2nd Edelris Symposium on Affinity Selection-Mass Spectrometry in Drug Discovery

Lauren Kustigian, Ph.D. is an Investigator in the Screening Profiling and Mechanist Biology group at GSK. Her work at GSK primarily focuses on the development and implementation of the Affinity Selection Mass Spectrometry platform for early-stage drug discovery. Lauren started her career at Mirobiotix Inc, where she focused on identifying novel compounds which inhibited DNA replication proteins. She joined Sirtris Pharmaceuticals in 2009 as an enzymologist. At Sirtris she worked to develop new assays to identify modulators of sirtuin activity and the mechanism in which those compounds work. From there she joined the biochemistry department at Texas A&M University, where her she studied the membrane fission proteins using a single particle fluorescence-based method. Prior to joining GSK she worked as a post-doctoral researcher at Bondwell Technologies. Lauren received a Bachelor of Science in Biochemistry from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 2004, a Master’s degree in biotechnology from Worcester State University in 2010 and a Doctorate from Texas A&M University in 2019.

Dr Molina is currently Sr. Advisor-Research in Eli Lilly.

His current research is focused on the application of HPLC-MS based biophysical techniques in the early stage of the drug discovery process, particularly AS-MS and HDX.

Dr Molina received his B.S. and M.S. in Chemistry and European Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Córdoba (Spain), with a 3-month collaborative stay in the Department of Chemistry of the Faculty of Sciences in Helsinki (Finland).

Elliott Nickbarg is a Principal Scientist in the Quantitative Biosciences Department at MSD Research Laboratories in Boston MA. He was educated at the University of Chicago and Harvard University and completed a postdoctoral appointment at the University of Pennsylvania. He developed proteomics technologies as part of Genetics Institute and later Wyeth, and then joined Neogenesis Pharmaceuticals to work on the ALIS screening system. He has approximately 25+ years of experience doing drug discovery in both Biotechnology and Pharmaceutical companies.

Bradley L. Pentelute, Professor of Chemistry. He is also an Associate Member, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, an Extramural Member of the MIT Koch Cancer Institute, and Member, Center for Environmental Health Sciences MIT. He received his undergraduate degree in Psychology and Chemistry from the University of Southern California, and his M.S and Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Chicago with Prof. Steve Kent. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. R. John Collier at Harvard Medical School, Microbiology.

Name: Scott Rusin
Current title: Scientist II, Molecular Pharmacology at Arrakis Therapeutics
Research Field: Mass spectrometry and proteomics
Education/Experience:
- Ph.D. in Biochemistry – Dartmouth College, B.S. - Arizona State University
- Post-doctoral work – Gygi Lab at Harvard Medical School
- 2 years proteomics experience at Kymera Therapeutics

Mark Spears earned his PhD from the Georgia Institute of Technology in 2014 where his work focused on biocompatible polymer microstructures and assembly of these structures into surface coatings. Mark joined Wyatt Technology in 2015 as an applications scientist where he developed expertise in chromatography, laser light-scattering techniques and biophysical characterization of polymers and proteins; he also supported business development and sales activity in the southeastern United States. In 2018, Mark joined the protein formulation development group at Fujifilm Diosynth Biotechnologies in Research Triangle Park, NC. He worked extensively on automating the protein formulation development process through robotics, seamless laboratory data management, and novel approaches to formulation development programs. Mark joined Virscidian Inc. in 2019 as a Senior Scientist where his roles include business development, scientific collaboration and guidance for customers, writing product documentation, and project management. He has a passion for delighting Virscidian’s customers and contributing to the scientific community by providing game-changing software solutions for LC-MS data management and processing