Expertise

I design and review human cell models: iPSC neuron, astrocyte and microglia mono- and tri-culture, and primary neural cultures where they are the better answer. The disease-relevant work is mostly pre-formed fibril and proteopathic-seed paradigms, where the job is separating uptake from seeding from aggregation rather than reporting one number. Around that sit the toxicity and health readouts — viability and neurotoxicity panels, mitochondrial stress, micronuclei and nuclear condensation. The part clients actually buy is the QC gates: the explicit criteria that separate a disease phenotype from differentiation noise, written down before the screen runs.

A cascade runs biochemical to functional to translational, with a decision at every tier, and it is built for the modality you have rather than the one the last company had. For antibodies that means cell-based binding and blocking, internalization, FcR binding, ADCC and CDC. For siRNA and ASO it means knockdown validation, uptake, and conjugate delivery in neural cells. For small molecules it means FLIPR, HTRF, fluorescence polarization and reporter assays feeding phenotypic readouts. The functional tier is where most programs are thin: ion-channel and transporter flux, MEA electrophysiology, calcium imaging, flow cytometry, phagocytosis, chemotaxis, neurite outgrowth and health, and synaptic density.

The translational tier is where a discovery assay has to become something a clinical team can build on. I build and review human whole-blood and PBMC assays, MSD, ELISA and Luminex biofluid biomarker panels, target-engagement and receptor-occupancy designs, phospho-flow, and ex vivo whole-blood stimulation assays for PK/PD modelling, each with a fit-for-purpose validation plan covering precision, stability and donor variability. On the biology side this is mostly inflammasome and NLRP3 readouts, glial activation-state profiling, and complement and synaptic pruning. I have built human whole-blood biomarker assays in industry, which is a different discipline from building the same readout in a cell line.

I have been the lead biologist on a neuroimmunology program through hit-to-lead, and I contributed mechanism-of-action work to two programs that reached development-candidate nomination, one of which is now in Phase 1. That work is where target identification and championing, CRO design and oversight, and science for leadership and partner reviews stop being separate skills. I write the RFP, score the vendors, and then sit on the sponsor side of the weekly call; I have also sat on the CRO side of that same call, leading teams on phenotypic assay development across multiple client engagements. Scientific due diligence and BD support come out of the same habit: reading a data package for what it actually supports.