Silicon Spotlight
TUCKER LYNN
Manager, Laboratory Operations
Tucker is Manager, Laboratory Operations at Silicon Therapeutics. He completed an MS in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Virginia, focusing on Androgen Receptor in cancer. After completing his degree, he joined Dr. Bill Petri’s lab at the University of Virginia. While there, he studied techniques for clinical tests to qualitatively score severity of C difficile infection. He also worked in lab management, as a clinical coordinator, and managed a project with multiple collaborators. He then became the lab manager for Dr. Tami Lieberman, at MIT. As the first employee of a brand new PI, he set up the lab and wrote many of the SOPs. He also coordinated several studies involving human subjects. In his career of lab operations he has developed proficiencies in purchasing and inventory management, hazardous waste management, shipping and receiving, lab organization, and equipment maintenance.
At Silicon Therapeutics we have assembled a diverse leadership team with deep experience across disciplines ranging from physics and computer aided drug design to chemistry and structural biology.
We share the belief that we can deliver novel medicines to significantly improve the lives of patients by taking an integrated approach that combines experts in biology, biophysics, chemistry, physics, and computer science.
Evan Chiswick, Ph.D.
Evan Chiswick, Ph.D.
Cameron Lagasse
Cameron Lagasse
Cameron is our first full-time IT associate. He handles day to day technical issues throughout the company and is also working to implement company-wide IT strategies and best-practices. Cameron came to Silicon Therapeutics from Harvard University, where he was a Field Support Technical Engineer. Before that, he worked at a managed service provider based out of Salem, NH called Technology Seed, where he gained most of his IT experience. Cameron spent three years studying Computer Networking at Wentworth Institute of Technology and is currently finishing up his bachelor’s degree in Information Technology with Cyber Security online from Southern New Hampshire University. Cameron and his skill set in IT and customer service is a great addition to our team.
Mandy Sun
Mandy Sun
Mandy Sun joins Silicon as a Treasury Associate in Accounting. Mandy’s past experience is from Etiometry, Inc., Boston, MA where she was Accountant/Analyst beginning August 2019. Before that, she was Accounting Intern at Walden International, Shangai, China. She also interned at Xinzhen Technology Co., in Shenzhen, China. Mandy received her Master of Science in Accounting from Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA and a BA in Psychology from Clark University, Worcester, MA. While at Clark, Mandy was the Publicity Department Officer for the Chinese Students and Scholars Association.
Ning Gao, Ph.D.
Ning Gao, Ph.D.
Ning Gao joins Silicon Therapeutics as the new head of Protein Sciences in the Biophysics & Biochemistry group. Ning will be overseeing protein production for Silicon’s early programs enabling structural biology, biophysics and biochemistry. Her previous positions include Astra Zeneca where she spent over 20 years in the Discovery Sciences and anti-infection groups and worked cross-functionally with many current STX scientists.
Derek MacPherson, Ph.D.
Derek MacPherson, Ph.D.
Dr. Derek MacPherson is an Investigator at Silicon Therapeutics and has experience in structural biology and protein dynamics for the assessment of protein structure and function. Derek’s role at Silicon focuses on providing Hydrogen-Deuterium Exchange Mass Spectrometry for solution state assessment of protein dynamics and characterization of ligand binding. Derek also brings broad knowledge of other biophysical techniques related to protein production, characterization and structure assessment. During his doctoral research, Derek focused on probing the structure-activity relationships of the apoptotic caspases using an array of biochemical assays, directed evolution, crystallography, and mass spectrometry. He aimed to uncover the molecular details that differentiate this highly homologous class of proteases in order to provide new scaffolds for the design of individual caspase inhibitors. Derek received dual B.S. degrees in Chemistry and Forensic Science from University of New Haven and his Ph.D. in Chemistry from University of Massachusetts – Amherst under the guidance of Prof. Jeanne A. Hardy.
Alicia Petrin
Alicia Petrin
Alicia Petrin is a Project Manager, Associate with Silicon Therapeutics and helps directly manage the mainstream projects, along with leading the Cross Functional Awareness initiative internally. Prior to STX, Alicia worked at BU School of Dental Medicine as Program Manager, where she was responsible for all program and office operations. In her free time, she enjoys running and exploring different restaurants.
