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Meet the Team
Andrew Plant, Ph.D.
CEO
A synthetic organic chemist by training, Andrew most recently served as Chief Technology Officer at the agricultural biotechnology company AgriMetis.
Andrew Plant, Ph.D.
CEO
A synthetic organic chemist by training, Andrew most recently served as Chief Technology Officer at the agricultural biotechnology company AgriMetis. Prior to that he oversaw antiparasitics and anti-infective drug discover at MSD (Merck & Co.) Animal Health in Germany. In 2001 he joined Syngenta in the UK, working in herbicide research, before moving to Switzerland in 2008 as Global Head of Research Chemistry. During his tenure in this strategic leadership role Andrew built new capabilities across research sites in Switzerland, United Kingdom, and India, and was instrumental in rejuvenating Syngenta’s new active ingredient pipeline. He also served as Head of Lawn & Garden R&D at Syngenta, gaining experience of product development in the non-crop sector. Andrew began his industrial career at Bayer AG in Germany working on parasiticides for animal health and insecticides for crop protection.
In addition to his role at Animol, Andrew serves on the Science Advisory Board of the agtech company Enko Chem. Andrew holds undergraduate and postgraduate degrees from the University of Liverpool, UK, and subsequently conducted postdoctoral research at the Technical University in Aachen, Germany.
Douglas E. Hutchens, DVM, M.S., Ph.D.
CSO
Doug has held multiple positions in industry with ascending leadership responsibilities in early research, clinical development, and regulatory affairs at Elanco and Bayer Animal Health.
Douglas E. Hutchens, DVM, M.S., Ph.D.
CSO
Doug has held multiple positions in industry with ascending leadership responsibilities in early research, clinical development, and regulatory affairs at Elanco and Bayer Animal Health. In his recent roles as an Executive Vice President at Bayer and Chief Veterinary Officer, he has been responsible for both drug discovery (research) and product development globally where he led organizations (300+) which achieved a multi-fold increase in the value of a leading global pipeline. This resulted in over 100 new registration and product line extension annually in multiple therapeutic areas over the last decade. Before joining the animal health pharmaceutical industry, he was an Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois College of Veterinary Medicine where he taught veterinary parasitology and focused his research on the development of new anthelmintics, ectoparasiticides and endectocides. There, he conducted studies for most of the major animal health companies and participated in the development of multiple new products in both companion and farm animals. Early in his career, he was a practicing veterinarian in both small animal emergency medicine and large animal practice. He holds a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree and a PhD in pathobiology with an emphasis in immuno-parasitology from the University of Illinois. Most recently Doug served as a member of Animol’s advisory board.
Andrew Calabrese, Ph.D.
Scientific Co-Founder
Andrew, Animol’s scientific co-founder, has developed successful scientific concepts for a number of biotech startups in human health, animal health, and crop protection.
Andrew Calabrese, Ph.D.
Scientific Co-Founder
Andrew, Animol’s scientific co-founder, has developed successful scientific concepts for a number of biotech startups in human health, animal health, and crop protection. He is a creative inventor who loves to solve challenging problems in biotech through the judicious use of science and technology. Andrew is the (co-)inventor of several human health drug candidates currently in late stage clinical trials, including Cligcosiban™, and compounds in early stage field trials for crop protection, including SpinoMetis™. Prior to working in start-ups, Andrew focused on identifying small molecule drugs across therapeutic areas and modalities in Pfizer and Celgene.
In parallel to his role at Animol, Andrew is a co-founder and member of the Board of Directors of Revagenix, Inc and serves on the Scientific Advisory Boards for 2 other biotechs. Andrew is a chemistry graduate of Oxford University, UK and gained his PhD from University College London, UK and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry.
Logan Andrews, Ph.D.
Head of Program Management
As a project leader at Animol, Logan manages and coordinates early-stage research efforts on antiparasitic targets.
Logan Andrews, Ph.D.
Head of Program Management
As a project leader at Animol, Logan manages and coordinates early-stage research efforts on antiparasitic targets. Prior to joining Animol, he was a scientist at 23andMe Therapeutics aiming to validate new small-molecule drug targets that have genetic links to human disease. During this time, Logan also led a team in collaboration with a large Pharma partner to initiate multiple HTS campaigns. Before 23andMe, Logan was a scientist at Achaogen, where he was focused on identifying new antibiotics for resistant Gram-negative bacterial infections. Logan led several interdisciplinary project teams spanning early target validation to pre-clinical development. His work at Achaogen produced 8 publications and 1 patent. Logan completed a Ph.D. in the Chemical and Systems Biology Department at Stanford University and B.A at the College of Wooster. His academic work appears in several publications and focuses on understanding how enzymes enhance reaction rates and select between highly similar substrates. This work laid the foundation for a career spent combining biochemistry, enzymology, and structural biology to guide the discovery of new anti-infectives.
