Shane W. Krska - Leveraging Advances in Catalysis and High Throughput Experimentation to Impact...

Leveraging Advances in Catalysis and High Throughput Experimentation to Impact Drug Discovery

Dr. Shane W. Krska serves as Distinguished Scientist in Discovery Chemistry at Merck Research Laboratories in Rahway, NJ. In this capacity, Dr. Krska oversees creation and deployment of new automation and high-throughput experimentation (HTE) chemistry workflows across global Discovery Chemistry as well as academic collaborations. He received his B.S. in chemistry from the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and his PhD in inorganic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. After conducting postdoctoral research at the University of California, Berkeley, he began his career at Merck Research Laboratories in 1999. His research at Merck has centered around applications of catalysis and HTE to pharmaceutical synthesis, spanning from drug discovery through process definition to factory scale production. He has authored more than 90 publications and 10 patents. Professional honors he has received include being named an ACS Young Industrial Investigator (2008), as well as a co-recipient of the R&D Council of N.J. Thomas Alva Edison Patent Awards (2009 and 2022), EPA Presidential Green Chemistry awards (2005 and 2006) and the Catalysis Society of Metropolitan NY Excellence in Catalysis Award (2012). Through his extensive engagement with the broader scientific community, he enjoys sharing his passion for scientific excellence, innovation and drug discovery with students and is an ardent advocate and mentor for scientists from under-represented backgrounds.

Abstract: Leveraging Advances in Catalysis and High Throughput Experimentation to Impact Drug Discovery

Breakthroughs in the understanding of human biology and the advent of new enabling drug modalities such as synthetic cyclic peptides have led to unprecedented opportunities for drug discovery. At the same time, increasing competition and cost pressures have spurred efforts both to increase the success rate and decrease the cost and time required for discovering new medicines. Improving the efficiency and speed of the medicinal chemistry design cycle requires the invention and application of new technologies and fresh ways of thinking. The past several decades have seen tremendous advances in the development of catalytic reactions that allow the rapid assembly of diverse, drug-like molecules through cross-coupling of functionalized cores with vast building block sets. Recently, these methods have expanded to include those that utilize C-H bonds as the functional handles and points of diversification. In addition, the increasing power of chemical high throughput experimentation has greatly expanded the scope of these synthetic methods through allowing the rapid exploration and customization of reaction conditions to increase synthesis success rates, and more recently to enable high throughput compound library fabrication. This presentation will utilize several case studies to illustrate the diverse ways that modern catalysis, enabled by HTE, can impact drug discovery.

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