Kognole background as a computational chemist and a biophysicist to fuel product development and client services for Rasio Therapeutics and SilcsBio
May 5, 2022, Baltimore, MD – Early Charm, a company that creates, owns and operates ventures that convert science to revenue, today announced the hiring of Abhishek Kognole, PhD, a computational chemist and a biophysicist, as Applications Scientist, Computational Chemistry.
In his new role, Kognole will work with Early Charm’s Drug Design portfolio companies, Rasio Therapeutics and SilcsBio, to develop SilcsBio’s proprietary SILCS (Site-Identification by Ligand Competitive Saturation) platform and build relevant computational chemistry support modules. He also will work with Rasio Therapeutics and SilcsBio’s clients in deploying SILCS by running simulations and conducting data analysis.
Over the last several years, Kognole has worked primarily as a Postdoctoral Researcher with Alexander D. MacKerell Jr., PhD, the Grollman-Glick Professor of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Director of the Computer-Aided Drug Design Center at the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy and co-founder of SilcsBio.
At the MacKerell Lab, Kognole worked on molecular modeling, small molecule/ligand design and docking, molecular dynamics (MD), free energy calculations, forcefield, plus enhanced sampling to study proteins and RNA to solve key drug-design problems.
Kognole earned his Bachelor of Chemical Engineering from the University Institute of Chemical Technology in Mumbai, India. His undergraduate work centered on understanding the fundamentals of computational fluid dynamics and chemical process engineering. He later received his PhD in Chemical Engineering from the University of Kentucky with a focus
on understanding carbohydrate recognition mechanisms in non-catalytic proteins through molecular simulations.
“Abhishek’s research with Alex MacKerell and his lab is ideal experience for the work he’ll now do with our drug-design portfolio companies, Rasio Therapeutics and SilcsBio,” said Ken Malone, Executive Officer with Early Charm. “Abhishek brings an interdisciplinary mindset to Early Charm and a passion for computational drug design processes to help our pharmaceutical clients accelerate their drug development efforts.”
About Rasio Therapeutics:
Rasio is a Maryland-based biopharmaceutical company that develops novel medicines using a cutting edge-computer-aided drug design technology. Rasio has partnered with SilcsBio, LLC, a leader in computational drug discovery, to develop small molecules for exciting but previously inaccessible disease targets. Rasio is initially focusing on oncology and has raised seed funding to design and develop several oncology therapeutics for areas of significant unmet medical need. Learn more: www.rasiotx.com
About SilcsBio:
SilcsBio, LLC offers the SILCS platform technology that advances computational drug design applications through detailed protein mapping that accounts for flexibility and solvation and enables highly efficient ligand binding evaluation, virtual screening, and more. SilcsBio software and services span from target protein mapping and analysis through lead optimization and offers key insights for biological therapeutic formulations. The proprietary software unlocks hidden binding hotspots of target proteins and reveals the preferred ligand chemistries at those sites to rapidly guide the drug design process. SilcsBio most recently announced a partnership with Aikido Pharmaceuticals. Learn more: www.silcsbio.com
About Early Charm:
Early Charm creates, owns and operates businesses that convert science into revenue. We are the management team, the operators and the entrepreneurs. We don’t write checks and just pop in for board meetings. We show up to our labs, our production facilities and our offices every day to do all the heavy lifting in our portfolio companies. Learn more: www.earlycharm.com
Media Contact:
Ken Berlack
Early Charm