David T. Stanton, Ph.D.
Head of Computational Chemistry
David, as the Head of Computational Chemistry, brings his wealth of experience from P&G to drive forward Animol’s in silico research.
David T. Stanton, Ph.D.
Head of Computational Chemistry
David’s training includes both analytical and computational chemistry. Prior to joining Animol Discovery, he was a Principal Scientist in the Modeling and Simulation Department in Corporate Research at Procter & Gamble where he introduced modern computational chemistry and cheminformatics methods broadly in several of P&G’s business units and specialized in modeling many aspects of flavor and fragrance design and delivery for consumer products. Prior to moving to Corporate R&D, David was a member of P&G Pharmaceuticals Computer-Aided Drug Design group, and helped to design and acquire the P&G high-throughput screening library and introduced new computational tools for virtual library design and analysis. David started his career in 1991 at P&G in the analytical method development where he introduced new laboratory data acquisition and processing technology and developed new automation methods in analytical method development. David started his industrial career at Uniroyal Agricultural Chemical’s Crop Protection Research laboratories as an analytical chemist.
David earned his graduate degree in 1991 at The Pennsylvania State University (Penn State) in the laboratory of Peter C. Jurs, and holds an undergraduate degree from Southern Connecticut State University.
Alexander (Sasha) Litovchick, MD, Ph.D.
Head of DEL Technology
Sasha is an expert in DNA-encoded library (DEL) technology and is now applying his knowledge and expertise gained in human pharma to animal health drug discovery.
Alexander (Sasha) Litovchick, MD, Ph.D.
Head of DEL Technology
Sasha’s scientific interests lie in drug discovery, DNA-encoded library selection, and other ultra-high throughput selection technologies.
His training includes both chemistry and molecular biology. Prior to joining Animol Discovery, he was a scientist at Relay Therapeutics/ZebiAI Therapeutics, and X-Chem (as the first employee). He has made significant contributions to the invention and development of DEL technology, DEL library design and synthesis, as well as the identification of hits for a wide variety of targets. He has also worked on the design, validation and production of protein (and non-protein) targets, as well biochemical assay development.
Sasha has (co)authored and a number of research publications, patents and book chapters in the field of DEL and display selection technologies.
Sasha earned his PhD in Chemistry in 2000 at Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel) and holds an MD from Pirogov 2nd Moscow Medical Institute (USSR).
Artem Evdokimov, Ph.D.
Head of Protein Target Pipeline
Artem leads the Protein Target Pipeline efforts at Animol. He has 25 years’ of experience encompassing drug discovery, protein biochemistry, and protein engineering in both large and small Pharma / Biotech companies. His deep and abiding interests lie in the areas of drug discovery, protein biochemistry, and protein engineering.
Artem Evdokimov, Ph.D.
Head of Protein Target Pipeline
Artem is VP Protein Target Pipeline, responsible for all activities related to protein science, including target selection, protein production and biochemistry. He has led drug/agrichemical discovery teams in large organisations (Pfizer, Monsanto, P&G), and at several smaller companies (Enko, Silicon Therapeutics, Roivant Discovery), and he has also held CSO and CEO roles at a small contract research company. Artem is an author on 50+ peer-reviewed research articles, 25+ patent applications, and has contributed to at least two late clinical-stage compounds (Vadadustat and Razuprotafib), as well as several commercially deregulated protein designs currently in use as insecticidal proteins and herbicide resistance trait determinants.
Artem is a member of two company Scientific Advisory Boards and a Board of Directors member for a non-profit scientific organization (Hauptman-Woodward Research Institute).
Artem holds with a dual PhD in Chemistry and Structural Biology from the Weizmann Institute of Science.
Qing Tang, Ph.D.
Head of Medicinal Chemistry
Qing brings more than 20 years’ experience in human health drug discovery, spanning lead generation, lead optimization, and the identification of development candidates.
Qing Tang, Ph.D.
