Event
“Tackling difficult targets in small molecule drug discovery” seminar
Our US Team, Tom Grammatopoulos and Benedetta Montagnini, our Head of BD USA & Pacific, are pleased to meet you at the Lunch&Learn!
Tom Grammatopoulos
Senior Director BD North America
Benedetta Montagnini
Head of BD USA & Pacific
There will be a talk session with JeanFrancois Rolland, Maria Pia Catalani and Alessandro Cinti:
Title: “Tackling difficult targets in small molecule drug discovery”.
Abstract: The disease relevance and druggability of novel targets rarely align. However, emerging drug mechanisms and modalities are reshaping our perspective on “undruggable targets.” We will discuss how Axxam combines its experience and innovation for tackling challenging targets and support clients’ drug discovery efforts.
📍 Location: CIC – Cambridge 1 Broadway Cambridge, MA 02142
📅 Date: Monday, September 30 – 11:30am-1:30pm
About the Speakers:
Jean-François Rolland is the Director of the Biological Sciences Department at Axxam. He is an electrophysiologist by background and has been “playing” with ion channels for more than 20 years, first in academia and since 2007 in the biotech world.
After his PhD in Brussels and a post-doc in Italy he worked for four years at Xention, a Cambridge (UK)-based ion channel company. At the end of 2011, he joined Axxam, where he established the laboratory of Automated Patch-clamp and spent more than 10 years exploring new targets and establishing and validating new assays.
Since the beginning of 2023, he is Director of the Biological Sciences Department, heading several groups of highly skilled scientists, who generate in-vitro assays using state-of-the-art innovative biology capabilities by means of multidisciplinary and integrated approaches. In particular, Axxam are pioneers in using in-vitro optogenetics and offers unique reliable assays for automated organellar electrophysiology.
Maria Pia Catalani is the Director of the Lead Discovery Department in Axxam. She joined Axxam in November 2019 as Head of the Discovery Chemistry Group, becoming then in 2022 Head of the Hit Tailoring Solution Group.
Prior to Axxam Maria Pia Catalani has worked in Evotec (Verona, Italy) and Aptuit (Verona, Italy) within different therapeutic areas (CNS, GI, Inflammation etc) and managing as Chemistry Leader several programs (H2L, LO). Maria Pia Catalani started her carrier as Medicinal Chemist in the pharmaceutical industry in 2005 in the PsyCEDD, GlaxoSmithKline Medicines Research Centre based in Verona where she built her knowledge in the field of Medicinal Chemistry working on projects from hit to candidate selection in the CNS area.
Maria Pia has obtained her master’s degree in Medicinal Chemistry at the University of Pisa (Italy) and progressed her studies with her PhD in Chemical Sciences at the University of Florence. She is co-author and co-invetor of several publications and patents.
Alessandro Cinti is currently a Proposal Manager at Axxam, where he manages projects from scientific and experimental definition through to deployment.
He has more than ten years of research experience and a consolidated expertise across a broad range of discovery disciplines and innovative technologies applied to the drug discovery processes.
Prior to joining Axxam in 2017 as a Principal Scientist in the Cell Biology group, he conducted postdoctoral research at McGill University, focusing on the molecular biology of HIV-1 infection. Alessandro holds a Ph.D. in Translational and Molecular Medicine from the University of Milano-Bicocca.