1859 Announces the Formation of Its Scientific Advisory Board

Appointees Include Two 2024 ACS National Award Recipients, AIML Trailblazer, and Serial Biotech Co-founder.

SAN DIEGO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–1859, an AI-driven small molecule drug discovery company advancing next generation medicines, announces the establishment of its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). Comprising experts in the fields of AI, biotechnology, and chemistry, the board’s achievements span innovative strategies to drug novel modalities, cutting-edge chemical synthesis techniques, transformative AIML applications, and translational high-throughput experimentation technologies. The board includes scientific co-founder Brian Paegel, Phil Dawson, Michelle Arkin, and Olexandr Isayev.

“We are delighted to have our Scientific Advisory Board join the 1859 team. Brian, Michelle, Phil, and Olexandr collectively bring invaluable expertise and insights to the industry’s current challenges, along with disruptive approaches that bring speed, quality, and scale to drug discovery,” said 1859 CEO, Sanket Agrawal. In bringing on key leadership hires and scientific advisors in 2023 to shape the company’s strategic direction, 1859 aims to continue building its data-first AIML engine and expand its therapeutic pipeline of high-value, internally generated, novel programs.

Scientific Advisory Board:

Brian M. Paegel, Ph.D. is an 1859 scientific co-founder, and Professor at the University of California, Irvine, whose research aims to deliver advanced parallel synthesis and screening platforms to support cross-disciplinary translational research initiatives. These technologies were foundational to 1859’s early screening platform, with 1859 being one of four biotech companies Brian has co-founded.

Philip Dawson, Ph.D., is the Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, and Professor at Scripps Research, whose research focuses on the development of synthetic tools for the chemical synthesis of proteins, oligonucleotides, and their conjugates. Phil received a 2024 ACS National Cope Scholar Award.

Michelle Arkin, Ph.D. is a Professor and Chair of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, and Executive Director of the Small Molecule Discovery Center at UCSF, whose research focuses on developing methods and molecules that target currently ‘undruggable proteins.’ Michelle received a 2024 ACS National Cope Scholar Award.

Olexandr Isayev, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor at Carnegie Mellon University, whose research focuses on connecting artificial intelligence (AI) with chemical sciences. Olexandr received the “Emerging Technology Award” from the American Chemical Society (ACS) and the NVIDIA GPU computing award.

Read SAB Bios

About 1859

1859 is on a mission to accelerate drug discovery and deliver the next generation of medicines to patients in need. Visit www.1859.ai.

Contacts

For inquiries: pr@1859.ai