A fully integrated team of experts in biology, chemistry and machine learning working as one to find new medicines.

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July 17, 2024
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June 08, 2022

Leadership

  • Nicolas has a long history of straddling the line between bench science and computation with degrees in computer science and biochemistry. He eventually earned a Ph.D. in biochemistry at Stanford working on a directed evolution platform using DNA encoded libraries which was spun out into DiCE molecules. After graduate school he built and led machine learning engineering teams in tech startups before founding Anagenex in the fall of 2019.

  • Ryan has 18 years of experience across both pharma and biotech including 15 years at GSK where he led the Cancer Epigenetics Research Unit within GSK's Oncology R&D division. During his tenure at GSK, the unit brought forward six novel small molecule therapies from discovery, through IND filing, and on to clinical development. Ryan's academic background in biochemistry coupled with his industry experience enable him to identify the most promising therapeutic targets and accelerate drug candidates into clinical development to help patients in need.

  • Adrian Schreyer is a pioneering leader in AI powered drug discovery with extensive experience in drug development. Prior to joining Anagenex, he spent over a decade at Exscientia where he was a founding member of the team and went on to support the company through a successful IPO while building its AI team from scratch and eventually serving as the company’s Chief Technology Officer. The AI enabled drug discovery engine he designed during his time at Exscientia is one of the only AI platforms to drive compounds from discovery into the clinic. Adrian holds a B.Sc. in Applied Biology from the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University of Applied Sciences and a Ph.D. in Structural Bioinformatics and Drug Discovery from the University of Cambridge.

  • Joe is an incredibly accomplished leader in DNA Encoded Library chemistry having worked on, built and led DEL teams for 15 years. His entrepreneurial drive, creativity and deep experience make Anagenex the most innovative DEL team in biotech.

  • Robert Forrester is a life sciences executive and entrepreneur with more than 20 years of experience leading both public and private companies including EQRx, Verastem Oncology, Forma Therapeutics, CombinatoRx and Coley (acquired by Pfizer). He has co-founded 8 companies including IDRx and EQRx. Earlier in his career, Robert worked for several investment banks undertaking M&A and finance transactions and served as a managing director of the Proprietary Investment Group at MeesPierson investing in life science companies. Robert holds an LL.B. from Bristol University, UK.

  • Dr. Serafini is one of the three principal founders of Atreca and was CEO from the Company’s inception in 2010 until 2018. In his role as Chief Strategy Officer, Dr. Serafini is responsible directly for research, preclinical development, technology, and intellectual property. Before co-founding Atreca, he was Chief Scientific Officer of Nuon Therapeutics, a development-stage biotechnology company. Previously, Dr. Serafini was a founder of Renovis, a public biotechnology company, where he served as an executive officer in multiple technical and business management roles, including leading the research and M&A functions. Prior to founding Renovis, Dr. Serafini was an award-winning faculty member in the Department of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, where he established the university’s Functional Genomics Laboratory.

    Dr. Serafini received a BS in biochemistry from Case Western Reserve University and a PhD in biochemistry from Stanford University (advised by Dr. James Rothman), and he performed postdoctoral research at the University of California, San Francisco in the laboratory of Dr. Marc Tessier-Lavigne.

  • Isaac Ro has an extensive experience as an investor, board member and operator having navigated multiple financings, M&A transactions and exits. Ro is currently a Partner at Catalio Capital Management, LP where he helps lead the private investments team. He previously served as Executive Chairman of Haystack Oncology (sold to Quest Diagnostics), Chief Financial Officer of Sema4 (took public and acquired GeneDx), and Chief Financial Officer of Thrive Earlier Detection (sold to Exact Sciences). Previously, he was an equity research analyst at Goldman Sachs and Leerink Partners. Isaac holds a B.A. in History from Middlebury College.

  • Shaq started his professional career in the aerospace and defense sector spending time at NASA and Northrop Grumman. Following, Shaq got exposure to the emerging life sciences sector at Illumina, seeing firsthand the impact DNA sequencing has had on ending human suffering. Most recently, Shaq worked at Parthenon (SSG) in San Francisco, where he advised premier private equity and growth equity firms on enterprise technology and healthcare investments. At Lux Shaq focuses on “building block” ideas where the value and markets unlocked downstream are greater than that of a single product. Some examples of these building blocks include: biotech, drug discovery platforms, molecular & computational tools, synbio, data infrastructure, and developer tools. Shaq holds a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Florida.

Our Team

  • Neil has many years experience in the pharmaceutical industry as a medicinal chemist working in both large pharma and biotech. During his time at GSK he successfully led projects from early discovery to development achieving 3 IND's and contributing to multiple other clinical assets. The majority of his research has been in oncology working on targets ranging from kinase signalling pathways to epigenetics.

  • Meghan is a creative biochemist with experience ranging from peptide synthesis to SELEX to lncRNA footprinting. While pursuing her PhD at Duke University, she employed each of these with protein biochemistry to explore dynamic interactions of epigenetic complexes. Afterwards, she joined the DEL selections team at GSK where she learned to translate her experiences into the DEL world. Meghan has a natural drive to explore and at Anagenex is developing new approaches to the wide variety of biochemical problems in the DEL space.

  • Will has over a decade of broad business experience, with a focus on building both strategy and operations that enable teams to reach ambitious goals. Prior to joining Anagenex, he led business development and operations at Cugene, attained an MBA at Duke University with a focus in healthcare, and worked at RSM as a Management Consultant.