Sweta Swaminathan
Sweta Swaminathan
Sweta Swaminathan is a Research Associate at Silicon Therapeutics in the Biology team. Her role is to perform cell-based reporter assay screens to determine functionally active compounds against the target of choice. She graduated with a MS in Pharmacology degree from Northeastern University. Prior to joining Silicon, she completed a 6-month internship at GlaxoSmithKline focusing on developing cell-based screening assay using DNA encoded libraries against an I/O target. While at Northeastern, she also worked as a research assistant at Dr. Ralph Loring’s lab and performed radioligand binding assays on mouse brain tissue sections. She has completed her Bachelor’s in Pharmacy degree from University of Mumbai, India.
Shivam Patel
Shivam Patel
Shivam Patel is a Machine Learning Scientist here at Silicon Therapeutics working on designing and implementing a deep neural network that predicts binding pocket in a protein by looking at water thermodynamic quantities. Also, He helps others at STX with machine learning projects. He has a bachelor's degree in Computer Science and earned his master’s degree in Data Analytics from Northeastern University. Previously he was a Machine Learning Intern at EnvoyAI, where he designed a deep neural network to detect lung cancer using chest CT scans. Outside of work, he is a singer, formally trained in Indian Classical Vocals, loves soccer and enjoys outdoor activities.
Brian Radak, Ph.D.
Brian Radak, Ph.D.
Brian Radak is a Senior Investigator at Silicon Therapeutics focusing on developing new methods and algorithms for the STX drug discovery platform. Prior to joining Silicon Therapeutics Brian was a research programmer at the Center for Macromolecular Modeling and Bioinformatics at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and completed postdoctoral work at the University of Chicago and Argonne National Lab. He finished his PhD studies under Prof. Darrin York (now at Rutgers University) at the University of Minnesota where he studied the mechanism of self-cleaving ribozymes using simulations and quantum chemical methods. He has since expanded his interests to a broad range of problems in biomolecular simulations, including ion/small-molecule binding, large-scale conformational transitions, and pH effects. He is especially interested in hybrid molecular dynamics/Monte Carlo methods, including new approaches based on non-equilibrium and adaptive sampling.
Jae Eun Cheong, Ph.D.
Jae Eun Cheong, Ph.D.
Jae Eun Cheong works with Silicon Therapeutics, as an investigator in the chemistry department, working on the companies Aspire project She joins Silicon from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center/Harvard Medical School where she did her postdoc with Professor Lijun Sun. Her work focused on the development of a new series of anticancer agents, and she was involved in the design and synthesis of new heterocyclic small molecules with promising activity towards cancer cell that are highly metastatic and resistant to chemotherapies. Jae Eun has earned her Ph.D at Temple University, and thoroughly enjoys indoor climbing.
Mike Malynn
Mike Malynn
Mike Malynn is a Senior Treasury Associate at Silicon Therapeutics. As a member of the Operations team, Mike focuses on Financial Planning and Analysis as well as various Accounting and Business Development initiatives. Prior to SiTX, he held positions as a Financial Analyst at Aptus Health and a Finance Intern at Sage Therapeutics. Mike graduated from Suffolk University where he received his BSBA in Business Economics.
Carlo Pascoe, Ph.D.
Carlo Pascoe, Ph.D.
Carlo is a Senior Investigator at Silicon Therapeutics with expertise in Application Acceleration and FPGA-based Reconfigurable Computing. His role at Silicon primarily focuses on the design and implementation of a multi-FPGA Molecular Dynamics simulation infrastructure. Carlo joins us from the University of Florida's NSF Center for High-performance Reconfigurable Computing (CHREC) and the PSAAP II Center for Compressible Multiphase Turbulence (CCMT) where he was a Senior Research Assistant working on accelerated applications for Novo-G, a 512 FPGA compute cluster. Carlo received several degrees during his time at the University of Florida, including Electrical Engineering, Computer Engineering, Computer Science, Physics, Mathematics, and Management.
