Marco De Vivo, is the head of the Molecular Modeling and Drug Discovery lab at the Italian Institute of Technology. He is also the Associate Director of the IIT, responsible for Computational Sciences. His research is focused on development of  computational methods to achieve an atomic-level comprehension of chemical systems. In 2021, he co-founded IAMA Therapeutics. IAMA Therapeutics is developing small molecules for CNS disorders by selectively inhibiting cation-chloride cotransporters to address atypical brain activity in neurological conditions.

Maria Soloveychik is the co-founder and CEO of SyntheX, a therapeutics company accelerating drug discovery through synthetic biology. SyntheX, founded in 2016 and headquartered in San Francisco, advances its own oncology pipeline and partners in external discovery collaborations. Maria holds a PhD in Molecular Genetics from the University of Toronto, where her research uncovered novel pathways linking metabolism and epigenetic signaling. As a former research scientist at the Structural Genomics Consortium, her work contributed to determining numerous protein structures and identifying several promising drug candidates.

Christoph Lengauer has contributed to the development of 10 FDA-approved cancer medicines. Christoph is Chief Scientific Officer and a co-founder of Curie.Bio, where he and his team co-pilot seed-stage companies to help founders to achieve series A.

Prior to Curie, Christoph ideated, founded, and built several life science companies as Partner at Third Rock Ventures, including Blueprint Medicines, Relay Therapeutics, Thrive, Celsius Therapeutics, and MOMA Therapeutics.

Prior to joining biotech, Christoph was global head of oncology drug discovery at Sanofi and senior unit head of oncology discovery at Novartis. He has been an Associate Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he was involved in the identification of several cancer driver genes including PIK3CA and BRAF. As part of his research in Dr. Bert Vogelstein’s lab, Christoph discovered that all cancers are genetically unstable, which explains the molecular heterogeneity of cancer and why cancers develop resistance to drugs. He has authored more than 100 scientific articles published in top-tier scientific journals, including Cell, Nature, and Science. Christoph studied human genetics in Salzburg, Austria and obtained a Ph.D. in biology from the University of Heidelberg, Germany.

Business development is an essential process for biotech companies to build relationships with partners and create value from the deal structures that are based on science. We are taking a deep dive with James Lee into the mechanics and the framework that James uses for business development. 

James founded Bridge Biotherapeutics Inc. in 2015 and he currently serves as the CEO. Bridge has been recognized with the continuous advancement of clinical-stage programs focused on pulmonary fibrosis, lung cancer, and immunology. In 2019, James successfully orchestrated the licensing-out deal with Boehringer Ingelheim, which marked as one of the largest global deals on a single compound in Korea.

James Lee received his B.S and M.S. in Structural Biology from Seoul National University, he held various roles in research, research planning, and business development at LG Chem. In year 2000, James co-founded Crystal Genomics where he led fundraising and business development activities. In 2008, he founded Rexbio, an early-stage biotech startup specialized in discovering and developing therapeutics and diagnostics for the treatment of pancreatic cancer.

James founded Bridge Biotherapeutics Inc. in 2015 and he currently serves as the CEO. Bridge has been recognized with the continuous advancement of clinical-stage programs focused on pulmonary fibrosis, lung cancer, and immunology. In 2019, James successfully orchestrated the licensing-out deal with Boehringer Ingelheim, which marked as one of the largest global deals on a single compound in Korea.

Prof. Yaniv Erlich received his bachelor’s degree from Tel-Aviv University, Israel in 2006 and a PhD from the Watson School of Biological Sciences at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in 2010. Yaniv Erlich was an Associate Professor of Computer Science at Columbia University and was a PI at the Whitehead Institute, MIT. 

His research interests are computational human genetics. Yaniv has been an advisor for multiple companies in the area of genomics and bioinformatics. He authored over 40 peer-reviewed scientific studies, including multiple papers in Science, Nature Genetics, and Nature Methods. He holds five patents and has experience in both B2C and B2B in the area of genomics.

Prof. Yaniv Erlich was the CSO of MyHeritage and currently he is the CEO of Eleven Therapeutics, a company that he co-founded in 2020. Eleven Therapeutics is a biotech company focused on development of groundbreaking RNA therapeutics. 

