CPSA USA 2014

Susan Abbatiello

Dr. Abbatiello received her B.A. in Chemistry from the College of the Holy Cross in 1996. She accepted a position at Genetics Institute (now Pfizer) prior to graduate school in 2001. Her graduate studies, at the University of Florida under the direction of Professors John Eyler and Nigel G. J. Richards, focused on the quantitation of a suspected protein biomarker in drug resistant leukemia cells and received an NSF Cancer Biology Training grant to support her graduate studies. She received her Ph.D. in 2006 and worked as a postdoctoral associate in the Clinical Proteomics Facility at the Hillman Cancer Center at the University of Pittsburgh with Dr. Thomas Conrads, continuing her interest in protein quantitation through mass spectrometry. In 2008 she began a role as scientist at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in the Proteomics lab of Steven Carr, developing targeted quantitative assays for protein biomarkers in cancer samples using stable isotope dilution-multiple reaction monitoring-mass spectrometry while serving as co-chair of the CPTAC Verification Working Group, supported by the NCI, to demonstrate the reproducibility and transferability of these assays across labs. In 2014, Sue accepted a position with Thermo Scientific as a Product Specialist in the Triple Quadrupole product group to assist in further developing and testing the technology. Her interests include the use of FAIMS (High-field Asymmetric Ion Mobility Spectrometry) and targeted peptide quantitation for the rapid screening of biological samples in the verification and validation of protein biomarkers.

Brad Ackermann

Hong Cai

Hong Cai received her PhD in analytical chemistry from Texas A&M university in 1998. She started her career in pharmaceutical industry as an analytical chemist at ArQule, Inc., a biotech company in Boston. Dr. Cai moved to Johnson and Johnson Pharmaceutical Research and Development in 2001 and then joined Bristol-Myers Squibb Company in 2006. Her work at JNJ and BMS spanned from high throughput compound library analysis to drug metabolism and bioanalytical research in support of drug discovery and early development. Currently, Dr. Cai is working for GlaxoSmithKline in the Department of Analytical Sciences. Her work is focused on development and validation of assays for the determination of trace level genotoxic impurities in drug substances and drug products.

Lucinda Cohen

Lucinda (Hittle) Cohen received her Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry in 1994 from the University of Pittsburgh under the direction of Professor David M. Hercules. She then worked with Professor Franz Hillenkamp at the University of Muenster, Germany as an Alexander von Humboldt postdoctoral fellow. She began work in 1996 with Parke-Davis Pharmaceutical Research in the Pharmaceutical Delivery Systems, Analytical Research division in Morris Plains, NJ. From 1999-2007, Lucinda worked in the Pharmacokinetics, Dynamics & Metabolism department within Parke-Davis, Ann Arbor, MI which became Pfizer Global Research and Development. Lucinda joined Merck in 2007 and currently is Director of the PPDM New Jersey Discovery Bioanalytics Group, which provides quantitative in vivo and in vitro analytical support for projects in Kenilworth and Rahway. She has served as an adjunct faculty member for Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, NJ. Her research interests include mass spectrometry, bioanalysis, and sample preparation approaches to increase the quality and speed of high throughput analysis in a drug discovery environment.

Jonathan Josephs

Jonathan L. Josephs obtained his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom in 1988. After completion of postdoctoral work at UC San Diego and UC Berkeley and working as a Medicinal Chemist he joined Thermo in San Jose, CA, prior to joining Bristol-Myers Squibb in 1996. At BMS he was a Principal Scientist in Discovery Biotransformation. The focus of his role was establishing the broad usage of High Resolution Accurate Mass Spectrometry (HRMS) in the ADME area. Key ancillary aspects of this were: 1) The extensive use of qualitative/quantitative methods, 2) Automated data collection and processing, 3) Integration with electronic systems. In 2014 he joined Thermo Fisher Scientific as Director of Marketing for Pharma and Biopharma. In addition to expertise in mass spectrometry he has twenty five years of experience in structural elucidation and metabolic softspots.

Eric Milgram

Eric Milgram earned both his BS and PhD degrees in Chemistry from the University of Florida. Dr. Milgram joined PepsiCo R&D’s Biology and Clinical Sciences team in 2010 to build the organization’s first metabolomics team in PepsiCo’s New Haven facility. As the metabolomics program’s chief architect, Dr. Milgram was instrumental in building a laboratory and staffing it with highly talented personnel, resulting in a novel chemical analysis capability that has been applied to solving challenging problems for PepsiCo. In April 2014, Dr. Milgram became PepsiCo’s Director of Quality Systems Informatics in the Food Safety, Scientific and Regulatory Affairs, and Quality Team (FSRAQ). Prior to joining PepsiCo, Dr. Milgram worked in the pharmaceutical and biotechnology industries. He served as Director of Systems Biology technologies at Wyeth Research and Pfizer. As a Research Fellow at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), he worked to develop robust methods for the determination of trace levels of environmental contaminates such as phthalates and pesticide residues.

