Each week of the course features interviews of experts from fields relevant to the pharmaceutical industry. These interviews are intended to give students an opportunity to hear about topics in drug discovery direct from practitioners in the field. The interviews are being recorded as the course is being released. Additional biographies will be included in the list below as the information becomes available.
Week 1 - Natalie Clayton, Esq., Partner at Alston & Bird
 |
Natalie Clayton's practice focuses on resolution of intellectual property disputes. She has extensive experience litigating intellectual property matters involving a wide range of legal issues. Natalie has represented clients in trials throughout the United States, and has particular expertise in Hatch-Waxman cases. She has been involved in patent cases covering diverse areas of technology, including pharmaceuticals, software, chemical, medical devices and mechanical devices. Natalie has represented clients in the pharmaceutical and gemological industries in trademark, false advertising and unfair competition cases brought under the Lanham Act. Natalie is also experienced in patent opinion practice, conducting due diligence investigations, reexamination proceedings and FDA regulatory matters involving pharmaceuticals and dietary ingredients. Natalie is a member of the American and New York Bar Associations. She actively participates in several pro bono projects, including representing Sustainable Health Enterprises, a non-profit organization that seeks to bring market-based solutions to developing countries. |
Week 2 - Dr. Steven Tregay, CEO and founder of FORMA Therapeutics
 |
Prior to founding FORMA, Steven Tregay was a Managing Director for the $200M Novartis Option Fund. He led the fund’s investments in and served on the Board of Directors of FORMA Therapeutics, Adenosine Therapeutics (acquired by Clinical Data: FRX) and Cequent Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Marina Biotech: MRNA). Prior to joining the venture group, he was the Executive Director and Head of Strategic Alliances-Oncology, Ophthalmology and Technologies at the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research. He managed a team who were responsible for identification, negotiation and management of collaborations for the oncology and ophthalmology disease areas and all the technology areas. Prior to Novartis, he had roles in business development at Array BioPharma and research. He received his Ph.D. and M.S. in organic chemistry from Harvard University and a B.S. from Davidson College. |
Week 3 - Dr. Parisa Zamiri, Director, Translational Medicine Expert
 |
Dr. Zamiri is an ophthalmologist with PhD in ocular immunology. After perusing clinical and academic careers, in 2007, she joined Arsenal Medical Inc., an early stage combination medical device company as the Director of Pre-clinical Sciences. Dr. Zamiri built and managed a team of molecular and cell biologists, and histopathologists for cardiovascular, ophthalmology and pain programs and work in multi-disciplinary fashion with material scientists, chemists and engineers to develop innovative combination drug/device technologies. She successfully carried one such a combination into the First in Man study. In April 2012, she joined Novartis as Director, Translational Medicine Expert in ophthalmology, and has taken a lead on multiple clinical trial projects to test various drugs for the treatment of age-related macular degeneration, a devastating, blinding condition. |
Week 4 - Dr. James Mangold, Director of Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics at the Novartis Institutes of Biomedical Research
 |
James Mangold leads the Drug Metabolism (US) group of the global Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics department of NIBR. His group is primarily responsible for characterizing the metabolic fate of new drugs within the body and also contributes to drug-drug interaction related research and its application to drug development. James is also a core member of the Cardiovascular and Metabolism Disease Area Decision Board of Novartis. Prior to joining Novartis, James was an Associate Professor of Medicinal Chemistry (School of Pharmacy) at the University of Connecticut with NIH-funded research in enzymology (sulfotransferases) and mechanisms of chemical bioactivation and mutagenesis. His current research interests include drug metabolism and mechanisms of toxicity, mechanisms of drug-drug interactions, enzyme mechanisms and inhibitors, reactive metabolites and bioorganic chemistry. James received his B.S. degree in Pharmacy (University of Kansas), Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry (University of Minnesota) and was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Chemistry at the University of California (Berkeley). James was the Chair of the 2013 Gordon Research Conference on Drug Metabolism. |
