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Charles J. Manly, Ph.D. was most recently VP of Discovery Technologies and CIO for Neurogen Corporation, where he established efforts in HTS, Computational Chemistry, BioPhysical Properties, Research Informatics and R&D Project Management. Chas has over 20 years of applied experience in the analysis and design of biologically active compounds with several companies, both large and small. Chas received his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 1984 from Harvard University and honed his skills at FMC Corp., Eli Lilly and DowElanco before joining Neurogen in 1993. His research interests include the development of R&D processes to improve information and knowledge sharing and decision making, integrated high-throughput discovery and the development of automated and assisted methodologies for pharmacophore recognition and model development. Chas has served as advisor for several companies, journals, conferences and institutes.

Donna M. Huryn, Ph.D., who joined academia in 2004 after 20 years in the drug discovery and development industry, holds appointments at both University of Pennsylvania (Chemistry) and University of Pittsburgh (School of Pharmacy). Donna received her Ph.D. in Synthetic Organic Chemistry in 1986 from the University of Pennsylvania. After graduate school, Donna contributed to drug discovery efforts in inflammation, HIV and cancer at Hoffmann-La Roche. In 1997, she joined Wyeth Research and held a number of positions, including Director of CNS Medicinal Chemistry and Director of the Chemical Sciences Interface Department. Under her leadership, compounds entered clinical trials for asthma, Alzheimer’s disease, schizophrenia and depression. Donna’s research interests include probe and drug discovery for neurological diseases, cancer and infectious diseases as well as the development of novel chemical libraries. Professor Huryn served as a permanent member of the NIH Medical Chemistry A Study Section, an ad hoc member of special emphasis panels and a member of the NSF Committee of Visitors. She has been elected to a number of positions within the American Chemical Society at both the local and national levels and is a member of the editorial advisory board of Organic Letters.

Alan P. Kaplan, Ph.D. is Senior Director of Chemistry at Helicon Therapeutics and is responsible for both research and development activities within the chemistry department. Alan obtained his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry in 1991 from the University of California at Berkeley in the lab of Prof. Paul A. Bartlett, where he studied the inhibition of Carboxypeptidase by small molecule, transition state analogs. After a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University with Prof. Gregory L. Verdine, Alan joined ArQule in 1994 as a Senior Scientist, where he worked on a number of drug discovery projects with ArQule's pharmaceutical and biotech partners to discover and optimize leads in their collaborative programs. He later became Senior Director of Lead Optimization Chemistry at ArQule prior to moving to Helicon in 2003.

Derek S. Tan, Ph.D. is a Tri-Institutional Associate Professor at the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research, Weill Cornell Medical College and The Rockefeller University. Derek received his Ph.D. in Chemistry in 2000 from Harvard University in the lab of Prof. Stuart L. Schreiber, carrying out early research in the field of diversity-oriented synthesis, including the synthesis of a library of over two million polycyclic small molecules derived from shikimic acid. Derek then joined the laboratory of Prof. Samuel J. Danishefsky at the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, where he studied natural products total synthesis and helped complete the first total synthesis of a novel terpenoid antibiotic, guanacastepene A. In 2002, he began his independent career in the Molecular Pharmacology & Chemistry Program at Sloan-Kettering. Derek’s current research interests include the use of diversity-oriented synthesis and rational design to identify new small molecule probes for a variety of biological targets with potential therapeutic applications in cancer and infectious diseases. His laboratory leverages forefront methodologies in organic synthesis and multidisciplinary collaborations with biologists.

Peter W. Rose, Ph.D is the Scientific Lead of the RCSB Protein Data Bank at the University of California, San Diego, SDSC & Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. Peter is responsible for the scientific objectives and further development of the PDB, the single worldwide archive of biomolecular structures. Prior to joining UCSD, he held research and management positions of increasing responsibility at Pfizer Global R&D La Jolla., formerly Agouron Pharmaceuticals. Peter was instrumental in the establishment of the structure-based design platform at Agouron and its global adoption by Pfizer. As Director of Computational Chemistry and Bioinformatics, he oversaw Structural Bioinformatics, Structure-Based Drug Design, and Scientific Computing groups. He was a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California-Irvine and received his Ph.D. in 1990 from the Technical University of Munich with Prof. Johann Gasteiger in computer-assisted prediction of chemical reactions. His research interests include the combination of structure-based and combinatorial library design, development of computational models for ADMET prediction, and application of agile software development practices to optimize drug discovery processes.