Head of Medicinal Chemistry
Qing has gained her diverse experience in drug discovery working for Novartis, Vertex and Roivant. At Vertex she led teams that delivered several compounds into clinical studies and identified multiple development candidates. Qing is also an inventor of the oncology drug Ulixertinib™. She has experience of a broad range of drug discovery techniques, including structure-base design and DNA-encoded libraries, applied to biochemical targets and disease areas. She has led internal and outsourced chemistry teams. Qing is an author on several per reviewed scientific publications and almost 40 patent applications.
Qing has a PhD in Organic Chemistry from Washington State University.
Chris Mulhern, B.S. Engineering
Head of Machine Learning and Data Science
Chris applies cutting edge machine learning approaches to accelerate Animol’s drug discovery programs.
Chris Mulhern, B.S. Engineering
Head of Machine Learning and Data Science
Chris started his career at X-Chem where he worked on back-end data processing of DEL sequencing data, built software capabilities including a compound and ARP management workflow, as well as a string-based enumeration toolkit. Additionally, he was responsible for much of the early internal machine learning research. When ZebiAI was spun out from X-Chem, he continued in this function, leading a machine learning research group, serving as the technical lead on 2 internal drug discovery projects, and building out the internal cheminformatics and enumeration capabilities until acquisition of X-Chem by Relay Therapeutics.
Chris then transitioned to Terray Therapeutics where he interfaced with the reaction enablement team to define highly specific reaction scope rules and an internal library enumeration platform allowing the generation of billions of drug-like compounds which could be synthesized on Terray’s screening platform. He then used the accessible library space to inform follow-up strategy and library design.
Chris holds a B.S. in Engineering from Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.
Christina Lam, M.S.
Senior Research Associate
Christina is responsible for the day-to-day running of Animol’s laboratory at Woburn, MA, combining this with wet-lab experimental work.
Christina Lam, M.S.
Senior Research Associate
Christina fell in love with laboratory work in 2016 during an internship. Since then, she has pursued her scientific interest in protein science, especially biochemistry, through a career in wet-lab experimental work, focusing on molecular cloning, protein expression, and protein purification. She also continues to develop her expertise and experience in laboratory management.
Christina has a MS in Biomedical Engineering and Biotechnology from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth.
Kaitlin Smith
Scientific Program Manager
As a program manager, Kaitlin manages and coordinates research efforts on antiparasitic targets. She has more than 15 years’ experience across program management, data management, and developing operational workflows.
Kaitlin Smith
Scientific Program Manager
Prior to joining Animol, Kaitlin was the program manager for the Institute for Interdisciplinary Salivary Bioscience Research at the University of California, Irvine. During this time, she managed the laboratory staff, led institute operations, and managed the testing service and grant budgets. During this time, she managed the laboratory staff, led institute operations, and managed the testing service and grant budgets. Kaitlin also has extensive experience in human vaccine development gained at the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard University and Alphavax Human Vaccines. At the Center, she developed and oversaw a GCLP accredited compliance system, managed immunology group operations, and was project leader for clinical ELISA assay development in partnership with large pharma for phase I/IIa HIV clinical trial. At Alphavax she optimized and developed humoral and cellular assays which evaluated the immune response to Adenovirus vector platform against a wide breath of diseases and cancer targets in pre-clinical and clinical studies. Kaitlin has a B.S. in Biochemistry from North Carolina State University.
Jane Dubrovsky
Research Associate
Jane is a budding researcher passionate about leveraging innovative technologies to build useful products. She is a member of a dynamic team applying molecular biology and biochemical technologies to expanding Animol’s protein target pipeline.
Jane Dubrovsky
Research Associate
Jane began her career in biology working at IOLR (Israel National Institute of Oceanographic and Limnological Research), studying the lifecycle of a potentially new model system, Botryllus schlosseri, and contributing to several research projects. Prior to her career in biology, Jane led operations in several startup companies where she specialized in early-stage company building and operations management. Most recently, she worked as Chief of Staff at SiPhox, a Y-Combinator-backed silicon photonics biotech startup. Her experience in research and operations enables her to communicate and work effectively across interdisciplinary projects, as well as solve problems creatively. Jane graduated from the JAS Biomedical Program in Cambridge, MA, and holds a dual undergraduate degree from Sun Yat-Sen University in International Trade and Chinese.
Board of Directors
Michelle Haven
Venture Partner, Anterra Capital
Michelle has been working in the animal health industry for over 25 years including roles at Merck, Pfizer, and Zoetis.
Michelle L. Haven, DVM, Ph.D.
