Matthew Todd, PhD

Biography

Matthew obtained a Ph.D. in Biochemistry at Michigan State University, then a Post-Doc at DuPont CR&D, where he elucidated some of the key steps of Chaperonin-catalyzed protein (un-)folding. As an Associate Professor at Johns Hopkins, he used calorimetry to demonstrate the utility of protein thermal stability as a tool to measure small molecule interactions with proteins of therapeutic interest. From Hopkins, he joined 3-Dimensional Pharmaceuticals, where he developed their proprietary ThermoFluor technology for HTS. Since 2003 he has been with Janssen Pharmaceuticals, as Director of Lead Discovery.

While at J&J, he acquired the Natural Products Discovery Institute (NPDI) screening collection and used it to prosecute targets from both pharma and consumer products divisions, discovering previously undescribed small molecules that could benefit human health. Hits from Natural Product Libraries simply follow a different development pathway than other, more commonly screened, small molecule libraries. A major (new) initiative at the NPDI is to offer end-to-end discovery services, including High Throughput Screening of the NPDI library. Matthew is well-versed in HTS using label-free technologies, having utilized ThermoFluor, RapidFire, Epic, and CellKey technologies previously. Label-free approaches are less susceptible to interferences from optically active compounds that one finds in Natural Product Libraries.