VantAI Expands Scientific Advisory Board with Leaders in Protein Design and Generative AI

- Newly appointed members include Dr. Ian Churcher and Dr. Bradley Pentelute

VantAI, a company focused on generative AI-enabled drug discovery, today announced the appointments of Dr. Ian Churcher and Dr. Bradley Pentelute to its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). Drs. Pentelute and Churcher join an existing SAB comprising experts in protein design, whole-proteome structural interactomics, and generative AI for small molecule drug design.

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Top left to right: Drs. Bruno Correia, Bradley L. Pentelute and Fan Liu. Bottom left to right: Drs. Ian Churcher and Philippe Schwaller. Photo credit: VantAI

“We are pleased to welcome Ian and Bradley, who are renowned experts in protein design and drug discovery to VantAI’s Scientific Advisory Board,” said Dr. Zachary Carpenter, CEO & Founder, VantAI. “This depth of scientific expertise will be critical in advancing the scope of our data generation efforts such that we can continue to power industry leading foundation models focused on generating meaningful therapeutics that modify protein interactions.”

“I am honored to join VantAI, leveraging my extensive experience in targeted protein degradation and induced-proximity drug discovery,” said Churcher. “Having led significant advancements in these fields, including pioneering work with PROTACs, I look forward to contributing to VantAI's innovative approach to advancing glue-based drug discovery.”

“VantAI’s generative AI platform offers unprecedented insights into cellular interactions, which unlocks new therapeutic possibilities,” said Pentelute. “By developing and applying generative AI to characterize the complexity of protein interactions within the cell, we can discover previously unrecognized protein interactions for drug discovery. I look forward to working with this exceptional team to advance a computational pipeline that combines physics-based modeling and machine learning to revolutionize drug discovery and development.”

The new members of VantAI’s SAB:

Ian Churcher is a pioneer in targeted protein degradation (TPD) and induced-proximity drug discovery. He pioneered the PROTAC field in collaboration with Prof. Craig Crews and Alessio Ciulli, leading GSK's PROTAC group from 2012 to 2017, contributing to key publications and advancing PROTACs toward clinical application. He was also Chief Scientific Officer of Amphista Therapeutics, where he facilitated the growth of their TPD platform. With extensive experience in medicinal chemistry and chemical biology at Merck and GSK, he also led R&D at BenevolentAI, applying AI methods to innovative target identification and chemical optimization.

Bradley L. Pentelute is a Professor of Chemistry at MIT. He is also an Associate Member, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, an Extramural Member of the MIT Koch Cancer Institute, and Member, Center for Environmental Health Sciences MIT. He received his undergraduate degree in Psychology and Chemistry from the University of Southern California, and his M.S. and Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Chicago with Prof. Steve Kent. He was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Dr. R. John Collier at Harvard Medical School, Microbiology.

The new advisors join existing SAB members Dr. Fan Liu, Dr. Bruno Correia, and Dr. Philippe Schwaller to further enhance VantAI's capabilities in generative AI drug discovery.

About VantAI

VantAI is at the forefront of applying generative AI technologies to drug discovery. With a cross-disciplinary team of scientists and engineers, VantAI is well suited to power proximity modulation as a powerful new modality class, where the nuance of protein-protein interactions, such as those in protein degradation, has outsized influence on drug success and unlock a much wider range of diverse targets. For more information, visit www.vant.ai.

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