Week 5 - Dr. Adam Hill, Head of Screening (Cambridge) at the Novartis Institutes of Biomedical Reaearch
 |
Adam Hill received his doctorate from Oxford University, England, followed by a post-doctoral position at Harvard / Mass. General, Boston. In 1994 Dr. Hill moved to the University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT where with Professor Alex Makriyannis he established a didactic facility for high throughput screening. Adam started his industrial career in 1997 with Schering Plough in Kenilworth, NJ and after four years in the high throughput screening group, he joined Millennium Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, MA again focused on high throughput screening of both biochemical and cellular targets. In 2004 he joined Novartis, he is currently Head of Screening, CPC Cambridge, one of two main screening centers for the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research. In his current role he directs a group of 65 scientists in lead finding efforts including sample management, reagent production, assay development, screening, and pre-clinical safety. |
Week 6 - Dr. Meir Glick, Head of in silico Lead Discovery at the Novartis Institutes of Biomedical Reaearch
 |
In 2014 Dr. Meir Glick was the head of the in silico Lead Discovery group at Novartis where he has been employed since 2002. Before arriving at Novartis, Dr. Glick trained as a postdoc in the area of computational chemistry in the University of Oxford, UK. Current areas of interest include assembling compound sets based on relevant phenotypes via a computational mechanism, multi-parametric analysis of high-content imaging and gene signature data, and novel visualization technique to assess complex biological data types. The expert tools and approaches that were developed in Dr. Glick's group include the feature point pharmacophores , data mining algorithms, library design, safety pharmacology data analysis, in silico chemogenomics and systems biology, virtual screening and HTS data analysis. Dr. Glick is the author of over 100 scientific papers in peer reviewed journals, patents, and book chapters. In 2015 Dr. Glick took a position with Merck. |
Week 7 - Dr. Julian Levell, Group Leader in Global Discovery Chemistry at the Novartis Institutes of Biomedical Reaearch
 |
Dr. Julian Levell is a medicinal chemist and Group Leader in Global Discovery Chemistry at the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research in Cambridge, MA. He has over 17 years of drug discovery experience in industry, working on a variety of targets across multiple target classes and therapeutic areas (proteases, kinases, GPCR’s, synthases, oxidoreductases, PPI’s, and prodrugs; across oncology, cardiovascular, diabetes, neuroscience, rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, and inflammation). Julian has led several programs through early discovery and optimization which have progressed molecules into clinic trials for asthma, diabetes and cancer. Many projects were complex collaborations across sites, between disease areas and between companies. He recently spent a 3-month sabbatical at the University of Cape Town / H3D Research Institute teaching medicinal chemistry and drug discovery. Julian obtained his BSc (Hons) and PhD in organic chemistry from the University of Wales, Cardiff and carried out postdoctoral research with the late Prof Alan R. Katritzky, FRS at the University of Florida. |
Week 7 - Dr. Amin Kamel, Senior Research Investigator II at the Novartis Institutes of Biomedical Reaearch
 |
In 2014 Amin Kamel led the biotransformation group in the Department of Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK), and his research interests encompass the thorough knowledge of drug metabolism of small molecules in guiding research teams to optimize Absorption, Distribution, Metabolism and Excretion (ADME) properties. Amin obtained his Ph.D. in chemistry in 1998 from the University of Rhode Island through a collaborative project under the direction of Burnaby Munson (inventor of chemical ionization mass spectrometry) at the University of Delaware. Amin studied ion formation mechanisms of tetracyclines and nucleoside antiviral agents using H/D exchange, thermochemistry, and multiple stage mass spectrometry. Amin started his research career in Ian Blair’s laboratory at Vanderbilt University. He later joined the Drug Metabolism Division at Pfizer Global Research and Development (Groton Laboratories) before taking a position with Novartis. Amin has received the Novartis Catalyst Award (2011) and the Pfizer Global Achievement Award (2007). In 2015 Amin took a position with Biogen. |