Staff Archives - Sanford Burnham Prebys

Faculty Type: Staff

Dr. Piña-Crespo earned a PhD in Pharmacology from University College London (UCL), England under the supervision of Profs. Alasdair Gibb & David Colquhoun FRS. He completed postdoctoral training as a Pew Fellow/Research Associate with Prof. Steve Heinemann in the Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory at The Salk Institute, La Jolla, California. Dr. Piña-Crespo has held faculty positions as Instructor and Assistant Professor at Universidad Centroccidental, Venezuela and as Lecturer in the Biology Department at the University of San Diego, California.

Education and Training

  • Postdoctoral training (Pew Fellow/Research Associate) The Salk Institute, California
  • PhD in Pharmacology University College London (University of London), England
  • Veterinarian (D.V.M.) Universidad Centroccidental Lisandro Alvarado, Venezuela

Honors and Recognition

Pew Fellow in the Biomedical Sciences

Neuroscience Discovery Research

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Targeted protein S-nitrosylation of ACE2 inhibits SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Oh CK, Nakamura T, Beutler N, Zhang X, Piña-Crespo J, Talantova M, Ghatak S, Trudler D, Carnevale LN, McKercher SR, Bakowski MA, Diedrich JK, Roberts AJ, Woods AK, Chi V, Gupta AK, Rosenfeld MA, Kearns FL, Casalino L, Shaabani N, Liu H, Wilson IA, Amaro RE, Burton DR, Yates JR 3rd, Becker C, Rogers TF, Chatterjee AK, Lipton SA

Nat Chem Biol 2023 Mar ;19(3):275-283
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Prior to joining Sanford Burnham Prebys Eduard Sergienko was at Triad Therapeutics Inc., a company pioneering NMR- and enzymology-guided fragment-based drug discovery approaches. Starting in 2001, Eduard served as Enzymology group leader and member of several drug discovery project teams. The work of his group was instrumental in identification, optimization and characterization of a preclinical candidate acquired by Novartis Pharma AG (Switzerland) for advancing into clinical trials.

Eduard has over 20 years of experience in the field of biochemistry, with an emphasis on assay design and mechanistic enzymology. He graduated and received his PhD in Biochemistry from the Lomonosov Moscow University (Russia), where his doctoral thesis focused on the role of posttranslational modifications in the regulation of glycolytic enzymes. He furthered his expertise through training as a post-doctoral fellow at Henry Poincare University, France, and Rutgers University, New Jersey focusing on mechanistic enzymology, enzyme kinetics and assay design and development.

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Dr. Susanne Heynen-Genel has over 20 years of experience in image-based screening systems, including automated microscopy instrumentation, image analysis, algorithm development, and HCS assay design. She has been directing development and execution of image-based high-content assays for high-throughput screening (primary screens of large chemical and RNAi libraries) and small scale screening (secondary assays, focused libraries assays for validation of basic research findings) for ten years at the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics. 

Prior to joining Sanford Burnham Prebys, Susanne was a staff systems scientist at Beckman Coulter, where her responsibilities included system design and integration of high-content screening systems and applications. Previous to that she was an applications scientist for high-throughput microscopy systems at Q3DM until its acquisition by Beckman Coulter. She spent a year as postdoctoral researcher at the University of California in San Diego where she also received her PhD in Bioengineering in 2002. Her graduate student research focused on optimizing fluorometric performance of high-throughput microscopy systems to yield more accurate quantification. This work was incorporated in an image-based HCS platform commercialized first by Q3DM Inc. and then by Beckman Coulter. The accompanying image and single cell data analysis and classification work, initially aimed at detection of cancer cells for cytodiagnostics and presented at conferences, was on the forefront of high-throughput imaging analysis at the time and similar analyses algorithms have more recently been incorporated in commercial HCS image analysis software packages.

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Andrey A. Bobkov, Director, Protein Production and Analysis, leads the Prebys Center effort on recombinant protein production and biophysical characterization. He has received an MS in Biochemistry from Moscow State University (Russia) and a PhD in Biochemistry from the Bach Institute of Biochemistry of Russian Academy of Sciences. Andrey did his postdoctoral training at  UCLA Chemistry and Biochemistry Department. Andrey has more than 20 years of experience and over 40 publications in the field of Biophysical Analysis. He teaches the Protein Analysis and Biophysics portion of the Structural Biology in Cell Signaling and Drug Discovery Course to Sanford Burnham Prebys graduate students.

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Dr. Anne Bang is an experienced cell biologist and stem cell expert who leads efforts at the Prebys Center to develop patient cell specific and human induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC)-based disease models for drug screening and target identification. Dr. Bang has over 20 years of experience in the fields of developmental and stem cell biology. She obtained a BS degree from Stanford University, a PhD in Biological Sciences from the University of California, San Diego, and did postdoctoral training in the Neurobiology Laboratory at the Salk Institute for Biological Sciences where her studies focused on nervous system development. 

