Prof. Robert Copeland Epizyme, USA

Robert A. Copeland, Ph.D. is Executive Vice President and Chief Scientific Officer at Epizyme, Inc. He joined Epizyme in September 2008, from GlaxoSmithKline, where he was Vice President of Cancer Biology, Oncology Center of Excellence in Drug Discovery. Dr. Copeland has also served as Adjunct Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics... read moreand a Fellow of the Eldridge Reeves Johnson Foundation at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine, on the Scientific Advisory Board of Sigma-Aldrich, on the American Chemical Society Committee for Professional Training and on the Governance Council of the American Society for Biochemistry & Molecular Biology. He is currently on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, Current Drug Discovery Technologies and Molecular Cancer Therapeutics and is a member of the Faculty of 1000. Before joining GSK he held scientific staff positions at Merck Research Laboratories, DuPont-Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb and a faculty position at the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine. Dr. Copeland received his B.S. in chemistry from Seton Hall University, his doctorate in chemistry from Princeton University and did postdoctoral studies as the Chaim Weizmann Fellow at the California Institute of Technology. His research interest is in elucidating the determinants of drug recognition by their biological targets, and the use of this information in the discovery and design of new medicines. A common theme throughout his research has been the role of protein dynamics in drug-target interactions. In 2005-2006 Dr. Copeland formulated the concept of drug-target residence time, a novel, alternative approach to drug optimization that has been widely adopted throughout the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries. He has contributed to drug discovery and development efforts across a wide range of therapeutic areas leading to numerous drug candidates entering human clinical trials. These include the Phase III cancer drugs Dabrafenib, Foretinib and Trametinib and the marketed novel antibiotic Altabax (Retapamulin). Dr. Copeland has contributed more than 175 publications to the scientific literature, holds 8 issued U. S. patents and has authored 4 books in the areas of protein science and enzymology. His most recent book, Evaluation of Enzyme Inhibitors in Drug Discovery: A Guide for Medicinal Chemists and Pharmacologists (Wiley, Hoboken, NJ), published in March 2005.