PhD in Chemistry , Department of Organic Chemistry , faculty of life sciences, Hebrew University Jerusalem.
Research Topic: Organometallic catalysis

M.Sc. in Chemistry, Department of Organic Chemistry , faculty of life sciences, Hebrew University, Jerusalem.
Research topic: Organic Synthesis
Graduated with Distinction

B.Sc. in Chemistry , Hebrew University, Jerusalem

Medicinal Laboratory Technician in the medical corps.

2001- 2009 EPIX Pharmaceuticals Ltd., Ramat-Gan, Israel
2008- 2009
2005-2008 Project Leader – Director, Computational Drug Discovery
Team Leader - Associate Director, Computational Drug Discovery

Leading 6 PhD level scientists in project groups and coordinating the computational group activities with several multi-disciplinary teams (chemistry, ADME, biology) located in Boston to drive the drug discovery projects forward.

• Direct managerial responsibilities including: project planning, assigning tasks and goals, monitoring progress of drug discovery projects, coordination of subgroups and activities in–house and with external collaborators as well as CRO’s.
• Key contact person for several external consultants in the field of medicinal and computational chemistry including colleagues from GSK and Cystic Fibrosis foundation.

A key player in strategic planning of computational tools enhancements and methodologies for the Lead Optimization process (external and internal software projects). Hands on experience with scientific software.

Responsible for computational activity of six lead-optimization projects as part of the 1.2 billion dollar collaboration with GlaxoSmithKline and the American Cystic Fibrosis Foundation as well as EPIX internal pipeline [CCR2 (inflammation), P2Y2 (gastrointestinal disorders) and mGluR5 (Pain, Parkinson) resulted in a pre-clinical candidate].

2003-2005 Senior Scientist, Computational Drug Discovery
Providing in-silico guidance for lead-optimization of GPCR and Ion Channel targets. The GPCR project (5HT6-obesity, schizophrenia), resulted in a Phase1b candidate.
Hands on experience with multiple scientific software:
• Sequence alignment: web-based programs, Discovery Studio (Accelerys).
• Docking software: Glide, GOLD, LigandFit.
• Ligand based tools: ROCS, EON (OpenEye tools), FlexS (BioSolveIT)
• Structure visualization: Maestro (Schrodinger), 3D benchware (Tripos),
• Structure based tools: SiteMap, Macromodel.
• QM calculations: Gaussian and Gamess.

2001-2003 Scientific programmer, Computational Development
Developing in-house scientific algorithms and processes in C++ and a graphical user interface in VB. These applications were used by the Computational Drug Discovery teams in the discovery process of new drugs candidates.

Developing statistical models (Quantitative Structure Activity Relationships) for affinity prediction of various screening and lead optimization projects. The models included comprehensive gathering of data, modeling and prediction.