Team
Dr Gabi Heller is a biophysicist who has developed new experimental and computational methods for targeting IDPs involved in cancer, dementia, and viral infection, including contributing to the discovery of ‘entropic expansion’ and ‘specific diffuse’ binding mechanisms. Gabi’s work has been recognised by several prestigious fellowships and grants. Gabi brings her experience as a Principal Investigator at University College London (UCL). She was previously a Schmidt Science Fellow at UCL, following her Rosalind Franklin Research Fellowship and Gates-Cambridge Scholarship at the University of Cambridge.
Dr Gogulan (Gogs) Karunanithy is an expert in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, specialising in automated high-throughput workflows and designing deep neural networks for data transformation. At Bind, Gogs is leading NMR technical development to meet milestones for experimental characterisation of interactions, managing relationships with NMR centres to ensure resource access, and establishing the laboratory.
Dr Thomas Löhr is an expert in computational methods for studying protein dynamics and interactions. Thomas will leverage his extensive experience in academia and industry to lead a computational team developing tools to characterise small-molecule binding to IDPs. Thomas is overseeing the integration of simulations and machine learning, as well as efforts to enhance user-friendliness. Additionally, Thomas is managing the company’s AI strategy and IT systems.
Dr Marcus Harrison is an experienced COO with over 15 years in executive roles across life science organisations, including university spinouts, non-profits, and industry ventures. Prior to joining Bind Marcus served as Director of Strategy Delivery and Partnerships at the Usher Institute at the University of Edinburgh, Chief Operating Officer at the Medicines Discovery Catapult (MDC), and before this in executive positions for several start-up and established life science organisations. During the COVID-19 pandemic Marcus established the operational functions at the Alderley Park Lighthouse Lab, helping to scale the UK's diagnostic capacity. Marcus’s broad expertise in building organisations positions him well to build Bind’s core operational functions encompassing partner engagement, project delivery, impact reporting, risk management and programme governance.
Melissa Strange is a commercially-minded senior finance leader with over 16 years worth of experience in life sciences companies. Melissa has been involved from early-stage research through clinical development and into commercial phases, and has worked across biotech, healthtech and medtech, where she has provided expertise in financial strategy, tax management and has supported a range of commercial and corporate transactions, including significant dilutive and non-dilutive funding. Prior to joining Bind Melissa served as Chief Financial Officer at Infinitopes, Brainomix and Closed Loop Medicine and was VP, Finance for Summit Therapeutics, a NASDAQ listed biotech. Melissa is also Chair of the Finance and Tax Advisory Committee at the BioIndustry Association. Melissa will be overseeing Bind’s financial operations and legal aspects.
Dr Jasmine (Jaz) Cornish is an expert in intrinsically disordered proteins, having worked with multiple disordered systems in both academia and industry. Leveraging her knowledge of biophysical methods optimised for the investigation of IDPs, she will lead the protein and drug discovery team in identifying small-molecule binders and improving and developing better techniques to identify and characterise IDP-small-molecule interactions.
Dr. Sharna-kay Daley has a background spanning pharmaceutical R&D, clinical research, and data-driven product development. She has delivered complex, cross-functional programs across drug discovery research, AI tool development, and scientific infrastructure. At Bind, Sharna is overseeing the end-to-end delivery of research programmes, ensuring alignment between scientific goals, technical execution, and operational efficiency.
Dr Acely Garza is a biochemist with a lifelong passion for understanding the chemical bases of protein function. She brings to Bind her expertise in protein and small molecule biophysical characterisation, as well as in protein structure, expression and purification of cytoplasmic, secreted and transmembrane proteins. Her broad experience and commitment to systematic experimental design will contribute to the development of robust and efficient high-throughput workflows for the identification and characterisation of IDP-small-molecule interactions.
Dr Candide Champion is an expert in developing new computational methods for drug discovery. His experience ranges from simulating large biomolecular systems, comparing simulated structural ensembles and dynamics to biophysical experimental data, to force field development of small organic molecules using quantum methods. He will contribute to the development of automated tools to characterise small-molecule binding to IDPs.
James Eaton is a specialist in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) spectroscopy. He has previously worked on NMR method development, data analysis and applications of NMR to intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs). At Bind, James is working on developing robust and efficient workflows for collecting and analysing NMR data on IDPs. These NMR methods provide high throughput, atom-specific characterisation of small molecule binding to IDPs, complementing the other biophysical and computational techniques at Bind.
Ali Raza is a third-year undergraduate student at University College London studying Biochemistry. He is interested in developing and applying computational techniques alongside biochemical and biophysical experimentation to address biological problems. At Bind, he is evaluating how effectively existing computational approaches can predict interactions between intrinsically disordered proteins (IDPs) and small molecules.
Sam Patterson is a second-year undergraduate at Duke University, studying Mathematics and Electrical & Computer Engineering. He is interested in the application of mathematical and computational methods to uncover trends in data, inform decisions, and solve problems. At Bind, he is working on analyzing protein disorder, and exploring physiochemical trait trends and binding selectivity patterns from a large dataset of interactions between proteins and small molecule fragments.