Meet Dr. GPCR Summit Partners
Dr. GPCR Summit Presents Where a Ph.D. Can Lead
Thursday, 09/16/ 2021 @ 1:00 PM - EST
- Dr. Brian Arey -
- Dr. Samuel Hoare -
- Dr. Ajay Yekkirala -
- Dr. Stephanie Val -
About Dr. Brian Arey
Brian is Senior Director of Mechanistic Pharmacology within Leads Discovery and Optimization at Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. in Lawrenceville, NJ. He obtained both his MS and Ph.D. in Neuroendocrine Physiology at Florida State University before completing his postdoctoral training at Northwestern University. He then moved to the pharmaceutical industry where he has held a broad range of roles within drug discovery.
Dr. Arey's work contributed to the development of the first described allosteric agonists of the FSHR and the demonstration of the role of signaling bias as a key feature of physiologic gonadotropin action. He has contributed to the discovery of numerous clinical candidate compounds during his tenure including 5 marketed medicines. He has also been an early pioneer of concepts related to GPCR signaling including biased signaling as it relates across classes of receptors as found in Biased Signaling in Physiology, Pharmacology, and Therapeutics available on Amazon.
Dr. Brian Arey on the web
About Dr. Sam Hoare
Dr. Hoare is a pharmacology data analyst and the founder of Pharmechanics LLC. As an industry pharmacologist, he consults with numerous pharma and biotechs in understanding and applying in vitro pharmacology data to advance drug discovery. He specializes in kinetic analysis of drug action and is known for applying binding kinetics to the development of effective therapeutics, particularly GPCR antagonists.
Sam completed his Ph.D. in biochemistry, studying allosteric modulation of dopamine receptors, from the University of Kent, United Kingdom. He then moved to the National Institute of Mental Health, researching pharmacological mechanisms of Class B GPCRs as part of his postdoctoral training.
Dr. Hoare worked as a pharmacology leader in the pharmaceutical industry for 15 years at Neurocrine Biosciences. He guided the in vitro biology efforts of the company for numerous drug discovery campaigns.
Dr. Samuel Hoare on the web
About Dr. Stephanie Val
Stephanie Val got her Ph.D. in Cell and Molecular Biology, specialized in Toxicology, Environment, and Health in 2011 at the University of Paris Diderot, France. After a year of scientific consulting for a French company, she moved to Washington, DC, USA to start a Postdoctoral position at the Children's National Medical Center to investigate mechanisms leading to chronic ear infections in children. Stephanie spent 6 years doing basic and translational research in this field and advanced her career until becoming Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at George Washington University, leading a research laboratory. Passionate about novel cell therapies, Stephanie decided to transition to a different field and joined the Cell therapy Laboratory at the Children's National Medical Center, as a lead of Cell Process Development and GMP manufacturing, working with an industry partner. After 2 years in this role, Stephanie joined TCR2 Therapeutics, a clinical-stage T cell therapy company at the beginning of 2021, as a Senior Scientist in T cell Process Development.
Dr. Stephanie Val on the web
About Dr. Ajay Yekkirala
Ajay Yekkirala is co-founder & CSO of Blue Therapeutics, a platform company focused on utilizing the power of receptor-interactomicsTM to develop novel therapies. He is the co-inventor of Blue's core technology and has over 15 years of experience in GPCR and ion channel drug discovery and development. Ajay completed his doctoral studies with ACS hall of fame chemist, Dr. Philip Portoghese, at the University of Minnesota and postdoctoral training under renowned pain neurobiologist Clifford Woolf at Harvard. He has authored several papers published in high-impact, peer-reviewed journals, including book chapters and invited reviews. He is also a recipient of the Bacaner Research Award from the Minnesota Medical Foundation.
Dr. Yekkirala on the Web
Meet Dr. GPCR Summit Partners
