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Dr. Morales has over 13 years of industrial experience and joined Semafore Pharmaceuticals in March 2007 as Director of Chemistry. Prior to joining
Semafore, Dr. Morales was at Telik Inc. where he served as project leader for a kinase research program for the identification and optimization of anticancer
drug candidates. In addition, Dr. Morales worked on the development, optimization and formulation of water-soluble small-molecule
Glutathione S-Transferase P1-1 (GST P1-1) inhibitors resulting in the advancement of a compound into pre-clinical development for the treatment
of ovarian and lung cancer. Before joining Telik, Dr. Morales ran his own consultancy business establishing the grounds for medicinal chemistry
programs for biotech startups and developing a knowledge-based cheminformatics platform for a chemoinformatics startup. Prior to his
consulting career, he co-founded the drug discovery and chemoinformatics company Libraria Inc. (now Eidogen-Sertanty Inc.). Before joining Libraria,
Dr. Morales was at Guilford Pharmaceuticals Inc. (now Eisai Inc.) working on the discovery of CNS and cancer therapeutics. At Guilford, Dr. Morales played a key role in setting up the combinatorial chemistry group to
support Guilford’s medicinal chemistry research programs. Prior to joining Guilford, Dr. Morales was a PostDoctoral Fellow at DuPont-Merck Pharmaceuticals (now Bristol-Myers Squibb) working in the area of combinatorial chemistry under the direction of William F. DeGrado. Dr.
Morales received his Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Louisiana State University under the direction of Mark L. McLaughlin.
Dr. Morales is the Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Diversity. He is also on the editorial advisory board of several journals including Mini-Reviews in
Medicinal Chemistry, Journal of Combinatorial Chemistry, and Combinatorial Chemistry & High Throughput Screening. He has co-authored numerous
scientific manuscripts, and is an inventor on several patents. Dr. Morales has served as editor for special issues for scientific journals and co-edited a book
on combinatorial chemistry. He has also co-authored a book on cheminformatics and authored a book chapter on lead optimization and
another on GST P-1 inhibition. Dr. Morales has also served in a leadership capacity as scientific advisor and session chair for various conferences.
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Dr. Webster began his career as a research scientist focusing on the
molecular basis of disease. While a Post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Webster was an
early participant in the Human Genome Project, with research directed at Xlinked
muscular dystrophy. He is an author on numerous scientific
publications and the recipient of both graduate and post-doctoral research
fellowships. Dr. Webster is licensed before the U.S. Patent & Trademark
Office and has over 12 years experience as a patent attorney, creating and
managing intellectual property portfolios for the pharmaceutical sector. Dr.
Webster was Patent Counsel at Eli Lilly and Company until his retirement in
2006, and most recently the founder of a patent law firm, TDW Patents &
Consulting, LLC.
Dr. Webster received B.S. and M.S. degrees from the University of
California, Riverside and a Ph.D. degree in Biochemistry from the University
of Kentucky. He was a post-doctoral fellow with Dr. C. Thomas Caskey at the
Institute for Molecular Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Webster
received his J.D. degree from Indiana University.
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