Joanna is project leader for the Excipients project, which currently involves 11 members sharing data on the toxicity of vehicles used in single and repeat dose studies. She has experience of in vivo and in vitro genotoxicity data entry and has peer reviewed genetic toxicity, hERG and skin sensitization records.

Anne-Laure, our newest database team member, is currently working on entering NIHS genotoxicity data and has a lot of past experience in environmental toxicity, particularly aquatic toxicology.

Andrew is leader of the Vitic 2010.1 data project and is responsible for all aspects of the data entered into the Vitic database. The key area of his work is skin sensitization and he has also worked on entering repeat-dose toxicity, genotoxicity and hepatotoxicity data records. Andrew carries out carcinogenicity and Excipients data peer review.

David is project leader for the Intermediates group, a data sharing initiative composed of 7 members sharing in vitro genotoxicity data. He also works on carcinogenicity and in vitro and in vivo genotoxicity data from a variety of sources. David also carries out peer review of skin sensitization and excipients data.

Emma is currently project leader of Vitic Nexus and is responsible for all aspects of the re-write. She has experience of data entry for genetic toxicity, carcinogenicity and repeat dose toxicity. She also carries out peer review of several endpoints including single and repeat dose data, reproductive toxicity, carcinogenicity and genotoxicity.

Senior Scientist

Specialist Research Area: Meteor - Metabolism Prediction

Ash has written a number of biotransformations for Meteor versions 9-13. Much of this work involved varied and diverse chemistry, however recent attention has focused on implementing biotransformations that involve a specific bioactivation pathway.

Ash has made significant contributions to the development of rules pertaining to the metabolic pathways of heteroaromatic ring systems. Heteroaromatic structures are often used as bioisosteres in drug candidates and are therefore of great metabolic interest.

Other specialist areas of drug metabolism that Ash has contributed to include generating species specific reasoning rules and incorporating detailed enzyme information for existing biotransformations within the Meteor dictionary.

Key areas of work: DfW alert development - new starter
Other interests: Asymmetric synthesis, organolithium chemistry, chiral ligand design and synthesis
Expert knowledge: Genotoxicity, clastogenicity, SAR development

I joined Lhasa during the summer of 2007 to work on our Derek for Windows program. Initially did a small amount of work on a range of endpoints including, cardiotoxicity, neurotoxicity, skin sensitization and ocular toxicity. I then settled into writing alerts for the genotoxicity endpoints and it is in these endpoints which I have the greatest expertise.

I have written and updated numerous alerts for mutagenicity and more recently have been focusing on updating and increasing the number of alerts for chromosome damage within Derek for Windows.

Knowledgebase scientist

I work on developing structure-activity alerts for Derek for Windows. My current area of research is in the diverse mechanisms of damage for the hepatotoxicity endpoint and I have developed alerts using data both from the published literature and donated data sets. One of my recent projects involved the identification of potential new chemical classes for hepatotoxicity, using Leadscope clustering software to analyse a FDA data set of compounds with human adverse drug reactions in the liver.

Senior Scientist

Laura has worked on the Derek for Windows program since starting work at Lhasa in 2004. Since then she has worked on a number of endpoints, initially concentrating on the research and identification of structure-activity relationships for HERG channel inhibition and carcinogenicity. Her more recent work has focused on cardiotoxicity and teratogenicity, in addition to peer reviewing alerts for skin sensitisation and carcinogenicity.

Principal Scientist

Education:
- Bachelor of Science (BSc) General Chemistry.
- Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Organic Chemistry.

Professional Affiliations:
- Chartered Chemist (CChem) and Member of the Royal Society of Chemistry (MRSC).
- Member of the International Society for the Study of Xenobiotics (ISSX).

Profile:
- Primary responsibility for development and quality of the Meteor knowledge base.
- Also involved with the Zeneth (chemical degradation) and Meteor Nexus.
- Previously worked on the Derek for Windows knowledge base (genotoxicity and skin sensitisation)
- Began career at Lhasa working on knowledge bases for the Lhasa program, a system for synthesis planning via retrosynthetic analysis.
- Previous laboratory experience in synthetic organic and medicinal chemistry.
- Wide ranging interests in many aspects of chemistry and molecular science: metabolism, toxicology, pharmacology, biochemistry, medicinal chemistry and drug design, chemoinformatics, physical and mechanistic organic chemistry and chemical synthesis.
- More than thirty peer reviewed publications and poster presentations.
- For Lhasa Limited, more than fifty member site visit, ICGM and invited oral presentations internationally.

