The People of OyaGen
Dr. Thomas “T.C.” D.Y. Chung, Scientific Advisory Board
Dr. Chung brings to OyaGen more than 30 years of experience building and leading innovative and multidisciplinary R&D teams in drug discovery in both for profit and the not-for-profit domains. He is currently the Associate Director of the Office of Translation to Practice, where he manages strategic partnerships and Translational Product Development Funds, assists in research proposals, new company formation, contributing to technology disclosure reviews, and manages projects related to the creation of products for patient care applications. Previously, he was Director of Outreach, responsible for strategic and tactical operations for HTS and chemical genomics, with the Conrad Prebys Center for Chemical Genomics at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP Discovery) in La Jolla, California. He has held roles of increasing responsibility from bench R&D scientist to Senior Executive for several major pharmaceutical companies (DuPont Pharmaceuticals, BMS, Merck, and GSK) and start-ups (Pharmacopeia and Genoptix), to Chief Scientific Officer.
Over the course of his career, he has built and led world-class R&D teams and facilities that developed, acquired, and integrated novel technologies in imaging, signal generation and detection, liquid handling, miniaturization, IT, high-throughput screening, biochemical and cell-based assay development, laboratory automation and robotics, compound management, Lead optimization, ADME/Tox profiling and analytical chemistry (HPLC/MS). He has managed single and multi-investigator collaborations with over 130 investigators representing 42 academic/biotech institutions spanning 31 geographic locations and 4 countries, through the Prebys Center’s role as a comprehensive screening center in the NIH’s Molecular Libraries Program.
Dr. Chung received his B.S. in chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1978, completed a year of graduate chemistry studies at Stanford University followed by a year with Biosciences group at Exxon Research and Engineering in New Jersey. He received his Ph.D. in chemistry from the University of California at Berkeley in 1986 and entered the pharmaceuticals field by completing post-doctoral appointments in the Departments of Medicinal Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology at SmithKline & French Research Laboratories.
Dr. Chung has managed discovery programs in cardiovascular, CNS, infectious, inflammatory and cancer diseases, with expertise in biochemistry, molecular and cellular biology, over 55 papers, 7 book chapters, 54 NIH Probe reports, and 11 issued and pending patents.