Senior advisor to the NCATS (NIH) Office of the Scientific Director. His responsibilities are with the director and senior administrators on identifying and implementing public-private partnerships with academia, government and industry, both nationally and internationally. His professional experience includes 23 years in the discovery and development of biotherapeutics and small-molecule drugs at Eli Lilly and Company, Indianapolis, IN where he was active in the development of recombinant human insulin, growth hormones and antibody-drug conjugates, high throughput screening and lead optimisation of small molecule candidates. At the University of Kansas Medical Center, as a professor of Pharmacology, Toxicology and Therapeutics he established a tissue engineering research group that investigated the effect of mechanical forces on cancer cells and the efficacy of multiple cancer drugs that resulted in multiple publications. He participated in establishing a High Throughput Screening Facility at the Lawrence Campus of the University of Kansas and was the Deputy Director of the Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation from 2007-2011. Since 2011 He was part of The Rare and Neglected Diseases group and was responsible for two projects that accomplished IND approval. He was also responsible for introducing the Assay Guidance Manual (NCBI eBook, past Editor-in-Chief)) sponsored by NCATS, initiation of the 3D-tissue printing and bio-fabrication, automated synthetic medicinal chemistry projects at NCATS. Currently, he is a member of a core group in implementing a new program for automating medicinal chemistry and integrating it with biology automation at NCATS. Past contributions to the management of science and technology involve being a director of the board (1997-2000) and president (2003-2004) at the Society for Biomolecular Screening (currently the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening). He has also served on scientific review panels at NIH study sections and other private funding organizations in drug discovery and stem cell research (CIRM, MSCRF) and many scientific advisory boards of several biotechnology companies, Journal Science Translational Medicine and Kyushu University Translational Science Department, Fukuoka, Japan.
Ongoing and recent work on coordinating 1) a 3D bioprinting or bio-fabrication platform for lead optimization and 2) organizing an automated medicinal chemistry program at NCATS and 3) applications of Quantum Sensing technology in biomedical applications.
