society Award for the best thesis in 1997.

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Nick Turner obtained his DPhil in 1985 with Professor Sir Jack Baldwin and from 1985-1987 was a Royal Society Junior Research Fellow, spending time at Harvard University with Professor George Whitesides. He was appointed lecturer in 1987 at Exeter University and moved to Edinburgh in 1995, initially as a Reader and subsequently Professor in 1998. In October 2004 he joined Manchester University as Professor of Chemical Biology where his research group is located in the Manchester Institute of Biotechnology Biocentre (MIB: www.mib.ac.uk). He is Director of the Centre of Excellence in Biocatalysis (CoEBio3) (www.coebio3.org) and a Co-Director of SYNBIOCHEM, the BBSRC Synthetic Biology Research Centre. He is also a co-founder of Ingenza (www.ingenza.com). He is a member of the Editorial Board of ChemCatChem and Advanced Synthesis and Catalysis. His research interests are in the area of biocatalysis with particular emphasis on the discovery and development of novel enzyme catalysed reactions for applications in organic synthesis. His group are also interested in the application of directed evolution technologies for the development of biocatalysts with tailored functions

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Petr Vachal is an accomplished drug hunter and an executive manager with a proven track record of success in pharmaceutical industry. He is a critical strategic thinker providing scientific leadership to drug discovery teams working across therapeutically important areas, modalities and drug discovery enabling technologies. He currently serves as the NJ Discovery Chemistry Site Head, Global Head of Chemical Biology and Global Head of Discovery Chemistry External Sourcing. In these roles, Petr is responsible for pipeline deliverables across the global Merck network spanning from target/pathway identification through lead optimization to clinical candidate selection. Petr received Ph.D. from Harvard University, having conducted his graduate work with Prof. Eric Jacobsen.

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Helma Wennemers studied chemistry at the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe University in Frankfurt before moving to Columbia University, New York where she received her PhD degree for studies with W. Clark Still in 1996. Following postdoctoral studies at Nagoya University with Hisashi Yamamoto (1997–1998), she joined the faculty of Basel University as the Bachem-endowed Assistant Professor in 1999. Helma was promoted to Associate Professor (2004) at the University of Basel before moving to ETH Zurich in the fall of 2011 where she is Professor of Organic Chemistry.

Her research focuses on the development of small molecules with functions that are fulfilled in nature by large macromolecules. She utilizes the power of organic synthesis to access functionalities that nature might have not had in the repertoire of building blocks. The focus is both on practical applications and an understanding of the properties on the molecular level. This scope includes the development of bioinspired asymmetric catalysts and functionalizable collagen, and molecular scaffolds for applications in supramolecular and biological chemistry (e.g., cell-penetrating peptides, and tumor targeting) and the controlled formation of metal nanoparticles.

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Lei Zhang received his B.S. in chemistry from Peking University in China and pursued graduate work with Prof. Paul A. Wender at Stanford University. After receiving his Ph.D. in 2002, Lei joined Pfizer Global Research and Development as a medicinal chemist with specific focus on central nervous system (CNS) indications. Since then, he has served as chemistry and research project leaders for a number of discovery programs and successfully advanced multiple drug candidates into the clinic as potential treatments for CNS disorders with high unmet medical needs. In addition to his effort in drug discovery, Lei is also passionate about novel positron emission tomography (PET) ligand discovery and is currently leading the effort in Pfizer neuroscience and pain research unit. He has developed effective ligand selection criteria and established a unique and effective industry/academic collaboration model that has delivered a number of novel PET ligands that were successfully validated in human.

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Andreas Brunschweiger studied pharmacy at the University of Kiel (Germany), before joining the group of Prof. Christa Müller at the University of Bonn (Germany) to obtain his Ph.D in 2007. After conducting postdoctoral research in the same group in a collaboration project with UCB Pharma to develop small molecule inhibitors for targets associated with neurodegenerative diseases, he joined Prof. Jonathan Hall’s research group at the Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences of the ETH Zurich in 2010. There, he was involved in the synthesis of labelled microRNAs to study their biological properties, the development of a chemical biology strategy to identify target RNAs of microRNAs, and the design and synthesis of short chemically modified oligonucleotides as microRNA inhibitors. In 2013 he took up his present position as a group leader at the Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at the TU Dortmund University. His current research interests include the development of new synthesis and encoding strategies that allow for expanding the chemical space of DNA-encoded small molecule screening libraries.

