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- Robert Pacifici, Ph.D. - Chief Scientific Officer, Drug Discovery & Development
- Daniel P. van Kammen, M.D., Ph.D. - Chief Medical Officer
- Celia Dominguez, Ph.D. - Vice President, Chemistry
- Tom Base - Executive Director, Business Development & Operations
- Vahri Beaumont, Ph.D. - Research Scientist
- Alex Borchers, Ph.D. - Director, Informatics
- Evelyn Galstian - Associate Project Manager
- Janet M. Leeds, Ph.D. - Director, Pre-Clinical Development
- Douglas Macdonald, Ph.D. - Director, Drug Discovery
- Michel Maillard, Ph.D. - Director, Chemistry
- Richard J. Morse, Ph.D. - Director, Computational & Structural Biology
- Hyunsun Park, Ph.D. - Director, Quantitative Biology
- Larry Park, Ph.D. - Director, Pre-Clinical Research
- Leticia M. Toledo-Sherman, Ph.D. - Director, Computer Aided Drug Design and Medicinal Chemistry
- John Wityak, Ph.D. - Director, Medicinal Chemistry
Robert Pacifici, Ph.D.
Chief Scientific Officer, Drug Discovery & Development
Dr. Pacifici joined CHDI, Inc. in November 2004 as the Chief Scientific Officer.
Dr. Pacifici was formerly the Site Director and Chief Scientific Officer for Eli Lilly and Company's Research Triangle Park Laboratories where his responsibilities included oversight of the company's global screening and quantitative-biology efforts. Prior to joining Lilly, Dr. Pacifici was Vice President of Discovery Technologies at Xencor, a privately held biotechnology company which specializes in developing rationally designed protein therapeutics. Dr. Pacifici spent over a decade at Amgen where he held positions of increasing responsibility including leadership for their automation, high throughput screening, and information technologies groups. In addition to his internal responsibilities, he was instrumental in forging Amgen's relationships with Caliper Technologies, The Automation Partnership, and the acquisition of Kinetix Pharmaceuticals.
Dr. Pacifici received a B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and his Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Southern California. He holds an adjunct appointment at the University of Southern California's Department of Molecular Pharmacology and is the Chair for the National Institute on Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) Spinal Muscular Atrophy Project's Scientific Steering Committee. He currently sits on several additional external boards and advisory committees including the Cooperative International Neuromuscular Research Group, and the TREAT ALS Steering Committee.
Daniel P. van Kammen, M.D.,Ph.D.
Chief Medical Officer
Dr. van Kammen joined CHDI, Inc. in July 2007 as the Chief Medical Officer.
Dr. van Kammen brings almost 10 year of CNS industrial biopharmaceutical drug development experience and more than 25 years of psychopharmacological experience to CHDI. Formerly, he was Global Medical Leader at Johnson & Johnson, Raritan, NJ., responsible for Phase 1 through 4 programs; Sr. Distinguished Scientist and Head of CNS Phase 1 and 2a at Aventis (now sanofi-aventis); and most recently vice-president of Clinical Development at ACADIA Pharmaceuticals Inc. where his responsibilities included oversight of multiple Phase 1 and 2 trials for schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease psychosis and sleep maintenance insomnia. Prior to joining the pharmaceutical industry, Dr. van Kammen was Professor of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh Medical School, Pittsburgh, PA, and CMO at the Highland Drive VAMC, Pittsburgh, where his schizophrenia and sleep research was funded by the Dept. of Veteran Affairs, NIMH and private foundations. Before moving to Pittsburgh, he built a multidisciplinary pharmacological and biochemical research program of schizophrenia at the National Institutes of Mental Health, NIH Clinical Center, in Bethesda, Maryland, USA. Dr. van Kammen is presently Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania and Columbia University.
Dr. van Kammen received his Medical Degree from the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands, where he also received his PhD (in Pharmacology). He completed his psychiatric residency at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, Baltimore, MD, and is certified in Psychiatry by the American and Dutch Boards of Psychiatry and Neurology.
Celia Dominguez, Ph.D.
