22nd European User Group Meeting 2024

Richard A. Friesner, Ph.D. is a co-founder of Schrödinger and professor of chemistry at Columbia University and director of the Columbia Center for Biomolecular Simulation. He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and American Academy of Arts of Sciences, and has been awarded a Sloan Foundation Fellowship, a Camille and Henry Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award, and an NIH Research Career Development Award. Current interests include quantum chemistry, development of potential functions for molecular simulation, continuum electrostatic models, and protein folding.

Robert Abel, Ph.D., executive vice president and Chief Science Officer, joined Schrödinger in 2009, is responsible for advancing Schrödinger’s computational science platform. He also leads the computational chemistry team within Schrödinger’s drug discovery group. Robert obtained his Ph.D. from Columbia University, where he was awarded NSF and DHS research fellowships. His thesis work with Professor Richard Friesner involved developing methods to quantify the role of solvent in protein-ligand binding. Robert has co-authored multiple patent applications, and continues to publish extensively on a wide variety of topics in computational chemistry.

Leonardo De Maria is Principal Scientist in the Medicinal Chemistry Department, Research and Early Development, Respiratory and Immunology (R&I) at AstraZeneca. He joined AZ in June 2018. He received a PhD from the University of Trieste, Italy, followed by two postdoctoral stays at University of Konstanz, Germany, and Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium. Before joining AZ, Leonardo has first been working at Novozymes, a world leader in industrial enzymes and microorganisms, then at Novo Nordisk. He has wide experience in applying state-of-the-art computational methods in protein, peptide and oligonucleotide design. He has worked on the optimization of chemical and physical stability, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, immunogenicity risk reduction and tissue targeting. Leonardo has a strong publication track record in peptides, proteins and oligonucleotides and delivery aspects, and is (co-)/inventor in over 30 patents. He is fully involved in the computational design and optimization of R&I New Modality compounds at AstraZeneca and has also managed two Global Chemistry Leadership Sponsored Workstreams and is co-lead of an asset project. In his free time, he likes biking, cooking and reading books, both fiction and non-fiction.

Eric Therrien is a Director of computational chemistry in the Therapeutics Group. Since joining Schrödinger (New York) in 2016, Eric has been leading efforts in collaborative and internal drug discovery programs with a focus in applying free energy perturbation methods. He obtained his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the Université de Montréal in 2005 and conducted post-doctoral research at McGill University in computational chemistry. Eric contributed to a variety of drug discovery programs including oncology, immunology, and neurology and he is co-author of over 30 publications and patents.

Daniele is a Senior Principal Scientist in Computational Chemistry at Chiesi Farmaceutici. His Ph.D. research was conducted in the group of Prof. Mor at the University of Parma and was focused on the design of small-molecule modulators of GPCRs. After an internship at Schrodinger in 2011, he held a postdoctoral research position at the University of Parma, working on the design of protein-protein interaction disruptors, enzyme inhibitors and DNA-interacting small molecules. He joined Chiesi in 2016, where he has been applying a wide range of computational chemistry tools to support discovery projects focused on different respiratory diseases, including asthma, COPD, idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis and bronchopulmonary dysplasia. His current research activities are being devoted to the design of kinase inhibitors, protein-protein disruptors and peptide ligands through free energy methods, enhanced sampling techniques and deep learning models. He is member of the scientific advisory board of EUROPIN, a joint European PhD program focused on the use of computational approaches in drug discovery.

I am originally from Argentina, where I obtained my Licentiate degree in Biology at the University of Buenos Aires. I then moved to the US where I obtained my PhD in Biochemistry at Rice University (Texas), followed by a PostDoc in computational protein design at Rutgers University (New Jersey). I then joined the Modeling and Informatics group at Merck & Co in New Jersey for about three years. Finally, I moved to Massachusetts and joined Schrödinger, where I lead the Applications Science team in our Cambridge office.

Dr. Zhe Nie is the Executive Director of Medicinal Chemistry at Schrödinger’s Therapeutic Group. She has been leading multiple wholly owned and partnered drug discovery programs at Schrödinger. Most recently, she led Schrödinger’s MALT1 discovery project team, successfully developed the small molecule drug SGR-1505 (Schrödinger’s first internal clinical asset currently in Ph1) applying Schrödinger’s computational platform. It took less than two years from the start of the project to the selection of the clinical candidate. She also led the DLK collaboration project with Takeda Pharmaceuticals which discovered a potent, selective, and brain-penetrate DLK inhibitor as a promising preclinical candidate for the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases using Schrödinger’s computational platform. She has extensive experiences in applying advanced computational tools to assist in the design of small molecule drug candidates. She previously worked at Takeda, Celgene and Quanticel Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Celgene), led and contributed to advancing multiple small molecule drugs to the clinics including TAK-960, TAK-659 and CC-90011.