ABOUT THE FOUNDERS |
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David D. Thomas, Ph.D.
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Founder and PresidentDavid D. Thomas holds the William F. Dietrich Chair, as Professor of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, and Biophysics at the University of Minnesota. He is a world leader in the development and application of site-directed spectroscopic probe methods for understanding the structure, function, and dynamics of proteins. This is a powerful approach, not only for understanding basic mechanisms that are crucial to protein physiology, but also for understanding how to control protein function and malfunction.
"During the past decade, I have begun applying this biosensor technology to therapeutic development, specifically, using high-throughput screening (HTS) of small molecules for drug discovery. This process was greatly accelerated by a collaboration between my laboratory and Fluorescence Innovations, Inc. (Greg Gillispie, President), culminating in new technology that is revolutionizing the world of time-resolved fluorescence, increasing throughput in fluorescence lifetime (FLT) measurements by a factor of one hundred thousand. Fluorescence Innovations, Inc. has adapted this technology to produce the first truly high-throughput FLT plate reader, thus bringing the advantages of FLT detection (greatly improved resolution and precision) to HTS. In parallel, my lab has developed technology for engineering fluorescent protein biosensors in living cells. When combined with the new FLT plate reader, we have achieved a breakthrough in the quality, speed, and precision of small-molecule screening in drug discovery. In 2014, these results inspired us to establish Photonic Pharma LLC, a company that exploits a unique combination of biosensor engineering and fluorescence instrumentation (patent pending, based on work done by the Thomas lab), for a breakthrough in the early phase of drug discovery." |
Jennifer Jewell Thomas, MBA
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Co-Founder and Vice President of Operations & Business DevelopmentJennifer Jewell Thomas brings to Photonic Pharma over three decades of corporate and independent experience in strategic marketing management and new product development, including consumer goods, financial services, and biomedical products and services (CNS, National Marrow Donor Program - Be The Match, and Airborne).
"My goal is to provide the marketing and administrative framework needed to leverage the innovative scientific discoveries of the scientific founders and their collaborators, to realize the full commercial potential of this game-changing pharmaceutical development platform." |