Team
Mark Smith, Ph.D.
Head of Medicinal Chemistry, Stanford ChEM-H
Dr. Mark Smith has led the Stanford ChEM-H Medicinal Chemistry Nucleus since 2013. Herein, he collaborates extensively with biologists and physician scientists to incorporate medicinal chemistry into their current and future research endeavors. Mark is also the Medicinal Chemistry Co-Lead for the Stanford Innovative Medicines Accelerator (IMA) and Director of the Stanford CHEM-H Undergraduate Entrepreneurship Program. Previously, Dr. Smith worked as a senior scientist at Roche Pharmaceuticals research facilities both in Palo Alto, CA and Nutley, NJ, where he specialized in antiviral research. Dr. Smith is a founder of Riboscience LLC and is a Scientific Advisory Board member of Tranquis Therapeutics.
Andrew Hinman, Ph.D.
Associate Director of Medicinal Chemistry, and the Innovative Medicines Accelerator
Dr. Andrew Hinman joined the Medicinal Chemistry Nucleus in July of 2022. He works with Stanford faculty to develop cutting edge therapeutics and launch biotech companies. Previously, Andrew developed drugs for mitochondrial and neurodegenerative diseases with BioElectron Technology Corporation and Edison Pharmaceuticals. Andrew received a PhD in organic chemistry from Stanford and did postdoctoral work at UCSF.
Staff:
Karin Stein, M.S.
Research Scientist
Karin Stein joined the Medicinal Chemistry Nucleus as a research scientist in April 2022. She previously was at Janssen Biopharma (via acquisition of Alios Pharmaceuticals), and Roche Palo Alto. She has worked in numerous therapy areas, including antivirals, antibiotics, and anti-depressants. Karin works for the Innovative Medicines Accelerator developing novel therapeutics for disease treatment.
Jean Dam, Ph.D.
Research Scientist
Dr. Jean Dam joined the Medicinal Chemistry Nucleus in March 2023 as a Research Scientist. She joined us from South Africa where she worked developing novel antimalarial therapeutics at H3D, University of Cape Town. Here at the Medicinal Chemistry Nucleus she develops small molecules as therapeutic agents for a variety of diseases.
Calvin Yee, B.S.
Research Scientist
Calvin joined the Medicinal Chemistry Nucleus in May 2024. He has over twenty years of industry experience in medicinal chemistry most recently at Pfizer and Global Blood Therapeutics (acquired by Pfizer), and earlier at Roche (at the now closed Nutley and Palo Alto sites). He has worked in a variety of projects in areas including inflammation, antivirals and hematology. Before that he spent time at companies where he was engaged in DNA sequencing, oligonucleotide synthesis and molecular biology.
Guiling Zhao M.Sc.
Research Scientist
Guiling joined the Medicinal Chemistry Nucleus in May 2024 as a Research Scientist. She has worked as a medicinal chemist on a variety of projects from hit-to-lead identification, lead optimization, to preclinical development IND enabling projects in areas including inflammation, infectious disease, CNS diseases, and cancer. Most recently she worked at Brii Bio, Arcus Biosciences, and 10 years at Genentech, Pfizer, and Bayer. Here at the Innovative Medicines Accelerator (IMA) she develops small molecules as therapeutic agents for a variety of diseases.
Drew (Costenbader) Shetty, B.S.
Lab Manager
Drew joined the Medicinal Chemistry Nucleus in November 2021. She obtained a B.S. in Biology from East Stroudsburg University. Throughout her career, she has worked in wildlife research and biomedical engineering labs at the University of Illinois and Georgia Tech. She now uses her skills in lab management as a Lab Manager for the Medicinal Chemistry Nucleus. She also works as a research assistant helping various projects and collaborations.
Jeffrey Fung, M.A./B.A.
Research Associate
Jeffrey Fung joined the Medicinal Chemistry Nucleus in August 2024. Prior to joining, he completed a Bachelor of Arts in chemistry at Harvard University, where he also earned a concurrent master’s degree in chemistry. During his time as an undergraduate, Jeffrey did research on covalent group transfer chemistry in the Choudhary Lab at the Broad Institute.
KyuWeon Ko, B.S.
