Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Passionate drug hunter with 21 years’ experience in Novartis early-stage drug discovery, aiming to help bring novel medications to patients with unmet medical needs. Currently Global lead of a novel initiative aiming to streamline the lead identification and optimization (LIDO) drug discovery phases within Biomedical Research Novartis. Extensive experience in building and running cellular and biochemical screening assays to support medicinal LMW chemistry optimization phases. Experienced in building and leading diverse, inclusive and multi-disciplinary drug discovery project teams within several Disease Area’s in Novartis. Excellent collaboration skills to build and maintain partnerships with internal and external partners across various disciplines. Project management skills and extensive managerial experience in mentoring, coaching and leading associates, graduate students and research teams. Longstanding interest and experience in membrane proteins (ion channels and GPCRs) as drug targets and implementing innovative technologies to accelerate drug discovery projects (High-Throughput Mutagenesis, Automated Electrophysiology). Author of 32 peer-reviewed scientific publications, presenter at international conferences, and co-inventor of 2 patents.
Employed as Senior Research Fellow on two subsequent Wellcome Trust project grants, awarded to Prof. Lucia Sivilotti. Her group was originally based at the School of Pharmacy but then moved to the Pharmacology Dept of University College London, working closely together with the group of Prof. David Colquhoun. Research was focused on the cys-loop superfamily of ligand-gated ion channels, in particular glycine and nicotinic channels. Results have been published in numerous peer review papers.
PhD program in collaboration with the University of Leuven, Belgium.