The general metabolism topics that I cover include:

- Biotransformation reaction mechanisms
- Reactive intermediates related to toxicological endpoints
- Structure Metabolism Relationships
- Plharmacokinetic aspects of drug metabolism
- Enzymes related to drug metabolism (P450, GST, UGT, hydrolases etc.)

My expertise lies in organic chemistry in general and in knowledge base building for reaction-based systems. Currently, my main activity is building the knowledge base for Zeneth, Lhasa Limited's system for degradation prediction. I am also the project leader on Zeneth.

Senior Scientist
Currently works primarily (as peer reviewer or researcher) on teratogenicity, skin sensitisation and aquatic toxicology (fish and invertebrates). In a Defra-LINK funded project he is currently contributing to an integrated testing strategy for skin sensitisation and aquatic toxicology and working on an extension of Derek for Windows to cover semi-quantitative prediction of the latter.

His experience extends to a wide variety of other endpoints including respiratory sensitisation, mutagenicity and carcinogenicity. His past experience has included skin absorption prediction and regulatory toxicology. He has a particular interest in the integration of mechanistic toxicology, pharmacokinetics and physical organic chemistry to practical structure-activity relationships.

Principal scientist
I work on developing structure-activity alerts for Derek for Windows and act as senior user on a number of software projects developing knowledge tools. My current area of research is the Hepatotoxicity endpoint.

Previously I have worked on and managed projects, for a number of endpoints including, Carcinogenesis, Skin sensitisation, HERG channel inhibition, Ocular toxicity, and Teratogenicity. I have also worked on environmental biodegradation. I am involved with testing of software and advise on software design from the user perspective.

1) Key areas of my work: DfW Alert development, rapid prototype alert development, special project project leader
2) Other interests: Regulatory toxicology, QSAR validation, QSAR development, applicability domains
3) Expert knowledge: hepatotoxicity, nephrotoxicity (I wouldn't say expert but I have worked on this endpoint), chromosome damage (likewise nephrotoxicity) and SAR development.

Responsibilities:
1) FDA/CRADA scientific project leader.
2) Teratogenicity knowledge: Guidelines, toxicity data evaluation strategy and decision making, literature findings.
3) Teratogenicity webpage implementation/updater for internal use.

Main endpoint worked on: Teratogenicity (knowledge, alert implementation, webpage for internal use)
Other endpoints: i) Nephrotoxicity (Clustering analysis, rapid prototype implementation)
ii) Cardiotoxicity (Review of clustering analysis)

Softwares: 1) Derek for Windows
2) Leadscope Database Manager (version 1.2)
3) Leadscope Enterprise (version 2.4, clustering analysis)
4) Meteor, Vitic (routine use)

Key areas of work: DfW alert development, KB2010 project leader
Other interests: Text mining, QSAR validation, QSAR development

Expert knowledge: Genotoxicity, mutagenicity, clastogenicity, aneugenicity, SAR development

Key areas
- Derek Networked
- Derek API
- Derek Nexus reasoning engine
- Prior to that - worked mainly on Vitic

Significant expertise
- Java, OSGI
- Java Web Services
- VB.NET, Windows forms (.NET framework 1.1)
- Web applications (Java - STRUTS, JSP)
- Integration of existing Lhasa software with third party tools/frameworks

Key area covered at Lhasa :
- Chemical engine (structure perception, aromaticity, stereochemistry, descriptors, etc.)
- Structural search (structure matching, pattern matching, fingerprints, similarity, etc.)
- Knowledge model (structures, patterns, Markush model, chem./bio-transformation model)
- Reasoning : alert level reasoning, pattern level reasoning
- Derek Editor (future Nexus version)
- Meteor Editor (future Nexus version)

Expertise :
- Cheminformatics
- Software design and development

James is responsible for leading the Derek Nexus project. Prior to Lhasa, James spent a number of years in senior technical roles, architecting and leading the development of complex products specialising in Java, OSGI and Eclipse RCP which form the underlying technology platform of Lhasa's new breed of software.

James has actively contributed to core industry standards for software development and has written and edited several books and articles on advanced software engineering techniques. James holds a BSc from Keele University and a PhD from the University of York.

I am a project leader at Lhasa for Derek API and Meteor. In this role I both oversee product delivery and work on the design and implementation of the applications. Most recently I have been collaborating with members and product management to capture requirements for the new Meteor Nexus rewrite, and have been working on the user interface design and managing its implementation.

I have 15 years commercial experience in Cheminformatics software, and have been involved in many of its aspects during that time; from code development through to product management and design. Prior to joining Lhasa I worked for a number of vendors such as MDL and IDBS on a variety of their product lines as well as doing bespoke consultancy projects. Before that, I studied for a Cheminformatics PhD with Peter Willett at Sheffield University on chemical structural shape similarity