Launching Drug Discovery from Huge Chemical Space

Dave is responsible for the preclinical discovery platform with which WuXi AppTec supports its collaborators in Europe and Israel. With a background in medicinal chemistry, Dave joined WuXi AppTec 7 years ago, after working in biotech (VP Research, Xention), founding NCE Discovery (now Domainex), and supporting an integrated biomedical research group at University College London. Dave started his career at the Wellcome Foundation and received his Ph.D in Chemistry from Imperial College, London.

Dr. Le Chang joined WuXi AppTec in 2014. He is the director of International Discovery Service Unit (IDSU), Research Service Division (RSD). Dr. Chang received his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry with Professor Zhen Yang in 2012 from Peking University. His graduate research focused on total synthesis of complex natural products. After that, Dr. Chang continued his research in Professor Xiang Wang’s group as a research fellow at University of Colorado Boulder (2012-2014), and work on diverse topics between transition metal-catalyzed chemical methodology and bio-inspired synthesis. His research interests mainly focus on synthetic organic chemistry and medicinal chemistry.

Carl Kaub is the Senior Director of Business Development for WuXi Apptec’s Chemistry Services Unit. Prior to his position at WuXi Apptec, Carl held various positions in Business Development, Biotech Operations, and Medicinal Chemistry. Carl began his career as a medicinal chemist in the pharmaceutical industry at successful drug discovery companies such as Cephalon, Renovis, and Evotec. He has been a part of medicinal chemistry teams that have produced successful drug discovery campaigns focused in oncology, CNS, pain and inflammation, as well as other innovative therapeutic areas. He has helped advance multiple small molecule programs from early-stage exploratory projects to full discovery programs which produced four clinical candidates that are still clinical trials. He is an inventor on over 25 patents and is widely published in peer reviewed journals.

Christian received his Ph.D. from the University of Bonn for his work on the FlexS system for the automated superposition of small molecules. In 1999, he began his industry carrier as Senior Research Scientist at the biotech company CombiChem in Palo Alto CA. Later this biotech became part of DuPont Pharmaceuticals and moved to San Francisco. In 2001 he returned to Germany and co-founded BioSolveIT. Dr. Lemmen’s vision is to revolutionize the drug-discovery process by empowering every chemist with the best algorithms wrapped inside the most intuitive user-interfaces.

Dave has over 25 years in the pharma/biotech sector; 16 years in mid-sized biopharma initially as a medicinal chemist progressing through section leader, chemistry then director of technology at UCB. In 2009 he joined Cyclofluidic as executive director to lead the company and deliver the first fully integrated design, make and test platform for small molecule discovery and providing medicinal chemistry services to pharma, biotech and the not for profit sectors. Dave now uses his experience and interest in small molecule discovery, technologies and biotech to advise a range of clients on both scientific and business issues. He has particular expertise in chemistry automation and integration, informatics, small business operational management and early stage drug discovery.

Janeta Popovici-Muller is SVP Drug Discovery at Rectify Pharmaceuticals, a seed-stage company focused on delivering life-changing therapies to people with rare genetic disorders. Prior to joining Rectify in November 2020, Janeta was VP, Head of Chemistry at Decibel Therapeutics, a biotech company dedicated discovering and developing transformative treatments to restore and improve hearing and balance. From 2010 to 2016 Janeta co-led drug discovery programs at Agios Pharmaceuticals that delivered clinical-stage molecules in the areas of cancer metabolism (co-inventor of Tibsovo®) and rare genetic metabolic disorders. Prior to joining Agios, Janeta spent 10 years at Merck Research Labs in Cambridge, MA (through merger with Schering-Plough) where she focused on small molecule drug discovery in oncology, inflammation and anti-viral therapeutic areas. Janeta holds a PhD in organic chemistry from Dartmouth College, and has more than 70 publications in peer-reviewed journals, patents, invited lectures and presentations. Over the years, she has been actively involved in the Gordon Research Conference and American Chemical Society and serves as the 2021 Chair of the Medicinal Chemistry GRC.

Thomas Steinbrecher studied Chemistry at the University of Freiburg in Germany and earned a diploma with distinction in Physical Chemistry. He completed a Ph.D. thesis on “Computer Simulations of Protein-Ligand Interactions” in 2005. He joined the developer team of the Amber MD package as a Postdoc at the Scripps Research Institute in San Diego and Rutgers University in New Jersey. The work focus was on efficient free energy calculation methods and QM/MM simulations of charge transfer. After returning to Germany in 2008, Thomas established a junior research group at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, working on fast electron transfer phenomena in DNA and proteins. He joined Schrodinger in 2013 where he was responsible for the large scale application of free energy calculation methods in pharmaceutical drug design. Since 2017, he heads the Applications Science Department for Europe and supports customers in employing Schrödinger’s Drug Discovery Technology Platform for their research.

Li Xing is Executive Director at WuXi AppTec, leading the computational chemistry function responsible for discovery research of broad biological interventions as well as modern technology advancement. Prior to joining WuXi, she spent more than fifteen years at Pfizer Global Research, co-inventing pharmacotherapies of various disease indications and advancing multiple compounds to human clinical development. A passionate drug hunter, Dr. Xing specializes in computer aided drug discovery, with a focus on applying computational technologies to solve real-time problems in pharmaceutical research. She has published more than one hundred peer-reviewed journal articles and international patents. She received her Ph.D. in polymer science from University of Akron, and double bachelor degrees in solid state physics and computer technology from Tsinghua University.