Bind Research is joining the buzzing Cambridge scene!
We have opened a satellite lab within the Milner Bio-Incubator at the Milner Therapeutics Institute in Cambridge.
The Milner was set up to bridge academia and industry in drug discovery, bringing together its own research programme in functional genomics and target discovery with a consortium of pharma partners and a community of early-stage companies.
So it feels like the perfect place for Bind, a non-profit Focused Research Organisation, to access additional technical capabilities, extending the range of IDP drug discovery work we can run alongside our London operations.
We’re looking forward to being part of the eco-system!
We’re happy to share that Rashik Aryal, MSc is the latest addition to the Bind Research family!
Rashik joins us as Research Assistant, bringing a genuinely multidisciplinary background, from clinical diagnostics to genetic engineering to early-stage protein research.
Rashik will be supporting Bind across protein expression and characterisation workflows, while also helping us develop rigorous, scalable lab operations. Both fundamental to Bind’s success!
Welcome, Rashik — we’re really glad to have you on board.
We’re delighted to welcome Mark Murcko, Ph.D. to the Board of Bind Research and our Lead Scientific Advisor.
Mark joins Tom Kalil, who was recently appointed Interim Chair of the Board. Tom is CEO of Renaissance Philanthropy, an organisation that has already played a vital role in Bind’s establishment.
Mark brings to Bind a deep understanding of what it takes to build the scientific infrastructure, the intellectual frameworks, and the culture needed to turn ambitious biological hypotheses into medicines that reach patients.
Mark is a pioneer in the application of cutting-edge technologies to drug design and has directly contributed to ten marketed medicines spanning glaucoma, HIV, HCV, cystic fibrosis, and cancer. Whilst CTO and SAB Chair at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, he co-invented the company’s three marketed HIV protease and HCV protease inhibitors, and he championed the early CF programme that has so far produced five transformative drugs. Before Vertex, his work at Merck on Trusopt produced the first drug in history to emerge from a structure-based design programme, a landmark moment for the field.
More recently, Mark is a founder, board member, and was the founding CSO at Relay Therapeutics, a company that has pushed the boundaries of what structural and biophysical insight can achieve in drug discovery. In addition, he was the founding CSO and is a board member at Dewpoint Therapeutics, the world’s leading company dedicated to developing therapies that engage cellular condensates. Mark holds a senior lectureship in Biological Engineering at MIT and is a co-inventor on over 50 patents and author of more than 90 scientific papers (H-index 62), as well as having served on numerous other scientific advisory boards and boards of directors, including a decade with Schrödinger advising on their computational drug discovery platform and strategy.
We are enormously grateful to have his experience, his rigour, and his vision alongside us as we build. Welcome to the Bind Board of Directors, Mark!
Got an IDP target? We’d love to hear from you.
Intrinsically disordered proteins are implicated in some of the most important and least-treated diseases in human health, but for a long time the tools to drug them simply didn’t exist. At Bind, we’re building those tools, and we want to put them to work on the targets that matter most.
That’s why we’ve launched our Submit an IDP Target initiative. Whether you’re an academic researcher with a target you’ve been unable to pursue through conventional approaches, a clinician who sees an unmet need, a patient foundation with a disease focus, or a company looking for a collaborative partner, we want to hear from you.
There’s no fixed template for what a good submission looks like. If you have a disordered protein you believe is therapeutically relevant or scientifically intriguing, whether in oncology, neurodegeneration, infectious disease or another area, we’re open to a conversation. We’ll review submissions and explore where there’s potential for collaboration using Bind’s screening and characterisation capabilities.
On 19 March 2026, Bind Research officially launched to an audience of more than 300 scientists, investors, policymakers, clinicians and technologists at One Triton Square, London. The event was hosted by VentureCafé London, sponsored by ARIA.
The evening featured two keynote speakers. Professor Sheena Radford OBE FRS FMedSci spoke about why intrinsically disordered proteins remain one of the most fascinating and challenging frontiers in biology. These are proteins that defy the classical structure-function paradigm: they don’t fold into fixed shapes, yet they are central to some of the most important processes in human disease. The tools, she noted, are finally catching up with the biology.
Dr Dave Smith FIET FRAeS, UK National Technology Advisor, made a compelling case for why the Focused Research Organisation model matters, not just for science but for the UK’s ability to translate deep research into real-world impact. FROs exist to tackle problems that are too hard, too risky and too long-term for conventional funding structures and that is precisely why Bind exists.
The breadth of conversation in the room, spanning disciplines and sectors, reflected the growing recognition that IDPs represent a genuine and increasingly tractable therapeutic opportunity and the team at Bind would like to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who showed up and participated in the lively discussions.
We’re delighted to welcome three new members in 2026.
