Chris leads our Chemistry team, overseeing High Throughput, Medicinal, Computational, and Analytical Chemistry. His teams work at the intersections of synthetic chemistry, biology, and computation to discover novel therapies. Prior to Octant, Chris was VP of Molecular Sciences at Maze Therapeutics, focusing on drug discovery for both rare and common diseases. He joined Maze from Merck Research Labs, where he had a range of roles at research labs on both the east and west coasts. Chris has had key contributions to the discovery of small molecule clinical candidates for a range of rare (Pompe) and common (diabetes, cardiorenal, hypertension, and neurological) diseases.

Formally trained as a synthetic chemist, Chris received his Ph.D. from U.C. Irvine with Scott Rychnovsky, where he developed novel synthetic methods and their applications to complex natural product synthesis. This was followed by a stint as an NIH postdoctoral fellow with David MacMillan at Caltech developing cascade reactions through organocatalysis. His work has resulted in more than 50 patents and publications. Outside of work, Chris enjoys spending time with family, playing music, and listening to music by the Dayton, Ohio legends Guided by Voices.  

Papers

“Discovery of Orally Bioavailable and Liver-Targeted Hypoxia-Inducible Factor Prolyl Hydroxylase (HIF-PHD) Inhibitors for the Treatment of Anemia”, ACS Med. Chem. Lett. 2018, 9, 1193-1198.

“A Gpr120-selective agonist improves insulin resistance and chronic inflammation in obese mice”, Nature Medicine, 20, 942-947 (2014).

“Selective N7 Alkylation of 7-Azaindazoles”, J. Org. Chem., 2020, 85, 11, 7558-7564.

“Total Synthesis of Diazonamide A”, Chem. Sci., 2011, 2, 308-311.