Kiyoshi Takayama has received a Ph.D. in pharmaceutical science from the University of Tokyo. After his PhD he worked for more than 12 years as a research scientist at Taisho Pharmaceutical, Japan, where he was involved in the development of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) assay and the conducting of various drug discovery programs for chronic inflammation and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). In 2006, Kiyoshi left Taisho and founded NB Health Laboratory, a technology platform company for the generation of functional mAbs targeting GPCRs. NB Health Laboratory is pioneering a new field in GPCR-targeted drug discovery by targeting GPCRs for lipid mediator ligands using monoclonal antibodies.

David Younger is a bioengineer and started his biotech journey directly after his PhD. David’s scientific research was focused on the application of synthetic biology techniques for high-throughput screening of protein-protein interactions. In 2017 David co-founded A-Alpha Bio as a spin-out from the University of Washington. A-Alpha Bio applies synthetic biology to reprogram yeast mating and generate high quality protein interaction data at scale. Its AlphaSeq technology enables high-throughput, quantitative characterization of protein–protein binding interactions without requiring purified recombinant proteins to identify molecular glues.   

The path from the lab bench to market in biotech has many hurdles and lots of opportunities. Sometimes too many. Elaine Hamm has experienced all stages of bringing innovation from academia to a successful company and products. She shares a valuable framework on how to overcome the “shiny object syndrome” in biotech.

Elaine did her graduate and post-graduate studies in biochemistry and microbiology. Early on she took the role of technology development at the University of Oklahoma, where she built skills in assessing and spinning out new technologies. After several years at the venture capital company i2E, Elaine became the COO at Accele Biopharma. Elaine is also founder of Ascend BioVentures - pharmaceutical accelerator company. She founded Kirrhos Pharamceuticals and is currently President of Otologic Pharmaceutics, a clinical-stage company developing new treatments for hearing-loss and hearing-related diseases.

Targeted protein degradation, TPD, is a new and disruptive therapeutic approach for development of medicines. TPD opened doors to develop small molecules to drug the ‘undruggable’.  Instead of blocking the function of a protein, small molecules can lead to the degradation of the disease causing protein. Small molecules that have these properties are called proteolysis targeting chimeras, PROTACs. In this episode with Alessio Ciulli, we take a deep dive into the transformative potential PROTACs.

Alessio co-founded the biotech company Amphista Therapeutics. The company is focused on developing therapeutics leading targeted protein degradation.

Targeted protein degradation, or TPD, is a new and disruptive therapeutic approach for development of medicines. TPD utilizes the design of small molecules that can address disease-causing proteins that are highly challenging to drug. We discuss with @Alessio Ciulli about his exceptional career path as well as about the transformative potential of so-called PROTACs for TPD.

Alessio Ciulli studied chemistry at the University of Florence in Italy and completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge, UK. Early on Alessio worked with biophysical and structural analysis of protein-ligand interactions as well as fragment-based drug discovery. Alessio collaborated during his career with Chris Abell, Tom Blundell, and Craig Crews. Today, Alessio Ciulli is a full professor at the @University of Dundee as well as the Director of the new Centre for Targeted Protein Degradation

Alessio co-founded the biotech company @Amphista Therapeutics. The company is focused on developing therapeutics leading targeted protein degradation.

Mark Tebbe started his career as an organic chemist and later had senior positions at Lilly. After 16 years of a successful career in pharma, Mark started his biotech journey. He has been leading drug discovery at multiple biotech companies including Forma Therapeutics, Quatet Medicine, and Quench Bio. Mark is also the co-inventor of Telaprevir. Telaprevir is an inhibitor of the serine protease NS3/4A of the hepatitis C virus. Mark is currently the CTO at Matchpoint Therapeutics, a company focused on development of precision covalent medicines.

Carlo started his biotech journey as a founder and G7 Therapeutics as a spin-off from the University of Zurich. The company developed a technology for stabilization of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), a superfamily of receptors linked to a wide range of human diseases. G7 therapeutics was acquired by Sosei Heptares in 2016. But Carlo didn’t rest. He co-founded Acthera Therapeutics in 2019 and is active as a mentor. He also co-founded inCephalo, where he is currently active as CEO. With inCephalo the team is driven to change the landscape of therapeutic options for brain tumours.

As a founder, Serghei experienced the challenges of building a company in the fragmented biotech ecosystem.

Giving back and connecting the biotech ecosystem has become his mission.