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Alexander Dömling studied Chemistry & Biology at the Technical University Munich and performed his PhD with Ivar K. Ugi. Then he performed his postdoc in the laboratory of Nobel Laureate Barry Sharpless as a Feodor Lynen fellow of the Humboldt society. After several years as professor at the University of Pittsburgh he recently became chair and professor of the department of drug design at the University of Groningen. His scientific interest include basics and applications of multicomponent reaction chemistries (MCR). MCR allows for the rapid generation of unprecedented chemical diversity which is tested in the Dömling laboratory for difficult biological targets, such as protein protein interactions (p53-MDM2, PD1-PDL1 etc). He also developed the pharmacophore based web-based platform ANCHOR.QUERY allowing to desktop-screen billions of instant synthesizable MCR molecules. In the context of difficult protein protein interactions his laboratory is developing innovative rapid macrocycle syntheses. He is author of >200 papers and multiple patent applications.

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Peter Ettmayer graduated at the Vienna University of Technology, Austria, in synthetic organic chemistry and received his doctoral degree there in 1990 (sub auspiciis praesidentis). After a postdoctoral stay at the Christian Doppler Laboratories for Chiral Compounds & Chemical Synthesis he joined the Novartis Research Institute in Vienna as a laboratory head in the antiviral therapy and immunopathology area in 1991. In 2005 Peter joined Boehringer-Ingelheim as a group leader in the Oncology Medicinal Chemistry Department. His main responsibilities span from heading the structural research group and analytics to heading NCE based external collaborations in the UK, Boston and Shanghai. Following the successful internalization of several first in class projects in 2014 Peter is now responsible for biophysical and function assays for compound profiling in the TA oncology. Peter is the author of numerous publication and patents and as the chairman of the medicinal chemistry section of the Austrian Chemical Society organized and chaired the JMMC 2005 and EFMC-ISMC in Vienna in 2008. His main research areas are in the areas of oncology and immunopathology covering many fields of medicinal chemistry, e.g. PPIs, kinase inhibitors, peptidomimetics, combinatorial chemistry, prodrugs and PROTACs.

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Christian Gruber is research group leader and Associate Professor at the Medical University of Vienna (Austria), and an ARC Future Fellow at The University of Queensland (Australia). He studied Biochemistry at the University of Tübingen (Germany), Molecular Biotechnology at the Queensland University of Technology (Australia), and received a Ph.D. in Molecular Biosciences from The University of Queensland. The research focus of his team is to study biological function, structure-activity relationship and pharmacological mechanism of nature-derived peptides isolated from plants and invertebrates (e.g., peptide hormones, neuropeptides and peptide toxins), and the development of novel peptide therapeutics. Further information: http://www.meduniwien.ac.at/pharmakologie/ms/

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Phil Humphreys is a Scientific Leader, GSK Fellow and medicinal chemist in the Epigenetics Discovery Performance Unit in GlaxoSmithKline Stevenage. He studied Biochemistry and Biological Chemistry at the University of Nottingham before completing his organic chemistry PhD. studies under the supervision of Prof. David Hodgson at the University of Oxford in 2007. Phil then completed his postdoctoral studies in the laboratory of Prof. Larry Overman at the University of California, Irvine as a Merck Sharp & Dohme Postdoctoral Research Fellow working on the total synthesis of alkaloid natural products. He began his medicinal chemistry career in 2009, joining the Immune Memory DPU in GSK, Stevenage before transitioning to the Epinova DPU in early 2010 where he has worked since. Phil has led programmes on a variety of targets in the epigenetic space, and has a particular interest in bromodomains as therapeutic targets.

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Freek Janssen studied chemistry at the Radboud University Nijmegen (The Netherlands). He performed his diploma thesis on the synthesis of natural product iminosugars under the supervision of Prof. dr. Floris Rutjes. Freek received his PhD at the Department of Molecular Physiology of Leiden University (The Netherlands) for his work on the discovery of novel inhibitors for diacylglycerol lipases and α/β hydrolase domain 16A, under supervision of Prof. dr. Herman Overkleeft and dr. Mario van der Stelt.

Since 2017, he is a Senior Researcher at the Center for Open Innovation in Lead Discovery (COILED), a newly established drug discovery center focusing on the identification and optimization of small-molecule modulators of Trained Immunity. Modulating the epigenetic programs that control the innate memory responses provides new strategies for developing innovative drugs in areas such as sepsis and auto-immune diseases.