Vice President, Chemistry
Dr. Celia Dominguez is currently Vice President of Chemistry and Sr. Scientific Advisor at CHDI Inc. Dr. Dominguez has 15 years of drug discovery and development experience in the Pharmaceutical Biotechnology sector with Amgen and DuPont Merck, where she held positions of increasing responsibility.
At DuPont Merck, she was part of the team that discovered a potent and selective FXa inhibitor, which eventually led to the identification of a clinical candidate currently in phase III clinical trials. She was recruited to Amgen to participate in the building of the small molecule drug discovery department and its infrastructure; she also participated in identifying and recruiting talented scientists. Dr. Dominguez went on to lead and manage various projects from drug discovery to clinical trials in the areas of oncology, inflammation and neurobiology resulting in five (5) clinical candidates.
She has a consistent and impressive track record of publishing, patenting, and (most importantly) delivering therapeutic candidates for pre-clinical and clinical evaluation.
Dr. Dominguez received a B.S. in Chemistry from the Rutgers University, her Ph.D. in Synthetic Organic Chemistry from Brown University, and Post-doctoral training at NIH/NIDDK. She is a member of the American Chemical Society, American Association for the Advancement of Science, and a member of the Expert Opinion on Therapeutic Patents Editorial Board for Patent selections.
Tom Base
Executive Director, Business Development & Operations
Tom Base serves as Executive Director of Business Development and Operations for CHDI where he is responsible for collaborations with biopharmaceutical companies, academic institutions and contract research organizations. He is also responsible for coordinating all contracting, financial and legal efforts for CHDI. Prior to CHDI, he was director of Corporate Development at Isis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., where he worked on several key strategic partnerships and financing efforts resulting in funding of over $100M. He also oversaw drug development operations where he was responsible for business operations including outsourcing, vendor relations and strategic portfolio management. Prior to Isis, Mr. Base worked in healthcare investment banking at a leading Wall Street firm helping to raise nearly $2B in public equity for leading biotechnology and technology companies. Mr. Base also served as an officer in the Marines. Mr. Base holds an MBA from RSM Erasmus University Graduate School of Business in Rotterdam, The Netherlands and his Bachelor's degree from the U.S. Naval Academy, Annapolis, MD.
Vahri Beaumont, Ph.D.
Research Scientist
Vahri joined CHDI as a translational research scientist in 2007. She brings extensive experience of research into neurodegeneration from both academia and the pharmaceutical industry. She received her PhD in Pharmacology from the University of Bristol, UK, followed by two post-doctoral trainings at UC Berkeley and the Medical Research Council’s Laboratory of Molecular Biology UK. From 2003-2006, she worked as a senior research biologist at Merck, UK, focusing on the development of novel therapeutic strategies geared towards the modulation of synaptic transmission and plasticity using small molecule intervention. She brings considerable experience to CHDI of working with both primary neuronal and brain slice assays, utilizing electrophysiological and optical techniques as a screening strategy to ameliorate early synaptic dysfunction underlying the progression of many neurodegenerative diseases.
Alex Borchers, Ph.D.
Director, Informatics
Dr. Borchers serves as Director of Informatics for CHDI. He received his B.S. in Biochemistry from the University of Cincinnati and his Ph.D. in Pharmacology from the George Washington University. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Arizona Cancer, he joined Isis Pharmaceuticals, where he was responsible for the following: database and application development to support a rapid throughput screening program, the GeneTrove functional genomics initiative, antisense drug design, workflow management, sample tracking, and generation of patent applications. Alex then joined Biota Inc, where he was responsible for the informatics to support medicinal chemistry, compound inventory and the distribution and capture of biological assay data. Prior to joining CHDI, he was at the San Diego Supercomputer Center as part of a multi-center initiative funded by the Nation Science Foundation to create a computational infrastructure to support computational phylogenetics.
Evelyn Galstian
Associate Project Manager
Evelyn Galstian joined CHDI, Inc., in 2006 as Associate Project Manager. She graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles with a Bachelors of Science degree. After graduation, she remained at UCLA to do research for 2 more years. She then went abroad to obtain her masters in Business Administration at E.M. LYON. Post graduation, she was recruited by genOway, a French biotech company, where she managed the internal projects and assisted the Director of Technology Transfer in business development activities. Upon returning to the United States, Evelyn joined the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery at UCLA. She managed the practice of the Director of Lung Transplant Program. This included research, clinical trial studies with external collaborators, and an outpatient clinic for pre and post-operative cardiac and transplant patients.