Venture Partner, Anterra Capital
Michelle has been working in the animal health industry for over 25 years including roles at Merck, Pfizer, and Zoetis. She led global discovery research pharmaceuticals and biologicals at Pfizer Animal Health for several years. Research programs progressed under her leadership led to multiple products for livestock and companion animals in the areas of pain/inflammation, anti-infectives, gastric ulceration, nausea, cancer, and allergy. Michelle retired from Zoetis in 2016 as senior VP of global business development, strategy, and external alliances. She played a key role in the establishment of Zoetis as a new public company, and led several large M&A, joint venture, licensing, and divestiture transactions.
While at Pfizer/Zoetis, Michelle championed multiple initiatives focused on open innovation and One Health including an international collaboration to elevate and harmonize veterinary education and standards, international academia/industry research consortia, and multi-site veterinary clinical investigation centers. She also led several initiatives to expand opportunities and diversity in the animal health industry.
Michelle holds a DVM, Ph.D. and is board certified in the American College of Veterinary Surgeons.
Philip Austin
Managing Partner, Anterra Capital
Philip is a Founder and Managing Partner at Anterra Capital, a leading specialist investment fund across agriculture, animal health, and nutritional wellness.
Philip Austin
Managing Partner, Anterra Capital
Philip is a Founder and Managing Partner at Anterra Capital, a leading specialist investment fund across agriculture, animal health, and nutritional wellness. He currently heads up Anterra’s US office and Life Sciences investment team, dedicating most of his investment efforts to furthering life science companies in the food sector and has co-founded several biotechnology companies, including Animol. Phil strongly believes in the potential for leveraging the powerful pharma ecosystem to build leading edge biotech companies for industrial sectors underserved by innovation.
Prior to Anterra, Philip worked in the principal investment team of Rabobank International (Amsterdam, Netherlands), supporting this global leader in agricultural banking to make investments in groundbreaking, early-stage technology companies. Philip started his investment career with Atlas Venture in London, United Kingdom. Prior to this, he was a strategy consultant with McKinsey & Company’s London and Washington, D.C. offices.
Philip holds a dual degree in Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Chemical Engineering.
Marijn Dekkers
Chairman, Novalis
Marijn is the former CEO of Bayer AG in Leverkusen, Germany (2010-2016) and the former CEO of Thermo Fisher Scientific (2002-2009) in Waltham, MA.
Marijn E. Dekkers, Ph.D.
Chairman, Novalis LifeSciences
Marijn is Chairman of Novalis LifeSciences which he founded in 2017. He is also the Chairman of Ginkgo Bioworks, and a board member of several other Novalis portfolio companies. Marijn is the former CEO of Bayer AG in Leverkusen, Germany (2010-2016) and the former CEO of Thermo Fisher Scientific (2002-2009) in Waltham, MA. He started his career as a scientist at General Electric Corporate Research in Niskayuna, NY. Marijn earned a PhD in Chemical Engineering and a BS in Chemistry, both in the Netherlands.
Science & Tecnology Advisory Board
Pat N. Confalone, Ph.D.
As Vice President, Global R&D, DuPont Crop Protection, Pat led 300 scientists to build a world class pipeline of novel products, including Rynaxypyr™ and Cyazypyr™.
Pat N. Confalone, Ph.D
Scientific Advisory Board
As Vice President, Global R&D, DuPont Crop Protection, Pat led 300 scientists to build a world class pipeline of novel products, including Rynaxypyr™ and Cyazypyr™ with world-wide sales over a billion dollars a year, and the new mode of action fungicide Zorvec™. In Animal Health, his team discovered the chewable flea and tick product NexGard™ with 2019 sales of $ 900M. Prior to his role in Crop Protection, Pat worked with DuPont’s Pharmaceutical Division, where his Medicinal Chemistry department discovered Cozaar™, a major anti-hypertensive based on angiotensin II antagonism. His Chemical Process R&D organization carried out the chemical development of Sustiva™, a major therapeutic for the treatment of AIDS. Together, these life-saving medicines generated cumulative sales of over $ 50 billion. In addition, his Bioorganic Chemistry group developed the fluorescent dye-labeled reagents eventually employed in the human genome project. Pat started his industry career at the Chemical Research Department of Roche Pharmaceuticals under Prof. R.B. Woodward.