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Uli Kazmaier studied chemistry at the University of Stuttgart where he obtained his diploma (1985) and his PhD (1989). Afterwards he joined as a postdoc the research groups of M.T. Reetz (Marburg) and B.M. Trost (Stanford). In 1992, he moved to Heidelberg starting his own scientific work as an habilitand at the Institute of Organic Chemistry. After his habilitation in 1997 he was privatdozent at the same University, and from 1999-2001 a substitute of a chair in Karlsruhe. In 2000 he received a Novartis Chemistry Lectureship and a offer of a full professorship at the University Bayreuth. In 2001 he also obtained a offer of a full professorship at the University des Saarlandes, which he accepted in 2001. In 2006 he received a call for a chair at university of Heidelberg, which he declined. His current research interest extends to new organometallic reagents and reactions especially for amino acid and peptide synthesis. Besides the development of new synthetic protocols, the application of these new reactions towards the synthesis of natural products and other pharmaceutical relevant structures plays a central role.

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Hugues Lemoine completed a chemical engineer degree at CPE Lyon and a M.Sc. in organic chemistry at the University of Lyon in 2009. During these studies, he also spend one year at PriaXon AG in Munich, working on multicomponent reactions and various medicinal chemistry projects. Then he obtained his Ph.D. in 2012 from the University of Paris Descartes where he developed new green extraction processes and chemical methodologies for the semi-synthesis of bio-sourced chiral building blocks. He joined Edelris in 2013 where he is currently working on a large panel of chemistry and medicinal chemistry projects.

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Laurent Provins is Director, Medicinal Chemistry at UCB Biopharma. He received his Ph.D. in synthetic organic chemistry from the University of Namur (Belgium) working on chrysanthemic esters synthesis using organotin reagents under the supervision of Prof. Alain Krief. After a postdoctoral stay at Osaka University in the field of biomimetic oxidation reactions with ruthenium-based catalysts with Shun-Ichi Murahashi, he joined UCB Pharma in 1999 as medicinal chemist. Since then, he has been involved in numerous projects in the field of respiratory disorders, inflammation and neurology. He also served as project leader from hit-to-lead phase to early development and advanced multiple preclinical and clinical candidates. He is also President of the Medicinal Chemistry Division of the “Belgian Royal Society of Chemistry - SRC” and council member of the European Federation for Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC) since 2013.

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Subharekha Raghavan joined MRL in 1995 as a Senior Research Chemist after receiving her Ph.D. at Princeton University and completing post-doctoral studies at Columbia University. An accomplished drug hunter she has worked in a number of therapeutic areas including Diabetes, Infectious Disease, Cardiovascular Disease and Neuroscience. She has led several cross-functional program teams and identified multiple high quality molecules that have advanced to the clinic. Subha is currently an Executive Director at Merck, Kenilworth, New Jersey, leading the High Throughput Experimentation and Lead Discovery capabilities group. Her team impacts Merck’s Discovery programs by enabling rapid access to the best molecules through data rich experimentation and design.

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Patrick Schnider is Expert Scientist and pre-clinical project leader at the Roche Innovation Center Basel. He is an inventor and co-inventor of 6 compounds which progressed to clinical studies, including the marketed neurokinin 1 receptor antagonist Netupitant for the prevention of chemotherapy induced nausea and vomiting. Beyond project work Patrick has acted as a team leader and member in several interdisciplinary global working groups in the fields of multi-parameter optimization (MDO) and compound screening library. He has also been a member of the team that conceived and developed the Roche medicinal chemistry knowledge database ROCK. Before joining Roche as a lab head in Medicinal Chemistry in 1998, Patrick received his training as a chemist from the University of Basel, the Max-Planck-Institute für Kohlenforschung and the California Institute of Technology.

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Ming-Hua Xu was born in Zhejiang, China. He obtained his Ph.D. from Shanghai Institute of Organic Chemistry (SIOC), Chinese Academy of Sciences in 1999. Following postdoctoral research at the University of Virginia and Georgetown University Medical Center, he joined the faculty at SIOC as an associate professor in 2003. He has been a professor at Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica, Chinese Academy of Sciences since 2005. He is the recipient of the Chinese Chemical Society Award for Young Chemist (2005), CAS Hundred Talent Program (2005), WuXi PharmaTech Life Science & Chemistry Award (2007), National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholar (2013), CAS Excellent Mentor Award (2013), Shanghai Academic Research Leader (2014), Shanghai Natural Science Award (1st prize, 2014) and National Natural Science Award (2nd prize, 2016). His research interests mainly involve asymmetric synthesis and drug discovery.

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