Anne’s experience in stem cell biology began in 2005 when she joined ViaCyte, Inc. where she served as Director of Stem Cell Research and managed an interdisciplinary group working to develop human embryonic stem cells as a replenishable source of pancreatic cells for the treatment of diabetes. Her efforts focused on optimization of the differentiation process, and then on advancing the cell therapy product into development, scaled manufacturing, product characterization, and safety assessment. Anne is a co-inventor on multiple ViaCyte patents, and her team’s contributions played a key role in securing a $20 MM California Institute of Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) Award. 

In June of 2010, Sanford Burnham Prebys recruited Anne as Director of Cell Biology to lead efforts in stem cell-based disease modeling at the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics. Her role includes leading internal research projects, as well as external collaborations with academic and industry partners.  Anne’s research program is primarily focused on neurological and neuromuscular disease, with the aim of designing human cell-based models and assays that recapitulate disease phenotypes, yet have the throughput and reproducibility required for drug discovery. Towards this goal her group has worked to develop a suite of foundational high throughput assays to monitor neuronal morphology, mitochondrial function, and electrophysiology, using high content screening, and multi-electrode array formats. They have conducted high-throughput drug screens on muscular dystrophy patient cells, hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, and hiPSC-derived neurons, including from Alzheimer’s patient specific hiPSC. Anne is a principal investigator for the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) National Cooperative Reprogrammed Cell Research Groups consortium and has also received research support from rare disease foundations and pharma sponsored collaborations. She also serves on advisory boards for multiple biotechnology companies.

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For the past 20 years, Dr. Ian Pass has worked in basic research and drug discovery within several major pharmaceutical companies. Throughout this practical experience and formal education, he has acquired detailed knowledge and practical expertise in high-throughput screening, biochemical and cell-based assay development, liquid handling, assay miniaturization, laboratory automation and robotics, compound management. He also routinely leads discovery programs within the Prebys Center, leveraging his expertise in biochemistry, to drive molecules through advanced drug discovery phases.

Ian received his PhD in Biochemistry at the University of Dundee, UK.  Ian completed his postdoc at Sanford Burnham Preys in cancer research, and later joined the Prebys Center as a Chemical Biology Team Lead. He also directs the HTS and Compound Management group at the center.

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Yoav Altman received his B.A. degree in Integrative Biology from the University of California at Berkeley. He started working with flow cytometry in 2001 at La Jolla Institute for Allergy and Immunology and joined Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute in 2002 as Manager of the Flow Cytometry Shared Resource and was promoted to Director in 2009. Yoav has over 18 years of experience sorting and analyzing a variety of cell lines and primary cells, including IPSCs, hESCs, immune cells, disaggregated tumors and solid tissues, such as cardiomyocytes, hepatocytes, intestinal epithelium, brain tissue, and skeletal muscle. His expertise includes a variety of single-cell assays including side population, cell cycle, apoptosis determination, immunophenotyping, calcium flux, mitochondrial membrane potential, ROS, fluorescent proteins, and FRET. Yoav is available to assist with reagent selection, experiment design, data analysis, protocol development, grant preparation, instrument training and operation and writing methods sections for publications. Yoav’s current interests include developing new imaging flow cytometry methods as well as single-particle analysis of submicron biological particles.

Dr. Zeng has over 20 years of drug discovery and development experience, including 8 years with biotech companies. Before joining industry, Dr. Zeng was a staff scientist at National Institute of Health where he studied the structure and function of G-protein coupled receptors (GPCR). His work included the identification of key motifs, which activate muscarinic receptors, as well as the first discovery and characterization of muscarinic receptor dimerization.

In 1999, he took a team leader position at Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc. in San Diego, California, where he worked on developing novel GPCR screening assay platforms and drug discovery projects. In 2004, he transitioned to principal scientist at Novasite Pharmaceuticals Inc. in San Diego, where he continued on different GPCR drug discovery projects.

Dr. Zeng joined St. Jude Children Research Hospital at Memphis, Tennessee in 2007 where he helped establish a world-class automation high throughput screening system and managed a screening and drug discovery team. The team pursued projects in all classes of targets. He went on to join Sanford Burnham Prebys in 2009, where he is Associate Director of High Throughput Screening and Compound Management.

Dr. Zeng received his PhD from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the Philips University of Marburg, Germany.

