Our Team
Our team has hundreds of person-years of experience in producing and applying fragment binding maps in drug discovery campaigns at large and mid-size pharmaceutical companies, including Johnson & Johnson, Bristol-Myers-Squibb, Stanford Research International (previously Sarnoff Corp.), Locus Pharmaceuticals, BioLeap, and now Conifer Point. Conifer Point Consulting, the developer of Boltzmann Maps, is an early-stage drug discovery company located at the Pennsylvania Biotech Center. Detailed background on the Conifer Point management team can be found at http://coniferpoint.com/about.html.
The fragment-based design technologies behind the BMaps web app are the result of a 20-year collaboration between Dr. Frank Guarnieri, Dr. John L. Kulp, Jr., and Richard L. Bryan. Dr. Guarnieri conceived of the key advance in molecular sampling for fragment-protein simulations – simulated annealing of chemical potential (SACP). Dr. Kulp added methods such as learned-bias sampling and multivariate, adaptive annealing. The fragment simulation software and design tools were the result of a similar partnership between Mr. Bryan, the lead software designer, and Dr. Kulp, for Locus Pharmaceuticals and BioLeap, Inc. The BMaps web app was developed by Daniel Bryan and his team. Many successful applications to experimental lead discovery have been carried out by chemists Dr. John L. Kulp, III and Dr. Ian Cloudsdale.
Drs. Patrick Lam and William Kinney are Conifer Point Scientific Board Members. Both are medicinal chemistry and drug discovery experts with extensive experience in innovation in structure-based drug design, ADME, focused libraries, prodrugs, molecular recognition and nucleic acid therapeutics to deliver biopharma clinical candidates with novel profiles. Dr. Lam discovered a total of eight clinical candidates including Eliquis®/Apixaban, a novel FXa inhibitor as a new anticoagulant. Dr. Kinney progressed three drugs into clinical trials with one, ENT-0, currently in phase II clinical trials for Parkinson’s Disease.
View publications by the Conifer Point team related to fragment-based design »