Bridget McLean
Bridget McLean
Bridget McLean is a Human Resources Associate at Silicon Therapeutics. Bridget is a young professional always looking to take on a new challenge. She has worn many hats through her career that spans from teaching elementary school to working security at Boston Calling. During her undergrad at Bryant University she developed her skills in leadership and team work while focusing her degree in business management. Bridget held leadership roles in several on-campus organizations, where she used her communication and problem-solving skills to advance the organizations’ goals. While studying at Bryant University, Bridget also interned at Management Search Inc. in Providence, RI which taught her the ins and outs of recruiting while honing her attention to detail. Bridget also worked as a Student Manager for Bryant University’s Audio-Visual department where she received the title “Student Worker of the Year” in 2017. After graduation, Bridget worked as an intern at Creative Office Pavilion, where she supported a small Human Resources team. Throughout her short career Bridget has built a great reputation for doing business with a smile.
Todd Soltwedel, M.S.
Todd Soltwedel, M.S.
Coming Soon...
Simina Grigoriu, Ph.D.
Simina Grigoriu, Ph.D.
Dr. Simina Grigoriu is a Senior Investigator at Silicon Therapeutics and has experience in the application of structural biology and biophysical approaches to drug discovery. Her role at Silicon focuses on providing X-ray crystallography support for structure-based drug design, and on structurally enabling early and exploratory stage projects. Simina joins us from Warp Drive Bio, where she served as structural biology lead for two Oncology programs and solved 70 co-crystal structures that helped drive SBDD. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at AstraZeneca, where she studied the structure-based mechanism of DNA translocation. Prior to that she was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard Medical School in Prof. Gerhard Wagner’s group, where she worked on the development of novel phospholipid bilayer nanodiscs and applied these systems to NMR studies of membrane proteins. Simina received her Ph.D. from Brown University. Her graduate research focused on the structure-function characterization of several macromolecular complexes involved in antibiotic resistance, T cell regulation, and inflammasome assembly.
Stella Li, Ph.D.
Stella Li, Ph.D.
Dr. Yunxing (Stella) Li is a scientist on the biophysics team at Silicon Therapeutics and studies the interaction between candidate molecules and protein targets in multiple therapeutic areas. Her role is to provide proof of concept support for structure-based drug design using biophysical and biochemical techniques. During her doctoral research, she focused on the activation of Glutaminase C, a gateway enzyme of glutamine metabolism in cancer cells. In particular, she solved several of its crystal structures – each bound with different ligands – and designed different biophysical assays to study the interaction between small molecules and proteins. Her work has led to the identification of several key structural factors for the activation and inhibition of Glutaminase C. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Physics from Peking University and her PhD in Biophysics from Cornell University under the supervision of Dr. Richard A. Cerione.
Shourya Jain, MS
Shourya Jain, MS
Shourya Jain is a Research Associate on the Biophysics and Biochemistry Team and works on a Biochemical Assay that screens compounds against the target protein. She obtained a master’s degree from Northeastern University in Biotechnology, majoring in Pharmaceutical Technologies. Shourya completed her Co-op with us where she assisted in developing purification procedures for target proteins. During her previous Co-op at CuriRx, Inc. she was responsible for the production, purification and analysis of proteins through various analytical techniques and cell-based assays. She completed her bachelor’s degree in Biotechnology from Pune, India. During her undergraduate studies, she also worked as an intern at ACTREC, Mumbai (India) where she tested the effect of HDAC inhibitory drugs on the expression of a specific protein target to develop therapy against Breast Cancer.
James Rice, PhD
James Rice, PhD
Dr. James Rice is a Principal Investigator at Silicon Therapeutics with expertise in adaptive immunology/ immuno-oncology and multiplexed immunoassay development. During his postdoctoral fellowship at Harvard Medical School, Dr. Rice developed multiple FRET assays in an effort evaluate the Antizyme/Antizyme Inhibitor PPI as a potential prostate cancer therapeutic target. Additionally, he developed peptide and mRNA based cancer vaccines through a collaboration with Department of Nanomedicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. His previous work at Ciencia, Inc. included the development of a novel SPCE multiplexed immunoassay platform for the detection of autoreactive T cells in Type I diabetes. Dr. Rice serves on the editorial board two peer-reviewed immunology journals and has authored numerous publications in the fields of basic and applied immunology. Dr. Rice studied at the University of Connecticut where he earned a Ph.D. in Molecular and Cell Biology for his work on CD4+ T cell signaling and effector development.
