3rd SCI-RSC symposium on antimicrobial drug discovery

Prof Anita Shukla

Brown University

Anita Shukla is an Assistant Professor of Engineering at Brown University. Her research involves development of nano- to macroscale biomaterials for treatment of microbial infections. Professor Shukla is the recipient of a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE), a National Science Foundation CAREER award, an Office of Naval Research Director of Research Early Career Grant, and a Brown Early Career Research Achievement Award. Prior to joining Brown in 2013, she was a postdoc in Bioengineering at Rice University. She earned her Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering and M.S. in Chemical Engineering Practice from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Prof Anna K. H. Hirsch

Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS)

Prof. Anna K. H. Hirsch obtained her M. Sci. from the University of Cambridge and her Ph.D. from the ETH Zurich in 2008 under Prof. F. Diederich. After a postdoc in Prof. J.-M. Lehn’s group, she became assistant professor at the University of Groningen in 2010 and associate professor in 2015.
In 2017, she became head of the department “Drug Design and Optimization” at the Helmholtz Institute for Pharmaceutical Research Saarland (HIPS) and full professor at Saarland University. She focuses on target-based anti-infective drug discovery, recognized by numerous prizes such as the Innovation Prize for Medicinal Chemistry of the GdCh/DPhG.

Dr Danny O'Hare

Imperial College

Danny O’Hare is professor of biosensor technology in the Department of Bioengineering at Imperial College London where he has worked 2001. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and Chartered Chemist.
His research has focussed on obtaining reliable, real time measurements of molecules in living systems using electrochemical sensors and biosensors, and microfabricated lab-on-a-chip devices. There are two strands to research in the O’Hare group: (1) a reductive physico-chemical approach to electrochemical sensors and biosensors and their signal path; (2) informed development and application of new devices to interesting problems in biomedicine and clinical sciences.

Dr Erin Duffy

CARB-X

Erin Duffy is the Chief of Research & Development at CARB-X. CARB-X is a global non-profit partnership dedicated to accelerating antibacterial research to tackle the global rising threat of drug-resistant bacteria. With up to US$480 million to invest in 2016-22, CARB-X funds the world’s largest early development pipeline of new antibiotics, vaccines, rapid diagnostics, and other products to prevent, diagnose and treat life-threatening bacterial infections. Prior to CARB-X, she worked at Melinta Therapeutics (fka Rib-X Pharmaceuticals) for 17+ years, where she became EVP, Chief Scientific Officer, leading the research and early development activities of the Company. She began her industrial career at Pfizer Central Research. Erin holds a Ph. D. from Yale University in physical-organic chemistry.

Prof Gerry Wright

McMaster University

Gerard (Gerry) Wright is the Director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research and the David Braley Centre for Antibiotic Discovery and the academic lead of Canada’ Global Nexus for Pandemics and Biological Threats. He is a Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences at McMaster University and holds the Michael G. DeGroote Chair in Infection and Anti-Infective Research. His research interests are in the origins and mechanisms of antibiotic resistance and the discovery of new anti-infective strategies, in particular focusing on the application of microbial natural products and synthetic biology towards this goal.

Dr Mihiro Sunose

Sygnature Discovery

Mihiro Sunose was born and raised in Japan until she was 9 years old. She spent her teen-age years in Holland until she started her University life at the University of Bristol to obtain a BSc and a PhD in Chemistry. In 2000, Mihiro started her career at Daiichi-Sankyo, Japan where she spent 2 years before she returned to the UK for personal reasons. She then spent 15 months at ChemOvation before joining Cellzome, Cambridge in 2003 where she worked for 9 years as a Group Leader. Mihiro has been with Sygnature Discovery since 2013 where she oversees drug discovery programmes for various clients.

Dr Patrizio Mattei

Patrizio Mattei is an Expert Scientist, Medicinal Chemistry at the Roche Innovation Center Basel, Pharma Research & Early Development (pRED). His research interests have been mainly devoted to the areas of metabolic diseases, ophthalmology, and more recently antibiotics, contributing to 6 molecules in human clinical trials. He is a co-inventor in more than 60 patent applications and has co-authored 18 peer-reviewed articles in the field of drug discovery. Before joining Roche in 1999, he earned a Doctor of Sciences degree from the ETH Zürich and was a postdoctoral research fellow at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.

Dr Thomas Durand-Reville

Entasis Therapeutics

Dr Durand-Reville obtained his Ph.D. in chemistry in 2000 in Paris. He then completed a postdoc in total synthesis at the University of Cambridge. Dr Durand-Reville started his US career at Biogen and Wyeth where he worked on several oncology and inflammation projects. Then, in the AstraZeneca Infection group, he was responsible for the medicinal chemistry strategy on many programs from early stage hit identification through IND-enabling studies, including durlobactam (now in Ph3). At Entasis Therapeutics, his group is currently focused on delivering a portfolio of innovative new antibiotics against multidrug-resistant Gram-negative pathogens, including ETX0282 (Ph1) and ETX0462 (GLP tox).