Shane Needham

Dr. Shane Needham received his B.S. degree in chemistry from Washington State University and his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of Rhode Island. Dr. Needham is Co-Founder and Laboratory Director of Alturas Analytics, Inc. Dr. Needham manages all scientific aspects of the HPLC/MS/MS bioanalytical contract laboratory at Alturas Analytics, Inc. Currently, Dr. Needham’s work is focused on the development and validation of assays for the determination of therapeutic agents and biomarkers from biological matrices. His laboratory has been a leader in the area of dried blood spot (DBS) analysis and microflow HPLC-MS/MS to support DMPK research. Dr. Needham was program chair of CPSA-USA 2013

Timothy Olah

Timothy V. Olah graduated from Princeton University in 1979 with a B.A. degree in Chemistry and three varsity letters in basketball. After studying organic synthetic chemistry as a post-graduate at Washington University in St. Louis and as a research technician at St. Louis Children's Hospital, he returned to graduate school. He enrolled and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA in 1989 with a Ph.D. in Biological Chemistry. His dissertation focused on the structure-function relationship in protein assembly to conduct in vivo protein synthesis in the E.coli ribosome under Professor Barry Cooperman. After Penn, he joined the Department of Drug Metabolism at Merck Research Laboratories where he developed radioimmunoassays and helped to establish their first bioanalytical group using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometric (LC-MS) detection with the late Dr. John D. Gilbert. In July 2000, he joined the DuPont Pharmaceuticals Company and, following its acquisition by Bristol-Myers Squibb, was named the Director of Bioanalytical Research. Currently as Group Director, Dr. Olah is responsible for advancing quantitative bioanalysis to support all discovery programs at BMS facilities in the US and India. His research is focused on expanding quantitative multiple component methods in biological fluids using LC-MS-based methods in the analysis of all types of drug molecules, as well as endogenous proteins and biomarkers, to support drug discovery and development at BMS. Dr. Olah has over 80 publications and has presented at numerous international universities and conferences.

Joanna Pols

Joanna Pols obtained her BA degree in Biology in 1996 at Thomas More College. She obtained her Ph.D. in Natural Products Chemistry in 2002 at the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science. During her doctoral studies, she mastered the science of isolating chemical compounds with antimicrobial activity from taxonomically unique plan extracts from the National Cancer Institute Natural Products Repository, and characterization of novel chemical compounds by various spectroscopic techniques like NMR and MS. In 2003, she joined Schering-Plough Research Institute, Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK) Department, as a principal investigator for studies involving isolation and characterization of drug-metabolites in biological matrices from studies in animals and humans. After nearly 10 years working in the drug metabolism field as a study director and a DMPK project manager on early and late development teams, in 2012 she joined Global Regulatory Affairs organization at Merck & Co. to further broaden her drug development experience. She is currently a Director and Global Regulatory Liaison responsible for development of global regulatory strategy and direct interactions with the Food and Drug Administration on assigned products within the Infectious Diseases/Vaccines Therapy Area. Joanna was the 2012 CPSA Program Chair. She enjoys mentoring and can share her lessons learned on making successful career changes (from natural products to drug metabolism to regulatory affairs).

Robyn Rourick

Robyn A. Rourick received her B.S. in Chemistry from Fairfield University and her MS in Forensic Chemistry under the direction of Dr. Henry Lee at the University of New Haven. Robyn is a member of the Board of Directors of the Society for Laboratory Automation and Screening. She is also a Board Member of the CACO-Pharmaceutical & BioScience Society as well as the chair of the San Diego Chapter. She is currently a Scientific Manager in Bioanalytical Sciences at Genentech, Inc. where she plays a key role in the evaluation of new analytical technologies, bioanalytical outsourcing strategies, biomarker collaborations and operations. For 4 years prior, Robyn was a Sr. Manager in Nonclinical Study Operations where she oversaw GLP and non-GLP outsourced non-clinical studies in support of pre and post IND programs. Prior to Genentech she held the position of Director, Pharmaceutical Sciences, at Kalypsys, Inc, Associate Director of DuPont Pharmaceuticals Research Labs, Group Leader, Analytical Technologies at CombiChem, Inc, and a number of positions of increasing responsibility over the course of 10 years at Bristol-Myers Squibb

Petia Shipkova

Petia Shipkova obtained her Ph.D. in Analytical Chemistry from the University of Florida under the guidance of Prof. Alan Katritzky and Prof. John Eyler in 1997. After postdoctoral work at Cornell University with Prof. Fred McLafferty she joined Schering-Plough in Kenilworth, NJ in 1998 and then moved to Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2001. Petia is currently a Principal Scientist in the Bioanalytical and Discovery Analytical Sciences Department and leads a group of scientists focusing on LCMS applications for SAR, biomarker analysis and metabolomics in support of Discovery and Early Development efforts. Petia was a program chair for CPSA-USA in 2010

Tony Yeung

Anthony Yeung, PhD in Biochemistry from VPI&SU, received postdoctoral training at the Johns Hopkins University. He is an Associate Professor of the Fox Chase Cancer Center (FCCC). He used mass spectrometry quantitative proteomics to discover about 60 biomarkers for the early detection and staging of pancreatic cancer, then formed OncoSpec LLC hoping to bring the assay to the clinic to benefit the patients. While studying DNA repair, mutation detection, and colon cancer, he directed the FCCC core facilities including DNA synthesis, real-time PCR, fermentation, peptide synthesis, mass spectrometry and proteomics. He is active in the Association of Biomolecular Resource Facilities (ABRF) and served as its President in 2012.