Tucker Lynn, MS
Tucker Lynn, MS
Tucker is an Manager of Laboratory Operations at Silicon Therapeutics. He completed an MS in Biomedical Sciences at the University of Virginia, focusing on Androgen Receptor in cancer. After completing his degree, he joined Dr. Bill Petri’s lab at the University of Virginia. While there, he studied techniques for clinical tests to qualitatively score severity of C difficile infection. He also worked in lab management, as a clinical coordinator, and managed a project with multiple collaborators. He then became the lab manager for Dr. Tami Lieberman, at MIT. As the first employee of a brand new PI, he set up the lab and wrote many of the SOPs. He also coordinated several studies involving human subjects. In his career of lab operations he has developed proficiencies in purchasing and inventory management, hazardous waste management, shipping and receiving, lab organization, and equipment maintenance.
Sharon Shechter, PhD
Sharon Shechter, PhD
Sharon is a principle Investigator at Silicon Therapeutics with expertise in computer-aided drug design, bioinformatics, and software engineering. Before joining Silicon Therapeutics, she ran a computational drug design consulting boutique (Shechter Computational Solutions) where she focused on two major targets (Galectin-3 and Importin a/b). Those efforts have yielded 4 patents and a high-profile publication (Nature Reports). Prior to that, she was the Head of Computational Discovery at Karyopharm Therapeutics where she was involved with the discovery of a novel Exportin1 inhibitor, which is currently in phase 3 clinical trials. Another novel compound she discovered, targeting PAK4 and NAMPT, recently entered clinical trials. She is author on 30 research publications and patents.
Cherl Koh, PhD
Cherl Koh, PhD
Dr. Cheryl Koh is a Senior Investigator at Silicon Therapeutics. As part of the Biology team, her current work focuses on the functional characterization of the cellular mechanism of action and in vitro pharmacology of lead compounds. Dr. Koh was previously at AstraZeneca, where she was involved in early stage small molecule discovery activities driving multiple concurrent projects, encompassing various target classes and across therapeutic areas. During her postdoctoral work on cancer biology in Dr. Ernesto Guccione’s lab (IMCB, A*STAR), Dr. Koh was co-first author on a study that was published in Nature, and was awarded 2 research grants. Dr. Koh received her Ph.D. in Pathobiology from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she studied the oncogenic role of Myc in prostate cancer in the lab of Dr. Angelo De Marzo. Dr. Koh is an author on 18 peer-reviewed scientific articles.
Charlie-Lin, PhD
Charlie-Lin, PhD
Charlie is a Senior Investigator at STX focusing on developing new methods and algorithms for the STX drug discovery workflow on current and next-generation hardware. Prior to joining Silicon Therapeutics, Charlie was finishing up his PhD at GlaxoSmithKline looking into relative binding free energy in the TNN13K system. Charlie received his PhD from Professor Ross Walker’s group at the University of California San Diego, where he worked at the San Diego Supercomputer Center developing novel algorithms for the AMBER molecular dynamics suite for binding free energy calculations and membrane simulations. As part of his PhD work, he also worked in close conjunction with Intel Corporation to develop a distributed memory version of AMBER that was scalable to thousands of cores.
Ramya Samant, MS
Ramya Samant, MS
Ramya joins the STX team as a Research Associate after graduating from Northeastern University with a Masters in Pharmaceutical Sciences. During her masters, she worked as a Co-op at Absorption Systems, where she studied the dissolution and permeation of drugs using the IDAS-2 system. Her second Co-op was at GlaxoSmithKline, where she worked in the biology team for developing binding assays to validate binding of compounds using the DNA Encoded Library Technology. Prior to her masters, she did her Bachelors in Pharmacy from Mumbai, India.
At Silicon Therapeutics, Ramya is working with the Biology team to study binding of compounds using various cell function and molecular biology assays.
