On January 30, 2017 at 11.00-12.00 hr.
Antimalarial Lead Discovery: exploiting phenotypic hits
A. Personal statement
Education
- Nov 1994 Ph D. in Sciences (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology). Biochemistry Department (Universidad Autónoma de Madrid)-Instituto de Investigaciones Biomédicas: Isolation and characterization of mutations that suppress the toxic effect of glucose on glicolytic mutants of S. cerevisiae.
- Jun 1989 B.S. in Chemistry (Biochemistry and Molecular Biology). Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
Professional Experience
- 1994-1995 PostDoctoral Fellow, Biomedial Research Institute (CSIC), Madrid. Spain
- 1995-1996 PostDoctoral Fellow, New Target Dept. GlaxoWellcome, Tres Cantos. Spain
- 1996-2002 Investigator. Molecular Microbiology Dept. Glaxo Wellcome, Tres Cantos. Spain
- 2002-2004 Investigator. Lead Generation Dept. GlaxoSmithKline. Tres Cantos. Spain
- 2004-2012 Manager Parasitology. Diseases of Developing World. GlaxoSmithKiline. Tres Cantos. Spain
- 2012-Present. Director Drug Discovery. Malaria DPU. Diseases of the Devoping World. GlaxoSmithKline
B Francisco-Javier Gamo, PhD
(Director, Malaria DPU, Diseases of the Developing World, GlaxoSmithKline), is an expert in parasitology and antimalarial drug discovery. Javier completed his PhD working in microbial biochemistry and molecular biology at the Faculty of Medicine-Biomedical Research Institute, Spanish Research Council. He joined GlaxoSmithKline (former Glaxo Wellcome) in 1995 and since then has leaded and carry out different project in the drug discovery area. In 2002 he started to work in the GSK antimalarial program developed in collaboration with the Medicine for Malaria Venture (MMV). Since then, he has leaded and collaborated actively in different target based programs (Lactate dehydrogenase, dihydroorotate dehydrogenase, thioredoxin reductase, macrolides, falcipains and malarial pyridones). In 1998 he started to lead a program based on phenotypic screening for antimalarial lead discovery that carry out the identification of all the antimalarial compounds present in the GSK screening collection after testing more than 2 million compounds. As Project Leader of the project in GSK, Javier was in charge of the deployment of this set of compounds. Following internal efforts, GSK is applying recent developed
in vitro and
in vivo filters to identify the most promising series in order to select preclinical candidates. Recently our Malaria DPU has identified some preclinical candidates as result of these approaches. Javier is also leading an internal effort to share TCAMS among the broader antimalarial community accordingly with the Open Innovation approach GSK initiated some years ago. During the last years Javier has been leading a miniportfolio of antimalarial projects in collaboration with MMV and managing a pipeline of drug discovery project across different neglected diseases in collaboration with Wellcome Trust. In addition Javier is actively participating in setting up of technological platforms (Target ID, combinations,...) on the Malaria field in collaboration with Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation