Dr. Oliver Peter

Building the digital platform to deliver DARPin protein therapeutics that transform the lives of people with serious diseases.

Analyzing an existing Research Data Management System (LIMS, ELN, Database) and leading commercial solutions against present process requirements and future expectations of AI-supported design; developing a research digitalization strategy to enable the development of innovative biologic therapeutics to adress medical needs.

Embedded temporarily in Torsten Schwede’s Group, I explored business cases and funding options to implement a Closed-Loop Design-Make-Test Platform automating the rapid, iterative multi-parametric optimization of peptides, as a public-private partnership project. While this ambitious project failed to get enough traction, it raised interest in the topic of automating DMTA cycles and triggered a smaller project on AI- driven iterative peptide evolution in an inter-academic collaboration.

I lead the Group that delivered 2/3 of the molecular starting points for Actelion and Idorsia’s medicinal chemistry programs through cellular and biochemical high-throughput screening and hit characterization. At an annual OPEX budget of approx. CHF 5 mio, my group enabled efficient and reliable drug discovery across the Chemistry, Biology, and Pharmacology & Preclinical Development Departments, through comprehensive compound management and quality control services to approx. 350 internal customers.

I lead and developed a group of highly automated, service-oriented teams providing chemical and biological sample management and logistics, cellular and biological high-throughput screening, LC-MS QC and analytics, and biobanking services services to 350 stakeholders across Actelion’s R&D departments. I managed the Biobank (Research Biosample Repository) including a GCLP QMS and the SPIRIT software platform designed and developed in-house to enable Translational Science.

I characterized molecular targets (mostly GPCRs and ligand gated ion channels) in different therapeutic areas (allergy, inflammation, oncology) with molecular and cellular biology methods. I developed cellular assays (including HTS) on various platforms (including FLIPR, GTPgs, cAMP, radioligand displacement, high content analysis). I managed several early drug discovery projects.

Re-organization of a FLIPR high throughput lab, streamlining processes and introduction of quality controls and screening statistics. Building a complete suite of informatics tools for HTS data analysis from scratch. Compound library management including reformatting and storage, and planning of improved storage system.