Matthew Cullen, PhD
Matthew Cullen, PhD
Dr. Matthew Cullen is a Principal Investigator at Silicon Therapeutics with expertise in medicinal and synthetic chemistries. Matt joined Silicon Therapeutics in July 2017 as Senior Investigator and has played a key leadership role across a number of our key projects. Matt has a very impressive depth and breadth of experience in medicinal chemistry as well as the broader drug discovery process. Before joining SiTX, Matt was a Senior Scientist/Program Lead at Proteostasis Therapeutics, where he was employed from November 2009 through August 2017. There, he was responsible for compound management activities, the management of company data, designing tools and interfaces for data analysis and data retrieval, and personnel. He later transitioned to Chemistry Lead on a neurodegeneration program for a novel protease target in early Lead Optimization. He was a Post-Doctoral Researcher at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he developed a de novo method for the catalytic, stereoselective functionalization of inactivated olefins with sulfur electrophiles. Matt received a B.S. in Chemistry from the University of California, Irvine and a PhD in Medicinal Chemistry & Molecular Pharmacology from Purdue University.
Dazhi Tan, PhD
Dazhi Tan, PhD
Dazi Tan is a Principal Investigator at SiTX. Dazhi joined SiTX in September 2017 as Senior
Investigator and has contributed significantly to Platform development (force field, RBFE, and
HPC job control infrastructure) as well as making significant contributions to the SWAT and
ASPIRE projects in structural biology as well as modeling and design. Previously, Dazhi was a
Research Fellow with D.E. Shaw Research, where he successfully developed an accurate force
fields for nucleic acids and protein-nucleic acid complexes. Dazhi served as a Graduate Student
at Liang Tong Lab, Columbia University from August 2009 through May 2014 where he
successfully solved the structures of several proteins and protein-RNA complexes. Before that,
he was Undergraduate Research Assistant at Junmim Pan Lab, Tsignhua University from July
2007 through June 2008 where he discovered genes responsible for cilium-growth deficiency and
related human disorders. Dazhi has a B.S., Biological Sciences from Tsinghua University and a
PhD, Structural Biology from Columbia University.
Eureka Zhao, PhD
Eureka Zhao, PhD
Dr. Ziyan (Eureka) Zhao is a scientist on the biology team at Silicon Therapeutics and studies the interaction of candidate molecules with key regulators of the innate immune signaling pathways. Her role is to offer proof-of-concept for lead compound selection process using cell reporter assays. During her doctoral research, she designed several immune cell-based assays and implemented them in high-throughput screenings to look for novel immune modulatory compounds. In particular, she focused on the activation of cytotoxic T lymphocyte, the cell type involved in tumor cell killing. Her work has led to the identification of several novel immune modulatory compounds, some being developed into chemical leads, and several peer-reviewed publications. She received her Bachelor’s Degree in Biomedical Engineering from Beihang University and PhD from the University of Connecticut under the supervision of Dr. Adam Zweifach.
Dwight McGee, PhD
Dwight McGee, PhD
Dwight is a Senior Investigator at Silicon Therapeutics and focuses on developing workflows and applications for docking and virtual screening that can be leveraged to help guide computer aided drug design. Prior research efforts, involved using molecular dynamics to understand the mechanisms of how drug-resistant mutations reduce the efficacy of known inhibitors and evaluating the shifts in pKa values of protein residues in the apo and bound forms. Specifically, he has been involved several successful drug-discovery projects ranging from HIV to Cancer that has resulted in the identification of drug-like leads. In addition, Dwight assisted in the development of MMPBSA.py, a program that can be employed in end-state free energy calculations, as well as the software docking program DOCK6. Dr. McGee holds a B.S. and M.S. from Florida A & M University, Ph. D. from the University of Florida and was an AGEP-T FRAME postdoctoral fellow at Stony Brook University.
