Career Possibilities Panel & Speed Networking - Drug Discovery

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About the Panelists

Jan Adams obtained her PhD at University of Pennsylvania with Gary Molander, and after a post-doc at MIT with Greg Fu, entered the pharmaceutical industry in 2006 starting at Ariad Pharmaceuticals and moving on to Cubist Pharmaceuticals and Entasis Therapeutics. She is currently an Associate Research Fellow working with the medicinal chemist design team at Pfizer. She has worked on projects across various disease areas across oncology, anti-infectives, and metabolic disease with a strong focus on innovation and collaboration. 

Isabelle Dussault brings over 20 years of experience in Oncology/Immuno-Oncology and Immunology drug discovery and development at Amgen, Merck and Co., Inc., Bristol Myers-Squibb, EMD Serono, Fusion Pharmaceuticals and most recently at 2seventybio where she was SVP of Preclinical and Translational Development. Isabelle has had the opportunity to work with several drug modalities (small molecules, biologics, drug conjugates and cell therapy) at different stages of the development cycle. She has managed large teams working across the drug discovery and development continuum. She has direct experience with health authority interactions and is passionate about growing and developing people.

Niyanta Kumar is an Associate Director in the Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics (DMPK) team at Mersana Therapeutics, a clinical stage biotechnology company in Cambridge, MA, focused on developing antibody drug conjugate (ADC) therapies for oncology indications. In her current role, Niyanta serves as a DMPK representative on both early discovery and clinical stage cross-functional program teams. In her current role, she conducts activities to support drug candidate selection and IND/BLA filings spanning ADME studies, translational PK/PD modeling and simulation, and authoring DMPK modules for regulatory filings among others. She previously worked in the DMPK group at Merck & Co. where she spearheaded building and applying high resolution ex vivo imaging tools to assess the biodistribution of novel biologics and therapeutic targets. She received her PhD in Pharmaceutical Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison where she investigated routes of drug delivery of macromolecules to the CNS. She received an integrated MS + BS in Biotechnology from the University of Pune (India). She enjoys connecting with others passionate about innovation in healthcare and is a member of the WEST Programming Committee. Outside of work Niyanta loves to explore the greater Boston area and New York City with her husband Brendan or curl up with a good book and her cat Daffodil.

Kayla Frost received her doctorate in Pharmacology and Toxicology from The University of Arizona and a bachelor’s degree in Forensic Chemistry from The University of Mississippi. She joined AbbVie’s Preclinical Safety group in 2022 as a Senior Scientist in Investigative Toxicology and Pathology. She serves as a preclinical safety representative on early and late-stage discovery immunology and oncology cross-functional project teams where she identifies and designs safety evaluation strategies specific to each team’s drug target, clinical indication, and modality. Kayla is responsible for coordinating in vivo exploratory studies and fit-for-purpose in vitro molecular assays to determine on-target vs. off-target liabilities, dose limiting toxicities, and estimated safety margins. Based on the results and interpretation of each assessment, she communicates preclinical safety recommendations to the project team for the advancement of experimental compounds and drug targets. Recently, Kayla’s first author publication “Increased Renal Expression of Complement Components in Patients with Liver Diseases: Nonalcoholic Steatohepatitis, Alcohol-associated, Viral Hepatitis, and Alcohol-Viral Combination.” won the Society of Toxicology’s Paper of the Year Award.

Amritha Ramakrishnan: I am a pre-clinical drug discovery lead with over a decade of experience spanning multiple therapeutic areas including infectious disease, autoimmunity, and oncology. I completed my doctoral training in immunology from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in 2014 following which I pursued a research fellowship with the US Navy that took me to Lima, Peru. During my three-year tenure there, I led the pre-clinical evaluation of diarrheal vaccines in non-human primates. In 2017, I relocated with my family to Boston. Over the last 7 years, I have gained experience working at both small biotechs (20-100 people) and large pharmaceutical companies and have consistently pursued innovative science that could bring transformative medicines to patients. I was fortunate enough to lead the development of two novel cell therapy assets from conception to Investigational New Drug (IND) status, addressing critical needs in oncology. I currently work in the Oncology Drug Discovery Unit at Takeda where I serve as a discovery lead for incredibly exciting small molecule programs. Outside of work, I enjoy skiing and spending time with my family and friends.

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