Research Associate
KyuWeon Ko joined the Medicinal Chemistry Nucleus in May 2022. She is currently synthesizing small molecules for the Innovative Medicines Accelerator program. Prior to joining, KyuWeon worked as a chemist, synthesizing and purifying peptide for the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry and research. In addition, she earned her Bachelor of Science degree in pharmaceutical chemistry at University of California, Davis.
Chloe Barry, B.S.
Research Assistant
Chloe joined the Medicinal Chemistry Nucleus in October 2024 as a medicinal chemistry research assistant. She obtained a B.S. in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California, Davis. Previously, she has worked in plant metabolomics and computational chemical biology labs. She was involved in projects such as citrus greening disease metabolite profiling and in silico modeling of ligand binding in terpene synthases. Chloe now assists various projects at the Nucleus and Innovative Medicines Accelerator through compound management and inventory.
Noah Reckhorn, B.S.
Research Assistant
Noah Reckhorn joined the Medicinal Chemistry Nucleus in August 2023, where he currently works for the Innovative Medicines Accelerator program in the synthesis of small molecules. Prior to this role, Noah completed his Bachelor of Science degree in Chemistry as well as his Bachelor of Engineering degree in Chemical Engineering at Vanderbilt University, focusing his research on small molecule synthesis for ligand design.
Postdoctoral Fellows:
James Baumann, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Scholar
Dr. James E. Baumann joined the Medicinal Chemistry Nucleus in January 2024 as a Postdoctoral Scholar working in collaboration with Prof. Kacper Rogala's laboratory. His current work focuses on developing highly selective small molecule chemical probes to target the mTORC1 pathway, improving our understanding of this complex protein cascade and ultimately paving the way for more effective therapeutics. James obtained his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry at the University of Washington under the supervision of Prof. Gojko Lalic. His research focused on the development of novel copper hydride-catalyzed chemical transformations.
Stefania Demuro, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Scholar
Dr. Stefania Demuro joined the Medicinal Chemistry Nucleus in October 2023 as a Postdoctoral Scholar working in collaboration with Prof. Justin Annes’ laboratory. Her current work focuses on the synthesis and optimization of compounds for cell-targeted drug delivery to develop regenerative therapeutics for diabetes. Stefania obtained her Ph.D. in Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Bologna in collaboration with the Italian Institute of Technology (Genoa, Italy) under the supervision of Prof. Andrea Cavalli. Her research focused on the rational design and synthesis of novel multitarget protein kinase inhibitors to reverse protein tau hyperphosphorylation in Alzheimer's disease and related tauopathies.
Minh Nguyen, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Scholar
Dr. Minh Nguyen joined the Medicinal Chemistry Nucleus as a postdoctoral scholar in August 2022. In collaboration with Prof. Jeffrey Glenn laboratory, his research objective is to harness the power of organic synthesis toward the development of novel antiviral therapies. Minh obtained his Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania under the direction of Prof. Amos B. Smith, III. His doctoral work centered on the convergent total synthesis of two marine natural products nahuoic acids Cii and Dii.
Former Team Members:
Paul Allegretti, Ph.D.
Samuel Banister, Ph.D.
John Bruning Ph.D.
Samanta Capolicchio, Ph.D.
Jackie Carozza, Ph.D.
Matthew Caffet
David Cole, MSc.
Daniel Collins, Ph.D.
Nick Cox, Ph.D.
David Dennis, Ph.D.
Jitendra Gurjar, Ph.D.
Hannah Hashimoto, M.S.
Maddie Hayes-Lattin
Justin Ho
James Holt-Martyn D.Phil.
Arvin Karbasi, B.S.
Robert Lesniak, D.Phil.
Leela Mahajan
David McCutcheon, Ph.D.
Cynthia Messina, Ph.D.
Theo Morgan, B.S.
Andrew Ng, BSc.
Irene Pachon Angona Ph.D.
Timothy Paris, B.S.
Dylan Parsons, Ph.D.
Garrett Potter Ph.D.
Andrew Raub, Ph.D.
Peter Rosston, B.A.
Timothy Rhorer MSc.
Russel Stabler, MSc.
Andre St. Amant Ph.D.
Phil Thomson Ph.D.
Li Zheng Ph.D.