Highlights in Medicinal Chemistry V

Ed holds the GSK Chair in Chemical Biology at Imperial College London, he is also Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute, and academic founder of Myricx Bio, a biotech company developing his lab’s research toward clinical applications. Following his PhD (2000) with Steve Ley in Cambridge and postdoctoral research in Paris, he was awarded a BBSRC David Phillips Fellowship in 2006 to start his group at Imperial College. He sits on the advisory boards of several international research institutes and biotechs, and develops new drug discovery technologies with companies including Pfizer, GSK and AstraZeneca. His research has been recognised by multiple awards and Fellowships including the 2020 Corday-Morgan Prize of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a 2022 Cancer Research UK Programme Award. In 2023 he was appointed to the GSK Endowed Chair in Chemical Biology at Imperial College.

Suzanne is a Senior Drug Discovery Scientist at the University of Dundee where she leads PROTAC drug discovery projects for the treatment of cancer, in collaboration with Alessio Ciulli and Boehringer Ingelheim. She has a Medicinal Chemistry degree from Trinity College Dublin, a Research Masters in Drug Discovery and Development from Imperial College London and a PhD in Fragment Based Drug Discovery from the Institute of Cancer Research, under the supervision of Prof. Ian Collins. Prior to joining the Centre for Targeted Protein Degradation in Dundee, Suzanne has worked at Evotec in lead optimisation drug discovery for the treatment of chronic pain, and at AstraZeneca working on a variety of oncology drug discovery projects.

Ingo Hartung is a synthetic organic chemist by training (PhD University of Hannover/Germany, Postdoc Stanford University/US) with more than 15 years of Pharma industry experience (Schering AG, Bayer AG, Merck KGaA). He has been project leader in oncology and cardiology NCE drug discovery and has had portfolio responsibility for preclinical research in the areas of epigenetics and immuno-oncology. In his current role he is head of Merck’s Medicinal Chemistry & Drug Design department and is leading Merck’s global cross-functional targeted protein degradation platform. His research interests comprise all aspects of innovation in small molecule drug discovery with a special focus on new synthetic modalities like protein degraders. He is the author of >50 scientific publications and patents.