Lewis Vann, Ph.D. (Facilitator) | Director of Scientific Engagement and Business Development, Axxam

Lewis was awarded his Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge in 1997. His research focused on the topography and metabolism of inositol lipids in the nucleus of dividing hepatocytes. Subsequently he completed Post Doctoral studies at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and then the NIH, where he focused on the role of inositol lipids and divalent cations in the reassembly of the nuclear pore complex, post mitosis and on the role of sphingolipids in the cytokine-mediated inflammatory process, respectively.
Lewis then moved to QIAGEN: Firstly, serving scientists in his Technical Services role, then moving into a sales, where he was able to successfully bring together his scientific knowledge and his enjoyment of finding the best solutions his customers in LA’s academic and clinical research institutions. Over the last 20 years, Lewis has held business development roles with several CROs, including JAX and Charles River. He is now Director of Business Development for Axxam, with the goal of building awareness of, and increasing the client-base for Axxam’s early discovery portfolio. He is also proud to make sure that his clients know that if they are unhappy or frustrated with anything, to please shout down the phone at him and not our scientists!

Marianthi Papakosta, Ph.D. | Director of Neurology Research at Neurocrine Biosciences

Marianthi is the Director of Neurology Research at Neurocrine Biosciences, with more than 20 years of experience in neuroscience drug discovery across the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. Her research interests span neuropharmacology, neuroimmunology, neuroinflammation, and neurodegeneration, with a focus on translating emerging disease biology into novel therapeutics. Prior to Neurocrine, she held scientific and leadership positions at Takeda, Sigilon Therapeutics, Pfizer, Schering-Plough, and Organon, leading multidisciplinary programs from target validation through preclinical development.
Marianthi received her Ph.D. in Molecular Neurobiology from Imperial College London, UK, and began her pharmaceutical research career at Organon. She has contributed to scientific publications and patents, has served for more than a decade as an Associate Editor in Neuropharmacology for Frontiers, and has been an expert evaluator for the European Commission since 2012.

Angela Molteni, Ph.D. | Head, Hit & Lead Discovery group, Axxam

Dr. Angela Molteni is currently the Head of the Hit & Lead Discovery group at Axxam, with over 25 years’ experience in drug discovery in biopharma. She currently heads up a team of 14 people and has oversight of 5 fully automated robotic systems, running 20-25 screening programs per year. She has a Master’s degree in Molecular Biology, and joining Axxam in 2001 where she gained experience in biochemical assays development for high-throughput screening (HTS).
During the last 18 years she and her team have executed almost 300 hit-to-lead HTS campaigns, employing both biochemical and cellular assays and a wide variety of read-outs. She also has in-depth experience, as automation manager, programming and upgrading robotic systems, and also performing data analysis from both screening campaigns and downstream compound profiling activities.

Christie Towers, Ph.D. | Assistant Professor at The Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Christie is an Assistant Professor and the and the Richard Heyman and Anne Daigle Endowed Developmental Chair at the Salk Institute, as well as Assistant Adjunct Professor at UCSD School of Biological Sciences. She has received several awards including the NIH New Innovator Award and the Lustgarten-AACR Career Development Award in honor of John Robert Lewis. She was also named a Pew-Stewart Scholar and a V Foundation Scholar. She is also committed to STEM education programs at the Salk Institute for graduate students and Post-Docs; honored with the Chan Zuckerberg Leadership Award for these efforts.
Christie’s lab is focused on the elucidation of the mechanisms and role of autophagy in both healthy and disease states, garnering an expertise in the field of cancer-associated autophagy; during her Post-Doctoral research at the University of Colorado she made the seminal discovery that cancer cells are highly dependent on autophagy for survival and can adapt to circumvent the autophagy pathway, identifying several ‘work-around’ mechanisms that involve protein and mitochondrial homeostasis.
Her group now focuses on the intersection of autophagy and organelle homeostasis, cell metabolism, cell signaling and immunology in oncology and aging. Development of novel autophagy assays i.e. functional genomic screens, cell biology and high content imaging, as well as optogenetic systems, have been employed to identify novel regulators of non-canonical degradation in cancer-associated canonical autophagy.

Geoff Vargish, Ph.D., MPH | Senior Scientist, Discovery Pharmacology, Rapport Therapeutics

Geoff is a senior scientist in the Discovery Pharmacology group at Rapport Therapeutics, a precision neuroscience company focused on developing novel therapeutics for neurological disorders. His work is focused on the unique approach that leverages receptor-associated proteins (RAPs) to target disease related neural circuits with greatly improved specificity, the lack of which can undermine efficacy and limit tolerability often observed with therapies that target the CNS. Geoff’s extensive experience in neuroscience has emcompassed research that spans ion channels, neurology-based circuits, and behavior. Prior to joining Rapport, Geoff worked at the NIH studying principles of cross-species-based synaptic transmission and neural connectivity. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard University, evaluating the cellular and molecular mechanisms that govern developmental critical period timing, and earned his doctorate from Brown University through the Brown/NIH graduate partnership program.