With over 15 years working in drug discovery Stuart has extensive experience of developing and trouble-shooting novel screening assays, designing screening cascades, compound screening, hit validation and supporting hit to lead and lead optimisation programs. Throughout the 5 years of the European Lead Factory project he held the position of Head of Biology at the European Screening Centre (ESC), leading a team of bioscientists in prosecuting and triaging the output of over 90 high throughput screens across all major target classes and disease indications. Prior to this Stuart helped establish the Dundee Drug Discovery Unit (DDU) where he spent 7 years as a project and then team leader working across a wide array of novel drug targets and assays. He also had a leading operational role in DDU-Industry partnerships with both large pharma and SMEs.

Angus has over 15 years’ experience as a practising medicinal chemist leading both project and medicinal chemistry delivery in multinational and multidisciplinary teams. In his most recent role as Head of Chemistry at the European Screening Centre Newhouse he was Medicinal Chemistry lead of the European Lead Factory project responsible for over 30 hit to leads programmes. Prior to this Angus has held leadership roles at Organon, Schering-Plough, MSD, Prosidion and Redx Oncology. During his time in pre-clinical drug discovery he has had broad exposure and experience of working across a diverse range of therapeutic areas and target classes from hit generation to candidate nomination. Angus has a PhD in Organic Chemistry from Strathclyde University and carried out Postgraduate studies at Cambridge University. He is a co-author on over 30 papers and patents.

Sylviane has more than 20 years’ experience in scientific research and drug discovery environment. Sylviane has a track record in building and leading outstanding and productive teams into seamless successful enterprises in start-up and medium and large pharma environment. Prior to BioAscent Sylviane was Head of Global Compound repository and in-vitro Screening (Merck Sharp & Dohme, Newhouse Scotland). She was also responsible for managing a portfolio of early Drug Discovery projects in Cardiovascular from Target Identification and validation to Lead Optimisation. Sylviane attained her PhD in Cellular and Molecular Biology from the University Joseph Fourier, Grenoble, France, followed by post-doctoral positions at the INSERM U366 Laboratory, France and University of Manchester, UK under the Wellcome Trust International Fellowship.

Angelo is a highly experienced computational chemist, project leader and strategic contributor to discovery teams, and has over 15 years’ experience working across different organisations in US and UK. He has a PhD in computational chemistry from the University of Nottingham. Prior to joining BioAscent, Angelo led the computational chemistry and artificial intelligence team at the drug discovery unit at the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research in Glasgow. Angelo is an expert in in silico structure-based and fragments-based methodologies applied to drug design with a passion for machine learning. He is a co-author on more than 30 publications and patents including a book chapter on fragments library design. Angelo is also a reviewer for several highly regarded journals and fellowships, and serves as an advisory board member for several international conferences.

Brian has more than 25 year’s experience in pharmaceutical research & development with over 15 years of those within preclinical drug discovery. He attained his PhD in Molecular Pharmacology from the University of St Andrews before undertaking post-doctoral positions at the University of Liverpool and University of Glasgow. During this time, he was a co-author or more than 15 peer reviewed publications. Brian previously worked within Organon, Schering Plough & MSD as a Senior Scientist gaining expertise across a diverse range of technologies, target classes and therapeutic areas. His projects spanned the full range of preclinical research from target discovery to clinical candidate selection. Laterally Brian led project management teams within contract research and innovation organisations providing services to clients ranging from start-ups to major pharma. As well as managing the teams, he was directly responsible for the successful delivery of over 25 projects.

Duncan is an experienced medicinal chemist having worked in the pharmaceutical and not-for-profit sectors for over 20 years. He has broad scientific expertise in several therapeutic areas, working in both lead finding and lead optimisation project teams. Duncan is expert in fragment-based hit finding strategies and developing HTS campaigns. In his previous roles at MSD and more latterly, the Beatson Institute for Cancer Research (BICR), Duncan led multiple internal and cross-site collaborative project teams and managed outsourced chemistry efforts across different companies. Duncan spent over 10 years at the BICR working in the area of fragment-based drug discovery, prioritising and developing mM affinity fragment hits to high affinity lead series. Duncan is a co-author on 20 papers and patents.

Prior to joining BioAscent as Chief Scientific Officer in 2018, Phil had over 30 years medicinal chemistry and drug discovery experience from Roche, Organon, Schering-Plough, Merck and the University of Dundee including senior roles as Executive Director, Acting Site Head and managing global project portfolios. Numerous clinical candidates, across a range of therapeutic areas and target families, resulted from groups for which he was responsible. He led the work establishing the European Screening Centre team at Biocity Glasgow in Newhouse; a group that has been instrumental in delivering validated hit series for SMEs and academics across Europe through collaborative programmes as part of the IMI-funded European Lead Factory. In 2020, Phil was seconded to establish the Lighthouse Lab in Glasgow, a key element in the UK Covid-19 testing network. In 2022, Phil stepped back from the CSO role to take up his current position as Chief Scientific Advisor at BioAscent. Phil’s postgraduate studies were carried out at the University of Manchester and Imperial College. Phil was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2005, he chaired the Medicinal Chemistry interest group of the Royal Society of Chemistry for 8 years, chaired the organising committee of the European Federation of Medicinal Chemistry – International Symposium on Medicinal Chemistry (EFMC-ISMC) in 2016 and sat on the Executive Committee of the EFMC for four years. He is a co-author on over 80 scientific papers and patents.