Janet M. Leeds, Ph.D.
Director, Pre-Clinical Development
Dr. Leeds manages drug development effort, helping to move promising lead compounds from early drug discovery to the IND stage. Dr. Leeds, was formerly director of pharmacology at Biota, Inc., an early drug discovery company, in Carlsbad, CA. Prior to Biota, Inc., Dr. Leeds was with Isis Pharmaceuticals where she worked in the Preclinical, Analytical Chemistry, and Functional Genomics Departments. While at Isis, Dr. Leeds was a project team member for multiple development projects and was pivotally involved in filing seven INDS and one NDA. Dr. Leeds experience also includes working at Bristol-Myers Squibb and GlaxoSmithKline. Dr. Leeds received her B.S. in Biochemistry and Chemistry at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois and her Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Oregon State University in Corvallis. She did her postdoctoral research at Duke University.
Douglas Macdonald, Ph.D.
Director, Drug Discovery
Dr. Macdonald joined CHDI, Inc., in 2005 as Director of Drug Discovery and currently directs multiple HD drug discovery programs in collaboration with biotechnology and large pharmaceutical companies, as well as de novo programs at CHDI's CROs. Prior to CHDI, Inc., Dr. Macdonald was Senior Research Scientist in the CNS Molecular and Functional Neuropharmacology group at sanofi-aventis (formerly Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.) in Bridgewater, NJ, where he led several programs for neuropsychiatric disorders. Prior to sanofi-aventis, Dr. Macdonald conducted research in the CNS Department at the Schering-Plough Research Institute in Kenilworth, NJ and at the Rockefeller University in the laboratory of Dr. R. Bruce Merrifield in New York, NY. Dr. Macdonald received his Ph.D. in Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics at the Boston University School of Medicine in the laboratory of Drs. N.D. Boyd and S.E. Leeman, his Master's degree in Medical Sciences from the Department of Biomolecular Medicine at the Boston University Graduate School in the laboratory of Dr. G. Heinrich, and his Bachelor's degree in Chemistry from Trinity College (Hartford, CT). Dr. Macdonald is a member of the Society for Neuroscience, New York Academy of Sciences, and the American Society of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics. He also is a member of the Roadmap NIH /Scientific Review Group for Molecular Libraries HTS Assay Development.
Michel Maillard, Ph.D.
Director, Chemistry
Dr. Michel Maillard joined CHDI Inc. in January 2007 as Director of Medicinal Chemistry and brings over fifteen years experience in CNS drug discovery and neurodegeneration. Prior to joining CHDI, he was a principal scientist at Elan Pharmaceuticals, Inc. where he participated in the design of gamma-secretase, beta-secretase, and beta-amyloid aggregation inhibitors as potential treatment for Alzheimer's disease. In the beta-secretase program, he pioneered the first series of brain penetrant small molecule inhibitors. Prior to Elan, he worked at Cambridge NeuroScience Inc. (CNSI) where he developed ion channel blockers for the treatment of stroke and other neurological disorders.
Dr. Maillard earned a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Orsay (France) at the ICSN (CNRS) and received his post-doctoral training at the NIDDK/NIH where he identified novel Adenosine Receptor ligands for the treatment of stroke. He is the author or coauthor of over forty publications or patents in the fields of medicinal and organic chemistry.
Richard J. Morse, Ph.D.
Director, Computational & Structural Biology
Dr. Morse, former computational biologist for Protein Pathways, where he worked on developing computational tools to bring biological pathway-centric analysis to the target identification component of the drug discovery process. Prior to Protein Pathways, Dr. Morse worked as a post-doctoral researcher at UCSF concentrating on protein structure and function where he solved the structure of a member of the class of protein insecticidal toxins used in the construction of transgenic insect-resistant crops. Dr. Morse received his B.S. in physics from Michigan State University, and his Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His work of note at MIT, and later at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory was his involvement in the hunt for the elusive quark-gluon plasma as a member of research collaborations at New York's Brookhaven National Laboratory, and later CERN in Geneva.