Career Highlights

2007-2009: Principal Scientist, Chemical Biology Department, St. Jude Children Research Hospital, Memphis, Tennessee
2004-2007: Principal Scientist, Novasite Pharmaceuticals Inc, San Diego, California
1999-2004: Team Leader, Arena Pharmaceuticals Inc, San Diego, California
1997-1999: Staff Scientist, NIDDK, NIH, Bethesda, Maryland

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Dr. Thomas “TC” Chung brings over 28 years of preclinical drug discovery and development expertise in and experience with both not-for- profit and for-profit sectors. He focuses on sustaining and developing strategic alliances and partnerships to enable translational programs with not-for- profit and for-profit organizations.

Just prior to rejoining Sanford Burnham Prebys in October of 2017, Dr. Chung spent two years as the Associate Director of the Office of Translation to Practice at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN where he managed open innovation alliances with pharmaceutical companies, and milestone-driven translational funding programs for all three Mayo sites (MN, FL, AZ) to advance small molecule drug targets , biologics, medical devices and e-health research into transactable assets. He also partnered with Mayo Clinic Ventures for final licensing or commercialization of assets. Dr. Chung served on two Mayo NewCo ventures as an internal subject matter expert, performing due diligence on potential assets. He also managed clinical supplies fulfillment for a clinical trial.

From September 2007 to June 2014, Dr. Chung was responsible for strategic and tactical operations, as well as the bicoastal (CA & FL) infrastructure build out and final purchase of a world-class robotics screening facility for the Prebys Center. His work was critical for securing the center’s role as one of four comprehensive centers of the NIH Molecular Libraries Probe Production Centers Network (MLPCN), which garnered a six-year U54 grant award for chemical genomics of $98MM. During its time in the MLPCN, the center collaborated with 131 PIs from 42 institutions (academic, non-profit & biotech) in 31 locations spanning 4 countries to deliver 63 probes and author 54 probe reports resulting from 145 high- throughput screening (HTS) campaigns, which emerged from 125 targets and 385 total bioassays. TC also developed, negotiated funding and managed governance of three pilot and one major drug discovery alliances as MLPCN funding sunsetted.

Prior to Sanford Burnham Prebys, Dr. Chung had over 20 years in pre-clinical drug discovery in roles of increasing responsibility from a bench R&D scientist to Senior Executive for several major pharmaceutical companies (DuPont Pharmaceuticals, BMS, Merck, and GSK) and start-up biotechs (Pharmacopeia and Genoptix), to exiting as a Chief Scientific Officer. He has built and led world-class R&D teams and facilities that developed, acquired and integrated novel technologies in imaging, signal generation and detection, liquid handling, miniaturization, IT, high-throughput screening, biochemical and cell-based assay development, laboratory automation and robotics, compound management, Lead optimization, ADME/Tox profiling and analytical chemistry (HPLC/MS). Dr. Chung has managed discovery programs in cardiovascular, CNS, infectious (anti-virals, antibacterials & antifungals), inflammatory and cancer diseases, with expertise in biochemistry, enzymology, molecular and cellular biology, all target classes, signal generation and detection technologies, and expertise with instrument alpha & beta testing. He has over 50 peer-reviewed publications, in addition to seven book chapters, 54 MLP Probe reports, 26 invited lectures, 36 posters, and four issued and nine pending patents. He has been awarded over $2M of competitive funding from government entities and foundations for drug discovery projects.

Dr. Chung’s research interests, and academic and pharmaceutical industry training reflect his multidisciplinary and multifunctional expertise to bridge medicine, inorganic, organic and medicinal chemistry with engineering, scientific instrumentation development, robotics and best practice operational principles in service of drug discovery and development. He received his BS in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, did graduate work in bioinorganic chemistry at Stanford, and received his PhD in Chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley.

Career Highlights

  • Project Manager (2009-2014) and co-author of SBP’s NIH-funded Molecular libraries comprehensive screening center.
  • Instrumental in successful execution and management of “first of a kind” collaborative translational agreements with the Mayo clinic in 2012, which continues today.
  • Contributed to activities resulting in $10MM naming gift to support and establish the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics in 2009.
  • Collaborated with Dr. Jackson in establishing a regional drug discovery effort for Alzheimer’s disease in collaboration with Alzheimer’s San Diego, Mayor’s office San Diego and SD County Supervisor.
  • Built and led a world class high-throughput screening & lead profiling/optimization cross-functional unit of 45 scientists with novel capabilities, led restructuring of this functional unit for higher productivity at DuPont Pharmaceuticals.
  • Published seminal work in assay miniaturization and published the most cited reference on the assay quality metric, the “Z-factor”.
  • 2015 recipient of Alzheimer’s San Diego “Hope & Courage Award”; serves on the Scientific Advisory Board of Stemonix, Inc. (Minneapolis, MN); served as the 2001 President of the Society for Biomolecular Screening (now SLAS).

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