Confirmed Speakers

Brett Babin is a Principal Scientist in the department of Biochemical and Cellular Pharmacology at Genentech. His work focuses on the use of mass spectrometry (MS) for small molecule drug discovery, with particular emphasis on novel screening approaches and structural MS for the study of protein-ligand interactions. Brett obtained a B.S. in Chemical Engineering from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He then earned his Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from the California Institute of Technology, where he developed and applied chemical biology approaches for temporal- and cell-selective proteomics. Before joining Genentech, Brett was an A.P. Giannini Fellow in the department of Pathology at Stanford University, where he developed covalent inhibitors targeting bacterial pathogens.

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Jerry Barney is a Senior Associate Scientist with the Lead Discovery and Optimization department of Small Molecule Drug Discovery at Bristol Myers Squibb. For the past four years his work has focused on establishing and advancing ASMS as a key high throughput screening platform in early-stage drug discovery. Prior to his time in the pharmaceutical industry, he worked in method development and validation for the Forensic Services Division of the US Department of Homeland Security. Jerry received his BS from Clarion University and spent three years studying the potential energy surfaces of acetophenone via ultrafast pulsed laser TOF-MS at Temple University.

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Carsten Hopf obtained his PhD in biochemistry from Tübingen University/Max-Planck-Institute for Developmental Biology. As an EMBO fellow in neuroscience, he then worked at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine for three years, before joining Cellzome AG, a proteomics-focused drug discovery platform company in Heidelberg in 2001. There, for 13 years, he served in multiple roles in platform technology, assay development, drug discovery and business development, and eventually as part of Cellzome’s leadership team until 2014. Since 2005, Carsten Hopf is a professor of bioanalytics, proteomics and drug discovery at Mannheim University of Applied Sciences. He currently heads the Center of Mass Spectrometry and Optical Spectroscopy (CeMOS) in Mannheim as well as the M2Aind partnership for innovation in health industry. Carsten Hopf serves on boards of several biomedical clusters and as the industry liaison of the German Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. He is also an associated professor in the Medical and Biosciences Faculties of Heidelberg University.

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Daniel Medina-Cleghorn is a Senior Scientist in the Early Discovery Research Group at Nurix Therapeutics in San Francisco, CA. He received his PhD at the University of California at Berkeley and conducted his postdoctoral studies at the University of California, San Francisco. Daniel’s current work focuses on using ASMS and other bioanalytical mass spectrometry technologies in early stage drug discovery, identifying novel chemical matter to develop therapies employing targeted protein modulation.

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Dr Omprakash Nacham is currently Sr. Scientist II in Technology and Therapeutic Platforms team at Abbvie since 2020 January. Omprakash completed a PhD in analytical chemistry from Iowa State University in 2017 under guidance of Dr. Jared L . Anderson. He conducted postdoctoral studies at University of Minnesota with Dr. Edgar Arriaga and developed targeted LC-MS methods to understand autophagy in mammalian systems. Omprakash started industrial career at Pharmaceutical Product Development (PPD) and developed stability indicating methods for anti-sense oligonucleotides using mass spectrometry. Research Field: Drug discovery, metabolomics, and targeted proteomics

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Didier Roche, Ph.D., is Chief Scientific Officer at Edelris, a company he has co-founded in 2005. Didier received his Ph.D. from the University of Strasbourg and joined Novartis for a post-doctoral position where he pursued his carrier as process-chemist. He moved back to medicinal chemistry after joining Merck KGaA where he has led a group of 25 chemists for the diabetes division and contributed to the clinical development of 3 drug candidates. Didier has a broad interest for the development of new technologies in drug discovery. He has co-authored >50 publications and patents.

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Kai Sinervo is a Senior Scientist in the Structural Biology & Analytics group at the Medicine Design department of Orion Pharma in Finland. He has over 20 years of experience in the pharmaceutical industry, starting with method development and validation for the first seven years before transitioning to more research-oriented work, including physicochemistry and mass spectrometry. For the past two years, he has played a key role in setting up AS-MS methods and developing Native MS capabilities for Orion Pharma. Kai holds a Master of Science in Analytical Chemistry from Helsinki University, which he earned in 2000. Kai is highly regarded by his colleagues at Orion Pharma and is recognized for his significant contributions to the field of pharmaceutical research.

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Current position: Principal Scientist, Mechanistic and Structural Biology, Discovery Sciences, R&D, AstraZeneca, Cambridge, UK

Research Field: High Throughput Mass Spectrometry

Education and Experience: ~30 years of pharma experience in the area of technology delivery to support early drug discovery. Significant focus on the application of automation to drive business change and improve data quality to support key decision making in preclinical projects. In addition to my role within AstraZeneca I am currently Vice President of the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening and a member of the Scientific Advisory Board for the Institute of Molecular Science and Engineering at Imperial College.

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