A graduate of M.I.T., Pat obtained a Ph.D. at Harvard with Nobel laureate Prof. R.B. Woodward, followed by a post-doctoral stint. He has presented >110 invited or plenary lectures worldwide, published >140 papers, obtained >50 U.S. Patents, and has been an associate editor of ten peer-reviewed scientific journals. He is the recipient of the 2021 ACS National Award for Leadership in Chemical Research Management and the 2021 Gassman Award for Distinguished Service in Chemistry.
Prof. Timothy Geary, Ph.D.
A member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Animol, Geary obtained a BSc in Biology from the University of Notre Dame in 1975 and a PhD in Pharmacology in 1980.
Prof. Timothy Geary, Ph.D.
Scientific Advisory Board
A member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Animol, Geary obtained a BSc in Biology from the University of Notre Dame in 1975 and a PhD in Pharmacology in 1980 from the University of Michigan. After working on tropical parasitology at Michigan State University as a Postdoctoral Fellow and Research Assistant Professor, he joined the parasitology research group at The Upjohn Company (Pharmacia – Pfizer) in 1985. He remained at Pfizer until 2005, then joining the Institute of Parasitology at McGill University as Professor and Tier I Canada Research Chair. He served as Director of the Institute from 2007-2019, when he became Emeritus Professor. He is also a Professor (20 % appointment) in the School of Biological Sciences at Queen’s University – Belfast.
Tim earned national and international funding to support his research and received many awards. He has published > 230 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, is on the editorial boards of 8 scientific journals and serves as a consultant for many pharmaceutical, government and non-government organizations. He is a Past-President of the American Association of Veterinary Parasitologists and is a member of the Executive Committee of the World Association for the Advancement of Veterinary Parasitology and the Advisory Boards of the National Center for Veterinary Parasitology (USA) and the NIH-NIAID Filariasis Research Reagent Resource Center.
His work has focused on chemotherapy of infectious diseases; pharmacology of antiparasitic drugs; mechanisms of antiparasitic drug resistance; and antiparasitic drug discovery and development
Nigel Walshe, Ph.D.
Nigel is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Animol, with a specific focus on Antiparasitics, having responsibilities for screening strategy and compound progression,
Nigel Walshe, Ph.D.
Scientific Advisory Board
Nigel is a member of the Scientific Advisory Board of Animol, with a specific focus on Antiparasitics, having responsibilities for screening strategy and compound progression, identification of new targets, and seeking novel product profiles that address unmet needs with high commercial value. He worked for 30 years in the laboratories of Pfizer Animal Health (now Zoetis) at Sandwich, UK. A synthetic organic chemist by training, with a background in natural products, in particular semisynthetic modifications of the macrocyclic lactone antiparasitics of the avermectin class, he worked on the discovery and development of the cattle endectocide Dectomax™, and the pet endectocide Revolution™. His team discovered the anticoccidial polyether ionophore Aviax™. He led a global team to develop an endectocide for the Brazil sector, TreoAce™, a product commercialized in less than three years on initiation of the programme. These opportunities have enabled him to acquire a unique breadth of insight into the entire process of R&D, from concept through discovery and full development, to commercialization, as well as an extensive network of contacts, spanning industry, academia and contract research facilities. On exiting Pfizer Animal Health in 2008, he has worked extensively as a consultant in animal health, leading to his current involvement with Animol beginning in 2019.
Ian Watson, Ph.D.
Ian is a seasoned computational scientist who has worked with advanced computational techniques in many contexts.
Ian Watson, Ph.D.
Scientific Advisory Board
Ian trained as a chemist at the Australian National University where his thesis focused on vibrational modes of small molecules. He subsequently earned his PhD at Cornell University studying simulated laser induced photolysis. He began his industrial career at Eastman Kodak, where he led a computational group responsible for optimizing and transitioning CPU intensive tasks to modern Unix systems. At Eli Lilly he developed the cheminformatics tools used by Lilly in small molecule drug discovery. This software is renowned for speed, innovation, and reliability. He is the primary author of the Lilly Medchem Rules, structure filtering software in widespread use in academia, government, industry and vendors. He built much of the cheminformatics software used for Lilly’s work with DNA encoded libraries. At Lilly he became a founding member of Advanced Analytics and was responsible for modeling and simulation strategies across Lilly. He consulted on many high performance computing and analytics projects. After his time at Lilly Ian worked at Google, applying machine learning for detecting certain kinds of advertisements, and to outlier detection for financial investigations. At Google, he spent 20% of his time with Google Accelerated Science who were applying large scale machine learning to DEL analysis and drug discovery.
Ian holds a PhD in Chemistry from Cornell University.