Dr. Jeffery W. Kelly The Scripps Research Institute, USA

Dr. Kelly received his PhD in organic chemistry from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, USA, in 1986, and performed post-doctoral research at The Rockefeller University, New York, USA, in the area of chemistry and biology. The Kelly group’s research in the field of chemical biology focuses on... read moreuncovering protein structure–function–folding relationships and on understanding the aetiology of protein misfolding and/or aggregation diseases. He uses this information to develop novel therapeutic strategies. He has received numerous awards and was elected as a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2016 and the National Academy of Inventors in 2017. Dr Kelly co-founded FoldRx Pharmaceuticals based on his discovery of tafamidis. Tafamidis is now approved for use in 42 countries for the treatment of familial amyloid polyneuropathy. This first-in-class drug is the first pharmacologic agent that delays neurodegeneration in a human amyloid disease. He also co-founded Proteostasis Therapeutics, a company using small molecules to alter the protein homeostasis network to ameliorate several aggregation-associated degenerative diseases and misfolding-associated loss-of-function pathologies.