Huang Huang, PhD
Huang Huang, PhD
Dr. Huang is an Investigator at Silicon Therapeutics with expertise in medicinal chemistry, drug discovery and organic chemistry. Dr. Huang studied at East China University of Science and Technology in Prof. Hualiang Jiang and Prof. Jian Li’s group, where he obtained his PhD degree in medicinal chemistry for his research in medicinal chemistry and organic synthetic methodologies. Prior to joining Silicon Therapeutics, Dr. Huang was trained as a Post-doctoral research fellow at University of Michigan in Dr. Tomasz Cierpicki & Dr. Jolanta Grembecka’s lab studying medicinal chemistry and chemical biology on anti-cancer drug discovery. Before post-doc training, Dr. Huang worked as a Senior Scientist in WuXi AppTec (Shanghai) providing R&D service for Takeda (San Diego). In total, Dr. Huang is the first author of 6 peer-reviewed publications and named as inventor for 3 patents.
Samuel Sparks, PhD
Samuel Sparks, PhD
Dr. Samuel Sparks is a scientist on the biophysics team with expertise in biomolecular NMR, small angle scattering and protein-ligand interactions. Sam’s role is to characterize the interactions between candidate molecules and protein targets and to provide insights into a targets structure and dynamics. He also focuses on integrating biophysical data with molecular dynamics simulations, working closely with the platform team. During his doctoral research Sam used a variety of biophysical methods to characterize the interactions between intrinsically disordered nuclear pore proteins and transport factors that underlie the fast and selective transport of macromolecules through the nuclear pore complex (NPC). His thesis research helped to elucidate NPC’s translocation mechanism and expanded the understanding of the mechanisms of interactions involving disordered proteins. He received his bachelor’s and master’s degree in Chemistry from Clark University and his PhD in Biochemistry from Albert Einstein College of Medicine under the supervision of Dr. David Cowburn.
Bryce Allen, PhD
Bryce Allen, PhD
Bryce Allen is the Head of Integrated Data Sciences, leading the data analytics and machine learning team. Bryce has contributed significantly to the company in several key areas, including conformational genetics, free energy calculations, uncertainty quantification, de novo design, and database infrastructure. Before joining SiTX, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Biomedical Informatics at Harvard Medical School, where he worked on clinical trajectory modeling in Inflammatory Bowel Disease. Additionally, during his PhD training, Bryce worked as a Biomedical Data Scientist at the Library of Integrated Network-based Cellular Signatures (LINCS) Data Coordination and Integration Center and helped lead the architecture and development of data storage, query, and analysis infrastructure. He also developed custom ETL processes and machine-learning models for chemical and genomic entities used in the LINCS Consortium.
Timothy Dwight, Ph.D.
Timothy Dwight, Ph.D.
Tim has a bachelor's degree from San Diego State. He obtained a masters degree from the University of Rhode Island in 2007 where his focus was on a palladium catalyzed methodology involving the dual oxidative coupling of unfunctionalized aromatic rings. His first stint in biotech was at Ariad Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Takeda Pharmaceuticals) where he helped develop the Alk inhibitor Brigatinib. In 2009 he began his PhD studies and joined the laboratory of Mike Jung at the University of California Los Angeles where his focus was on a new approach to the total synthesis of morphine and the development of N-Fluoromethanocarbathymidine analogs for use in oligonucleotide therapies. In 2014, he joined the lab of Rick Silverman as a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern University. His studies entailed the development of mechanism-based inactivators of Gaba aminotransferase. Between 2016 and 2018 he worked for Vertex Pharmaceuticals on their Cystic Fibrosis program. In 2018, he joined Silicon Therapeutics and is currently a Senior Investigator where he has been chemistry lead on the SWAT, Switch, and Aspire projects.
Istvan Kolossvary, PhD
Istvan Kolossvary, PhD
István is a Senior Fellow at Silicon Therapeutics with both academic and industrial expertise in computational drug discovery. Before joining Silicon Therapeutics he worked at D.E. Shaw Research for over a decade where he contributed to the Desmond molecular dynamics (MD) code base and explored the use of long timescale MD simulations in drug discovery applications. Prior to that he worked at Novartis, where he developed and applied molecular modeling techniques to structure-based drug discovery projects. István been a visiting professor at Columbia University and was most recently a Senior Research Scientist at Boston University. István invented low-mode conformational searching (LMOD), which is one of the first collective variable methods used in advanced conformational sampling. He published over 60 research papers and authored or co-authored 3 books.