Dr. Guy Rouleau is a physician-scientist, currently Director of the Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital (The Neuro), Chair of McGill University Department of Neurology and Neurosurgery, Director of Neuroscience at the McGill University Health Centre, and co-founder of the Tanenbaum Open Science Institute (TOSI). For nearly 40 years, his team has focused on identifying dozens of genes and molecular mechanisms underlying neurological and psychiatric disorders, such as autism, ALS, epilepsy, and schizophrenia, among others. He has contributed to the creation of numerous programs aimed at translating his discoveries into clinical outcomes. Global leader in Open Science, he has spearheaded a pioneering model by establishing The Neuro as the first academic institution to fully implement these principles and mobilized an expanding network of institutions. He acts as a key enabler of large-scale cultural change across neuroscience and the broader research ecosystem.

Anke Mueller-Fahrnow is the chair of the SGC Board of Directors, and Conscience Board of Directors and she works as an independent consultant for Nuvisan ICB GmbH. Trained as a biochemist and structural biologist at the Free University of Berlin, her research interests include drug discovery with a strong focus on lead discovery, mostly in the areas of oncology and women’s health. She has published close to 50 scientific publications. Anke has worked for 30 years in pharma drug discovery. She retired from Bayer as VC, Head of Lead Discovery Berlin. She is a strong supporter of the “public science” concept, aiming to make research results broadly available in the public domain to foster drug discovery.

Christopher Bi is an experienced drug discovery and early development leader with 20 years of experience. He is currently Executive Director of Integrative Sciences at Bristol Myers Squibb. He is a member of the Board of Directors of the SGC and a Board Observer of Nitrase Therapeutics and Elsie Biotechnologies. Prior to joining BMS, Chris was a Director at Pfizer, providing oversight on strategic partnerships of Medicine Design to advance Pfizer’s small molecule portfolio through the optimal integration of capabilities and capacities of biotech, CRO, and CDMO partners. Chris obtained his PhD in chemistry from Stanford University and an executive MBA degree from UC San Diego.

Dafydd Owen is a Senior Scientific Director of Medicinal Chemistry at Pfizer. He has 25 years of experience as a medicinal chemist in the design and synthesis of drug-like molecules for. During his research career, he has delivered over 100 invited lectures and is an author of over 70 research papers and patents. He has been recognized through Pfizer's highest scientific honor, The Breakthrough Science and Innovation Prize, the Pfizer Worldwide R&D People Leader Award and was also selected as an ACS Organic Division Young Industrial Investigator. Most recently he led Pfizer's oral protease inhibitor program that ultimately delivered PAXLOVID, the world's first oral anti-viral therapy for the treatment of COVID-19.

Christos A. Nicolaou, Ph.D. has been working in the small molecule digital chemistry field for over 25 years initially with start-up software companies and later with biotech and big pharma organizations. He has a background in Computer Science (BSc/MSc Florida State University, PhD University of Cyprus) and has contributed to the development of multiple proprietary and commercial cheminformatics software packages. In his most recent role as Senior Director, Digital Chemistry at Novo Nordisk, he is involved in the development and implementation of the small molecule research strategy and leads the in silico small molecule and cross modality department. Prior to that he led the Digital Chemistry group at Recursion Pharmaceuticals and spent over a decade at the Computational Chemistry and Cheminformatics (C3) group of Eli Lilly and Co., Discovery Chemistry department. Christos has led efforts to map and exploit virtual synthesizable and combinatorial chemistry spaces, mine pharmaceutical data including chemical reactions, advance machine learning and artificial intelligence research for predictive and generative modeling and, implement model-driven drug discovery initiatives.

Dr Ian Storer is currently Vice President, Head of Hit Discovery within R&D at AstraZeneca, accelerating the identification of high-quality starting points for innovative medicines across therapeutic areas. The department is engaged across traditional small molecule therapeutics and peptides, including diverse mechanisms such as covalent, induced proximity, modulation of RNA, and drug conjugates. He oversees AstraZeneca’s Open Innovation platform, enabling external collaborations and resource sharing across the scientific community. Ian also serves on various boards, cross-industry committees and consortia, including the European Innovative Health Initiative (IHI). Prior to joining AstraZeneca in 2016, Ian spent 10 years at Pfizer working as a medicinal chemist and pre-clinical project leader, supporting the delivery of multiple clinical candidate medicines across several disease areas. Before entering the pharmaceutical industry, he studied Natural Sciences then completed his Ph.D. in organic chemistry with Professor Steve Ley CBE, from the University of Cambridge, followed by postdoctoral research at Caltech with Professor Sir David MacMillan.

Lovisa Holmberg Schiavone is a Director of Protein Sciences, Discovery Sciences, AstraZeneca R&D Gothenburg, Sweden. She received her PhD in biochemistry from Stockholm University followed by a postdoc at the University of California Santa Cruz and Assistant Professor at Södertörn University in Stockholm. Her academic career focused on ribosomes and translation. In 2005 she joined the SGC for two years at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, where she was responsible for one of the target teams. At AstraZeneca Lovisa has been leading different teams responsible for supplying proteins for small molecule projects and other drug modalities. Her interests span discovering new targets and prosecuting novel target classes in drug discovery. She is also interested in defining F.A.I.R data for recombinant protein production to be able to build predictive models.