Hyunsun Park, Ph.D.
Director, Quantitative Biology
Dr. Park, former senior scientist of AGY therapeutics, Inc., South San Francisco where she coordinated the assay development, screening, and lead optimization efforts to discover novel small molecule therapeutics for neurological diseases. Prior to AGY therapeutics, Inc, she worked as a senior research scientist at Iconix Pharmaceuticals and Essential Therapeutics, Inc. in Mountain View, CA, where she developed cell-based and genetic assays to study toxic pathways induced by infectious micro-organisms in host cells and to apply the biological information to discover novel therapeutic agents for infectious diseases. Dr. Park received a B.S. degree in Biology from Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea and her Ph.D degree in Molecular Pharmacology at Stanford University. She did her postdoctoral research with Dr. Owen Witte at University of California, Los Angeles; where she worked on identify the signaling pathways involved in activation Bruton's tyrosine kinase.
Larry Park, Ph.D.
Director, Pre-Clinical Research
Dr. Park manages and directs drug discovery campaigns from Lead Optimization through IND filing. Prior to CHDI, Dr. Park was a senior research scientist of Vertex Pharmaceuticals, Inc, Cambridge, MA where he led the CNS In Vivo Pharmacology group in developing small molecule kinase inhibitors for stroke, chronic neurodegenerative and psychiatric disorders. Prior to Vertex pharmaceuticals, Dr. Park led the CNS Cell Biology group to develop various HTS-Driven cell-based screen assays and target-based biochemical assays in support of early drug discovery effort at Galileo Pharmaceuticals Inc. Dr. Park received his B.S. in Biology from the U.C. Los Angeles, and his Ph. D. in Pharmacology and Toxicology from the University of California at Irvine. His postdoctoral research was in CNS metabolic diseases at Cornell Medical College at Burke Institute, New York.
Leticia M. Toledo-Sherman, Ph.D.
Director, Computer Aided Drug Design and Medicinal Chemistry
Dr. Toledo-Sherman joins CHDI Inc as Director, computer aided drug design and medicinal chemistry. Dr. Toledo-Sherman, former executive director of chemistry at LymphoSign Inc., managed medicinal, computational chemistry, and research relationships. Prior to LymphoSign Inc, Dr. Toledo-Sherman was director of drug design and discovery at Protana Inc. (formerly MDS Proteomics), leading several successful hit discovery and lead optimization projects as well as managing the company's Chemical Proteomics program, a multidisciplinary team across multiple sites. Prior to Protana, Dr. Toledo-Sherman was employed with Kinetix Pharmaceuticals Inc. (acquired by Amgen Dec 2000), one of the earliest successful biotech companies to focus exclusively on targeted kinase inhibition. While at Kinetix, she designed and implemented a Computer-Aided Design and Virtual Screening platform that lead to the discovery of several novel potent small molecule inhibitors of protein kinases. Dr. Toledo-Sherman holds a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from The State University of New York at Stony Brook. She did her postdoctoral research at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the Skaggs Institute of Chemical Biology at The Scripps Research Institute.
John Wityak, Ph.D.
Director, Medicinal Chemistry
Dr. Wityak joined CHDI as a director of medicinal chemistry in July, 2007. In his 18 years of drug discovery experience at DuPont Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation (GNF), Dr. Wityak has investigated a wide variety of biochemical targets in the cardiovascular, metabolic disease, oncology, and immunology disease areas. Chemistry teams that Dr. Wityak has been a part of have placed five NCEs into clinical development.
While a Group Leader at Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dr. Wityak led the chemistry team that identified the compound that would become dasatinib (Sprycel®), a treatment for chronic myelogenous leukemia that was approved by the FDA in June, 2006. He was recruited to GNF to participate in establishment of the medicinal chemistry department and its infrastructure, and to mentor staff.
Dr. Wityak's record of scientific achievement is highlighted by nearly 50 publications and over 25 issued US patents. He received a B.S. in Chemistry from Sacred Heart University, in Bridgeport, CT, a Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from Oregon State University, and received post-doctoral training at Stanford University. He is a member of the American Chemical Society, and is a reviewer for Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry, Bioorganic and Medicinal Chemistry Letters, and the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.
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