Dr Hannah Kiely-Collins joins as Senior Scientist, Chemoproteomics. A chemical biologist specialising in chemoproteomics and proximity-inducing modalities, Hannah previously worked at the Francis Crick Institute on translational projects spanning oncology, schizophrenia, and inflammatory bowel disease. At Bind, she will establish a chemoproteomics platform for IDP ligand discovery in native biological systems.
Dr Pijush Chakraborty joins as Senior Scientist, Magnetic Resonance. A structural biologist and biophysicist with deep expertise in protein aggregation, Pijush brings detailed mechanistic insight into dynamic assemblies involving tau and α-synuclein, and will build pipelines to study IDP–small molecule interactions.
Dr Laura Fletcher joins as Director of Strategic Partnerships and part of the leadership team. A life sciences commercialisation expert with over 25 years’ experience in biotech partnerships, licensing, and venture creation, Laura was previously at Deep Science Ventures and Cancer Research UK, and will lead commercial and non-profit partnerships to advance our mission.
Welcome to the team, Hannah, Pijush and Laura!
We’re delighted to announce the appointment of Tom Kalil as our Interim Board Chair in late 2025.
Throughout his career, Tom has been a champion for strengthening investment in the science and technology. His unique blend of government experience, private-sector insight, and philanthropic leadership makes him ideally positioned to guide Bind Research through this critical establishment phase.
Tom’s career includes serving as Deputy Director in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under President Obama and as Senior Advisor for Science, Technology and Innovation for the US National Economic Council. Most recently, Tom was Chief Innovation Officer at Schmidt Futures, before founding Renaissance Philanthropy in May 2024, where he now serves as CEO.
We are particularly grateful to Renaissance Philanthropy; under Tom’s leadership it has already played a vital role in Bind Research’s establishment. Their early and substantial support enabled us to secure facilities, build our team, and launch our research programme.
Tom’s appointment deepens this collaborative relationship, ensuring that Bind Research benefits from strategic guidance informed by both scientific ambition and philanthropic vision.
We are building out our board in with additional key appointments in 2026 that will broaden expertise across science, commercialisation, intellectual property, and finance.
We have welcomed a further four new team members this last month into pivotal roles for Bind.
Dr Wendy Bushell has joined us as Director of Operations, bringing more than 15 years of leadership experience in UK and global biotech. We are excited by what Wendy will bring to Bind, with her deep expertise in scaling teams, establishing labs, and building the culture and systems that drive growth. Alex Messam has joined the team as Financial Controller, bringing with him excellent skills in financial reporting and developing finance systems and processes fit for a rapidly growing R&D team. Our laboratory team has expanded, with Anaïs Naretto joining the Biophysics team as Senior Scientist. Anaïs is an expert in producing challenging proteins and running the full suite of assays to test their interactions with small molecules. Growing again, Ananth Kumar has also joined our Biophysics team as Senior Scientist, bringing deep expertise in protein–RNA interactions and the production of challenging protein complexes.
We’re excited to have them on board as we continue to grow and push the boundaries of drug discovery.
Bind has taken up a lease for 2,746 sq. ft of state-of-the-art lab and office space at the Apex Building, Tribeca. In the words of our CEO, Gabi Heller, “We’re excited to be joining the vibrant LBIC community at the Apex. This space offers the flexibility and infrastructure we need to build a world-class not-for-profit research organisation. For a mission like ours, namely transforming drug discovery for disordered proteins, it’s crucial to be embedded in an environment that fosters collaboration, innovation, and scientific excellence.”
Located in one of London’s most vibrant innovation hubs, our new home positions us at the heart of the UK’s thriving life sciences ecosystem, with excellent connectivity and access to world-class talent. The LBIC space offers us the specialized laboratory infrastructure needed to develop our high-throughput measurement platform and to house our growing team of world-class scientists and technologists.
Over the last 3 months we are delighted to have welcomed five stellar new members of the team to Bind.
Dr Jasmine (Jaz) Cornish joined as Head of Protein and Drug Discovery, bringing deep expertise in disordered proteins and drug discovery. We’re excited for her to lead and shape our screening strategy. James Eaton came aboard as Scientist, Magnetic Resonance, adding essential method development skills to the team. His expertise in NMR will help push the throughput boundaries for this critical approach. Dr Sharna-kay Daley joined as Delivery Manager, bringing a sharp organisational mindset and scientific acumen to align execution with innovation as we scale. Most recently, Sören von Bülow joined as a Computational Scientist. Stephanie Pritchard has joined us as our EA & Office Manager, bringing nearly a decade of administrative experience supporting senior leaders across legal, not-for-profit, and corporate sectors. Sören is an expert in coarse-grained simulations of intrinsically disordered proteins and brings a wealth of expertise in computational modelling. We’re excited to continue to grow with such exceptional talent driving our mission forward to make disordered proteins druggable.