Olga Tarkhanova is CEO of Chemspace LLC and a computational drug discovery scientist based in Kyiv, Ukraine. Trained as a pharmaceutical chemist at Shupyk National Healthcare University of Ukraine, her research interests span virtual screening, DNA-encoded library technology, and combinatorial chemical space exploration. She founded Chemspace's Discovery Platform and originated Freedom Space, an ML-based combinatorial chemical space now used in industry drug discovery pipelines, as well as the REAL-driven DEL concept, adopted within the EU LIGAND-AI consortium. Dr. Tarkhanova has led integrated hit identification and hit-to-lead programs across small molecule, FBDD, covalent, and PROTAC modalities, and has participated in CACHE Challenges #2 and #3. She is co-author of 13 peer-reviewed publications in Science, Journal of Medicinal Chemistry, and JCIM (h-index 7), with collaborations spanning the Shoichet group at UCSF, the Katritch Lab at USC, and the SGC.

Aled Edwards is a Professor at the University of Toronto and Adjunct Professor at McGill University. He has published over 200 papers and has founded many companies, including Affinium Pharmaceuticals, which developed a novel antibiotic currently in late-stage clinical trials, and M4K Pharma, the first pharmaceutical company formed explicitly to invent new, and affordably-priced, medicines for pediatric cancers.

Starting his career at KPMG, Jeeshan has over a decade of well-rounded experience working in various industries gaining expertise in financial analysis and accounting, development of operational and financial strategy, assessment of expansion opportunities, and risk management. Jeeshan is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder, a fellow member of ACCA (UK), a member of CPA Canada, and holds a bachelor’s degree in applied accounting from Oxford Brookes University (UK).

Max Morgan leads open science policy development and outreach, translational initiatives, and legal matters for the Structural Genomics Consortium. Prior to joining SGC, he worked as an intellectual property litigator and pharmaceutical regulatory lawyer, and more recently served as in-house counsel with Grand Challenges Canada. Max holds a B.Sc. from McGill University, a J.D. from the University of Toronto, and an LL.M. from Harvard Law School. He is a member of the Law Society of Ontario and the New York State Bar.

Cheryl Arrowsmith is a Senior Scientist at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, a Professor at the University of Toronto, and Chief Scientist of the SGC-Toronto. Her research focuses on the structural and chemical biology of chromatin and epigenetic regulatory factors related to cancer and drug discovery. She leads the international open science program that is developing and distributing Chemical Probes. She was co-founder of Affinium Pharmaceuticals, which developed a new medicine for multidrug-resistant bacteria. She has published over 300 research articles and was recognized by Clarivate Analytics in 2018 and 2019. She was elected an AAAS Fellow (2015), and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada (2020).

Stefan Knapp studied Chemistry at the University of Marburg and the University of Illinois. He did his PhD in protein crystallography at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm and continued his career at the Karolinska Institute as a postdoctoral scientist. From 1999 to 2004 he worked at Pharmacia Corporation and from 2004 to 2015 at the SGC at Oxford University. From 2008 to 2015 he was a Professor of Structural Biology at Oxford University (UK) and between 2012 and 2015 he was the Director of Chemical Biology at the Target Discovery Institute. He joined Frankfurt University in 2015 as a Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry. Since 2017 he has also been the CSO of the SGC at the University of Frankfurt.

Tim Willson is the Harold Kohn Distinguished Professor in Open Science Drug Discovery at the Eshelman School of Pharmacy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Chief Scientist of the SGC-UNC site. He has over 30 years of experience in pharmaceutical research with a track record in the discovery of first-in-class clinical candidates. He led the Glaxo program on orphan nuclear receptors and was co-discoverer of an FDA-approved breakthrough drug for liver diseases. He is widely recognized for scientific leadership in chemical biology and was named one of the world’s 400 most influential biomedical researchers. He is currently the co-PI of the Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Development Initiative AViDD Center. 

Mat Todd is a Professor and Chair of Drug Discovery at University College London. He founded and currently leads several open science consortia such as Open Source Malaria. In 2011 he was awarded a New South Wales Scientist of the Year award in the Emerging Research category for his work in open science and 2012 the OSM consortium was awarded one of three Wellcome Trust/Google/PLoS Accelerating Science Awards. For his open-source research, Mat was selected for the Medicine Maker’s Power List in 2017 and 2018. He is on the Editorial Boards of PLoS One, Chemistry Open and Nature Scientific Reports.

Peter McPherson is a Distinguished James McGill Professor of Neurology and Neurosurgery at the Montreal Neurological Institute of McGill University. He received a Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Iowa working with Dr. Kevin P Campbell and performed post-doctoral training with Dr. Pietro De Camilli at Yale. His laboratory uses biochemical, cell biological, molecular biological, structural, and genetic approaches to identify and functionally characterize proteins regulating membrane trafficking in the endosomal system. He has used subcellular proteomics to study the molecular make up of endosomal membranes and has identified numerous links between endocytic membrane trafficking and neurological disease including ataxia, ALS, Parkinson’s disease, epileptic encephalopathy, and glioblastoma. His laboratory has developed approaches for antibody production and validation. Dr. McPherson is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.