Moderated By:

Chris Wellaway – Associate Director, Medicinal Chemistry, Drug Discovery at Pharmaron

Our Speakers:

Marta Carrara – Associate Director of Target Validation at Amphista Therapeutics

Marta is currently an Associate Director of Target Validation at Amphista Therapeutics where she leads one of their advanced oncology Molecular Glue programs. She has been in the TPD drug discovery field for 8 years, where she led the Discovery Biology group at Dunad Therapeutics in the development of monovalent covalent degraders. Prior to that, she co-founded PhoreMost’s TPD functional genomics platform. She completed a Postdoctoral Position at the LMB and a PhD at Imperial College, both of which focused on cellular proteostasis networks. 

Marta Westwood – Director/Senior Principal Scientist, Biophysics at Pharmaron

Marta Westwood joined the Biology group at Pharmaron UK in August 2021, with the primary responsibility of building and expanding biophysics capabilities across the Pharmaron organisation. Marta brings 14 years of drug discovery experience gained while working at both Pharma and CRO environments. Prior to joining Pharmaron, Marta worked at Charles River Laboratories as a Research Leader, supporting clients in their endeavors to find and develop novel drug candidates, while providing scientific leadership in biophysics in early drug discovery for a variety of targets. 

Before that, Marta spent eight years at UCB Pharma as part of the Structural Biology group led by Alaistair Lawson, where she worked on various PPI targets for small molecule and antibody drug discovery programs within the immunology and neurology portfolio. Over an eight-year period, she has developed an extensive biophysics expertise in early drug discovery, including a fragment-based drug discovery approach, looking at molecular interactions, kinetics, assay development for a novel antibody-enabled drug discovery approach, and establishing MoA biophysical assays looking at target engagement. The opportunity to follow projects from the target identification, the hit validation, optimisation to candidate selection, provided Marta with a very good understanding of biophysical approaches used across various stages of the drug discovery projects. 

Amy Brown – Biologist, Drug Discovery Services at Pharmaron

Amy is the Biology Project Lead in the Integrated Drug Discovery team at Pharmaron and brings 20 years’ experience and leadership in cell biology, biochemistry, and drug discovery. Before joining Pharmaron in 2023, Amy was at Bicycle Therapeutics, where, for 12 years, she provided scientific leadership across the organization, including: platform technology development; internal Bicycle? toxin conjugate projects from hit ID to IND enabling activities; and collaborations in a variety of therapeutic areas. 

Before Bicycle Therapeutics, Amy was at Pfizer developing cell-based functional assays across a range of therapeutic areas. She completed an industrial placement at Organon Laboratories as part of her Biochemistry with Industry BSc. Hons, at The University of Leeds.