Danette Daniels, Ph.D.
Danette received her B.A. from Columbia University, Ph.D. in Biophysics from Yale University, and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Stanford University School of Medicine studying Wnt signaling pathway. She has been at Promega Corporation for 15 years and is currently an R&D Group Leader of Functional Proteomics. She leads a team developing technologies and performing research to understand dynamic intracellular interactions within the focus areas of epigenetics, targeted protein degradation, and drug discovery.
Alison O’Mahony, Ph.D.
Alison O’Mahony, PhD. is currently the Vice President of Translational Biology in the Phenotypic Services division of Eurofins Discovery. In this role, Alison helps lead the application and interpretation of the proprietary BioMAP® phenotypic profiling platform to help improve drug discovery for better clinical outcomes. She and the BioMAP team are global leaders in the phenotypic evaluation and prioritization of candidate molecules and combinations as potential therapeutic strategies in the areas of immune-oncology, autoimmunity, inflammation, fibrosis, cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases as well as safety toxicology etc. Her expertise in developing and applying translational models to recapitulate tissue and disease models has helped propel this platform into the leading phenotypic platform. Her research interests are focused on building superior translational disease models that integrate human biology and innovative data analytics towards predictive approaches to find more effective and safer treatments. Alison holds a Ph.D. from University College Cork, Ireland and was a postdoctoral fellow at UC Davis before becoming a Staff Investigator at the Gladstone Institutes at UCSF. Alison has over 25 years specializing in cell biology, signal transduction, biomarker expression and phenotypic drug discovery. She has published multiple peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and webinars and has received several international and national awards for her work.
Ksenya Cohen Katsenelson, Ph.D.
Dr. Ksenya Cohen Katsenelson is the group leader of San Diego R&D at Eurofins Discovery, responsible for developing new portfolio of biochemical assays, including the targeted protein degradation space. Ksenya has extensive experience in biochemical assays and cell-based assays. Prior to joining Eurofins, Ksenya was a postdoc research fellow at UCSD, where her research focused on phosphatases in transcription regulation in cancer and inflammation. Ksenya holds a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, Israel. She has 10+ years specializing in signal transduction, biochemistry, molecular and cell biology, and she has published multiple papers in scientific journals.
Andrew Zhang
Andrew Zhang is a Team Leader in the Chemical Biology Department at AstraZeneca. He joined AstraZeneca in 2013 with research interests in target deconvolution, particularly using chemical proteomics and orthogonal methods for identifying target engagement events and profiling selectivity. He is now leading the proteomics efforts around profiling the selectivity and mechanism of small molecule protein degraders. Andrew trained at the interface of chemistry and molecular and cell biology, obtaining a B.S. in Chemistry and a B.A. in Molecular and Cell Biology from the University of California, Berkeley, followed by Ph.D. studies with Professor David Spiegel at Yale University around small molecule immunomodulators. Prior to joining AstraZeneca, Andrew carried out postdoctoral trainings with the Drug Discovery Group at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research (Toronto, Canada) with Dr. Rima Al-awar.
Emre Neftci
Dr. Neftci is an assistant professor in the department of Cognitive Sciences and Computer Science at UC Irvine. He received his master's degree in Physics at Ecole Polytechnique Federal de Lausanne (EPFL) and his PhD in Neuroinformatics from the Institute of Neuroinformatics at the university of Zurich and ETH Zurich in neuromorphic engineering. His current research explores the bridges between neuroscience and machine learning, with the focus of theoretical and computational modeling of learning algorithms that are best suited to neuromorphic hardware and non-von Neumann computing architectures.
Dr Adam Ostrowski
Adam is a molecular microbiologist and an applications specialist at Cellexus International Ltd, where he helps customers find the optimal combination of bioreactor solutions offered by Cellexus and achieve the best possible results using our technology. Adam also helps develop new applications and technical solutions for our airlift-mixed single-use bioreactor range and delivers custom requests and improvements requested by our customers. Before joining Cellexus, Adam worked in bacteriophage treatment development for plant crop protection and during his academic career has studied Type VI Secretion system and functional proteins in bacterial communities.
Ella Balasa
Tell me about… your business
I am a patient advocate, a scientist, a freelance writer, and a person living with cystic fibrosis. Over the past few years, I have become involved in the CF community through serving on research committees, organizing CF virtual events, serving as a director for the US Adult CF Association, and speaking at both local and national levels to raise awareness for CF and shed light to the increasing problem of antibiotic resistance to the CF population. Having a degree in biology, I have worked in an environmental microbiology lab and I've dedicated my work to studying antibiotic resistant organisms and genes from an environmental perspective in surface waters affected by anthropogenic sources. As a patient, I find fascinating the connection between the bacteria that live in the lungs of those affected by CF and the way these same organisms thrive in the environment.
Along with an interest in science, I have developed an interest for writing. I have been able to provide a scientific voice and encourage empowerment to the CF community by occasionally writing about my research experiences as well as introspectively writing about the increasing hardship yet countless triumphs that come along with living a life with a chronic disease.