  • Leah has 10 years of experience building and scaling people programs and company infrastructure at startups. She was the Chief of Staff & Head of People at Teampay before she founded Seedling Stage, an HR consultancy dedicated to equipping early-stage companies. At Anagenex, she builds an iterative People and HR function to facilitate collaboration in a hybrid environment and drive engagement towards achieving the company's mission.

  • Olga is a cell biology scientist with broad expertise in anti-cancer therapeutic drug development and project management. She has PhD in Biophysics focused on development of new types of assays to study the biological systems such as cells, intracellular organelles, and tissues. Olga is passionate for science revealing intimate mechanisms of intracellular and intercellular regulations playing determinant roles in disease progression.

  • Andrew comes with an undergraduate degree from Harvard University in micro-biology and over 8 years of lab experience optimizing workflows by converting time consuming manual processes into walk-away automated workflows. At Anagenex, Andrew innovates custom automated and semi-automated solutions to get more and better data, faster, and easier.

  • Neil has more than 20 years of experience collaborating with chemists and biologists in early stage drug discovery, authoring tools to help them track, analyze and visualize data. He has delivered custom LIMS systems for DEL, ASMS, HTS and aptamer discovery he will also be helping to deliver ML models of the DEL results that will guide us on our path to evolved precision medicines.

  • LaShadric is a versatile bench scientist with 22 years of industrial experience, having spent the last 13 years expanding the DNA Encoded Library Chemical Space. His wide range of skills in the lab matched with his knowledge of the DEL process makes him an integral piece to what we believe will redesign the future of drug Discovery.

  • Kim has a background in biochemistry and biophysics. Prior to Anagenex, she contributed to the assay development teams at Interline Therapeutics and Foghorn Therapeutics where she supported hit discovery efforts across several programs. She earned her PhD in the lab of Stephen Frye at UNC Chapel Hill developing chemical probes to study chromatin biology. At Anagenex, Kim is designing hit triage cascades and assay strategies to drive hit validation and lead identification.

  • Soeren is a talented machine learning scientist with experience applying AI for problems in chemistry and physics. While completing his PhD in Applied Physics at Harvard University, he developed smelling-like sensors by combining colorimetric dynamic sensing with biomimetic sniffing patterns. Afterwards, Soeren joined Atomwise, where he developed deep learning models for property prediction and compound generation.

  • Sumudu has a background in protein structure modeling, bioinformatics, and small molecule drug discovery. She holds a PhD in Biophysics and has worked for over 10 years on chemoinformatics and computational chemistry problems aimed at hit identification and lead optimization.

  • Lizbeth DeSelm is an experienced medicinal chemist, with contributions to 10 patents and 5 clinical candidate small molecule nominations over a career that began in 2005. Her broad experience with PROTAC programs and leading medicinal chemistry efforts are well suited for transitioning DEL features to active medicinal chemistry programs. She has broad experience in oncology, inflammation and immuno-oncology pathways.

  • Matt is a skilled chemist with years of experience in the field of DNA encoded chemistry. Following his academic research which focused on the synthesis of novel antibiotic compounds, Matt joined the discovery chemistry group at X-Chem, developing new on-DNA reactions and synthesizing DNA encoded libraries. He brings this experience to Anagenex where he will help to further expand the boundaries of chemical space.

  • Priyanka holds a double master’s in Biotechnology from Northeastern University, Boston and SPU, India. She has lab experience in handling biochemical assays, molecular and chromatographic techniques.

  • Joseph is a recent graduate from Johns Hopkins University where he earned his MSE in

    Biomedical Engineering. He has a strong background in data analysis and engineering, with

    experience in developing and implementing data-driven solutions to complex problems in both

    academic and industry settings at Johns Hopkins University and Becton Dickinson, respectively.

    At Anagenex, Joseph works in collaboration with biologists, chemists, and ML specialists to

    deliver bespoke tools and analyses of drug discovery data.

  • Kaileigh is a class of 2020 graduate of the University of Rhode Island where she received her bachelor’s degree in cellular and molecular biology with a focus in biochemistry. She has experience performing microbiology research on the oral microbiome as well as performing clinical research on how Cystic Fibrosis patients are impacted by exercise. Additionally she has interned in the fields of chemistry and environmental health and safety. Most recently, Kaileigh worked as a quality control microbiologist where she assisted in the routine testing as well as developmental testing for microbiome clients. Kaileigh is excited to be joining the Anagenex team and contribute to drug discovery research and development.

  • Joey works across the biology and chemistry teams to ensure Anagenex's laboratory is a safe and organized environment. His experience in automotive detailing trained him to focus on the details, a skill he uses to equip the scientific team and increase productivity.

  • Kayla is a driven bench scientist who believes in the advantage of incorporating automation in the laboratory. With an undergraduate degree in chemistry, she has spent multiple years in industry working directly on DEL reaction optimization and synthesis. At Anagenex, Kayla applies this benchtop background to transition manual processes into an automated workflow.

  • Alex has over 15 years of experience in software in arenas ranging from front-end system design through middleware, infrastructure, backend API components and developer experience. Throughout his career he has strived to bring collective knowledge to his projects believing in a standards-first approach over high domain expertise. At Anagenex Alex is focused on building critical infrastructure and platforms key to delivering on their core promise and empowering software excellence.

  • Karen is an in vitro cancer biologist with over a decade of expertise in molecular and cell biology, target discovery, and drug development. Formerly at GSK, she led efforts in assay development, novel target identification, and validation of synthetic lethal targets in oncology. She received her PhD in Bio-organic Chemistry from Syracuse University, and postdoctoral training in the Whitesides Group at Harvard University. Now at Anagenex, Karen leverages her experience in cell biology and assay development to advance and expand the company's portfolio.

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