Meet the Mentors

David Brierley, Ph.D., is the Senior Director and Head of UK Quantitative Biosciences at the London Discovery Centre. With over 20 years of experience in preclinical drug discovery, Brierly has worked at leading academic institutions and major biopharmaceutical companies that include GlaxoSmithKline and MSD. Brierly has broad experience building and leading large multi-disciplinary teams spanning target and hit identification through lead optimisation to candidate selection; with particular disease area expertise in Immunology, Oncology and Neuroscience.

Brierly received a degree from the University of Nottingham, followed by a PhD from King’s College London. He also completed post-doctoral studies at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in California and Cancer Research UK in London. He has developed an extensive network within the external scientific community; establishing numerous collaborations with academic institutions and biotech companies, as well as organizing high-profile international scientific symposia. His experience and leadership in drug discovery and quantitative pharmacology will be instrumental in advancing our portfolio of novel, differentiated medicines.

Davide Gianni, Ph.D. is the Senior Director, Functional Genomics in Discovery Sciences, BioPharmaceuticals R&D at AstraZeneca and is responsible for leading a department comprising of scientists whose aim is to deliver new therapeutic opportunities for Astrazeneca’s therapy areas of interest.

Gianni joined AZ from Boehringer-Ingelheim in 2015 where, acting as a Research Laboratory Head, he has led a team of scientists aimed at identifying and validating novel target opportunities for Oncology. Earlier in his career, he conducted his postdoctoral studies at The Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla (California) where he focused his research activities on deciphering the contribution of Reactive Oxygen Species (ROS) in mechanisms underlying human diseases including cancer, neurodegeneration and cardiovascular disease.

Gianni has authored more than 25 publications and has co-edited the first dedicated Special Issue on Functional Genomics for SLAS Discovery journal. He has played a key role in initiating the partnership with MRC and University of Cambridge for the creation of the Functional Genomics Screening Laboratory (FGSL). He is a member on the MRC advisory board for the UK Functional Genomics Initiative, a JMC member for the Joint AZ/CRUK Functional Genomics Centre and now a member of the JSC for the FGSL.

Finally, Gianni has been recognized multiple times in his career for his strong scientific contributions to advance biomedical research (2009 Young Scholar Award from the Alzheimer’s association San Diego, the 2013 Boehringer-Ingelheim Golden Award for the discovery of innovative drugs for cancer patients and the 2020 SLAS Discovery Excellence Award).

David Jennions, Ph.D., is an old-school systems' engineer, enjoying the challenges of meshing the diverse disciplines of science, engineering and people management. Ask him about deep theoretical physics, drug discovery, NGS or building teams and organizations! He currently works as the Senior Director, R&D Systems at GRAIL Bio and is serving his second year on the SLAS Board of Directors.

Enrique Hernandez Jimenez received his Ph.D. from the La Paz Hospital (Spain) and is currently the CEO of Loop Diagnostics S.L., an microbiological diagnostic startup dedicated to creating the first rapid test that identifies bacterial infections in the blood through immune activity. Jimenez integrates his expertise, entrepreneurial spirit and a commitment to creating impactful solutions for healthcare challenges.

Magdalena Otrocka, Ph.D., is currently the Lead Molecular Biologist at Ardigen, an AI-CRO that applies Artificial Intelligence to analyze biological data. Prior to joining Ardigen, she spent more than 20 years in assay development and high-throughput screening across diverse environments, including big pharma, biotech startups and academic core facilities in various European countries.

Otrocka holds an MSc in Biotechnology and a Ph.D. in Molecular Biology from the Institute of Biochemistry at the University of Wroctaw, Poland, where she also worked as a researcher and lecturer. In 2001, she received an industrial Marie-Curie fellowship and spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Aventis Pharma in Paris (now part of Sanofi), developing high-content screening assays for small-molecule screening. She then took on a Senior Scientist position at SienaBiotech, Italy, a startup focused on treatments for CNS disorders and brain cancer.

Beyond her professional work, she is actively involved in SLAS, helping to establish its presence in Europe and Poland. She has organized SLAS meet-up events in Kraków and Warsaw and served as a track chair for SLAS Europe 2024 in Barcelona.

James Pilling, Ph.D. has over 20-years’ experience working within early drug discovery within AstraZeneca, specializing in the application of novel technologies and approaches to Drug Discovery processes across various therapeutic areas. His recent role is with the Functional Genomics Phenotypic Screening group where he manages projects with BioPharm and Oncology research groups for target ID and validation using arrayed CRISPR screening. Pilling is passionate about developing and deploying impactful new technologies and approaches to R&D.

After almost a decade of building out automated laboratory workflows at a number of biotech startups (most recently Hexagon Bio), Rikke is currently working in Denmark at the Novo Nordisk Center for Biosustainability as an automation specialist. Her background in general biology and plant science fuels a deep passion for sustainability and commitment to improving scientific outcomes through automation. She believes that biology and biotechnology are key to solving many of humanity's most urgent problems, and is determined to be part of that solution.

Nicola J. Richmond, Ph.D. is Chief Scientist, AI at Recursion, a clinical stage TechBio company leading the space by decoding biology to radically improve lives. Richmonda leads the Data Science and AI department and leverages her deep expertise in AI-enabled augmentation and automation to advance the mission of industrialising drug discovery. Prior to joining Recursion, she led AI strategy at BenevolentAI and advanced the use of explainable LLMs in novel target discovery. She previously spent nearly two decades at GlaxoSmithKline where she built efficiencies into small molecule and antibody drug discovery by developing technology that exploits large-scale lab data.

Nicola completed a Ph.D. in algebra and algebraic geometry at the University of Leeds before transitioning to cheminformatics as a postdoctoral fellow, working with Peter Willett, at the University of Sheffield. Her research focused on developing novel, scalable approaches to 3D pharmacophore design and was incorporated into a successful commercial product. Richmond is a strong advocate for women in STEM and is passionate about encouraging more girls to consider STEM careers.

Jonathan Wingfield, Ph.D. has more than 30 years of experience working in pharma which following 11 years of academic research. He joined AstraZeneca in 2000 as part of a team responsible for delivering automation solutions and technology into the disease area teams post HTS. Wingfield was invited to establish a Lead Generation Automation team within Oncology, which evolved into a centralized biochemical screening team in 2006 that utilized leading-edge technology to deliver high-quality data to global projects. After the sciences function was established within AZ, he moved into a science role supporting biochemical SAR. He remains interested in landing technologies that can add value to core business, such as the acoustic mass spectrometry collaboration between Labcyte and AZ. Wingfield continues to generate and support external collaborations between Pharma and academia.