Executive Team
Sharon D. Bryant, MSc., MBA exec.
Chief Executive Officer, Partner
Sharon Bryant has more than 30 years experience in computer aided design and research, working extensively with pharmaceutical, cosmetic, nutrition, and other life science industries to identify candidate molecules using innovative approaches. Recently she led the team in the NeuroDeRisk project to develop the NeuroDeRisk In Silico Toolbox, used in industry to derisk molecules for risk of neurotoxicity.
Prior to joining Inte:Ligand, Sharon was at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), NIEHS Neuroscience and National Toxicology Programs, where she worked on opioid peptide mimetics as pharmacological probes for understanding GPCR pain perception, modulation and addiction. Sharon has patents covering opioid inventions, authored more than 130 scientific publications and given more than 150 oral presentations. She has been awarded numerous NIH Performance awards and received Fellowships from UCSF (Molecular Dynamics, Kollman Group, USA) and JSPS Fellowships (Okada Group, Kobe, Japan) to apply biophysical approaches (2D-NMR, x-ray and CD) to study 3D-conformations of synthetically modified opioid peptides to support computer-aided molecular design.
She studied chemistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA, while following emphasis in biochemistry and physiology. Later, after joining Inte:Ligand in 2008, she completed the Executive MBA for the Americas Dual Degree program at UCLA, USA to add business know-how needed to grow a start-up with global reach.
Since 2014, Sharon is also Guest Professor at University of Vienna, Austria, where she teaches in the Master in Preclinical Drug Discovery and Development program. She has had multiple invited Guest Professor appointments and teaches regularly for drug discovery and chemoinformatics University programs in France, Italy, Spain and Southeast Asia.
Her research interests involve human centered innovation to identify ground breaking in silico solutions to support development of next generation therapies to address unmet needs in human health.
Prof. Gerhard Wolber, PhD
Head of Technology, Co-Founder, Partner
Prof. Dr. Gerhard Wolber, one of the founders of Inte:Ligand, is Professor for Pharmaceutical Chemistry and Head of the Computational Chemistry Group at the Institute of Pharmacy at the Freie Universität Berlin since 2010. After his studies of pharmacy at the University of Innsbruck and Computer Science at the Technical University of Vienna, he received his PhD in Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Innsbruck, during which time he wrote prototypes of two programs "CombiGen" (ilib:diverse) and "LigandScout 1.0". In 2003 he co-founded Inte:Ligand and became Head of the Software Development and Algorithms Group.
In 2008 he became Assistant Professor at the University of Innsbruck. In 2010 he joined Freie Universität Berlin where he later became full Professor. There, his lab bridges algorithmic design and applied computational drug discovery to develop quantitative models for the effects of small molecules on macromolecules and cellular pathways. To achieve this, the group uses a combination of biophysical in vitro methods with statistical molecular mechanics and heuristically derived interaction patterns (3D pharmacophores, dynophores).
His research interests are the development of algorithms for drug-receptor interaction, virtual screening, 2D and 3D visualization techniques as well as 3D pharmacophore modeling and its use to solve biological problems.
Prof. Hermann Stuppner, PhD
Head of Natural Products Discovery, Co-Founder
Prof. Dr. Hermann Stuppner brings to Inte:Ligand an enormous knowledge base in the area of natural products and phytochemistry with more than 40 years experience. He has served as Head (2001-2013) of the Institute of Pharmacy at the University of Innsbruck and Head of the Department of Pharmacognosy. In 2004, he was appointed Head of Studies/Dean of Studies of the Faculty of Chemistry and Pharmacy.
After his Pharmacy M.S. degree (Innsbruck) he obtained a Ph.D. in Pharmacognosy (1985, University of Munich, Germany). He then spent a year as a post-doc fellow at the University of California (Irvine, USA). In 1987 he moved to Innsbruck where he grew up his Phytochemistry Group. In 1993 he was nominated as Dozent and 1997 as Professor for Pharmacognosy.
Since 2006, Hermann Stuppner has been President of the Herbal Medicinal Platform Austria (HMPPA), a scientific network with the highest level of expertise in the field of herbal medicines and natural product research. For eight years he also served as President of the Austrian Pharmaceutical Society (ÖPhG), of which he still remains a board member.
Approximately 5% of his more than 400 publications were dedicated to edelweiss, its unique constituents, and their biological/pharmacological activities. He coordinated a large Austrian network project ("Drugs from Nature Targeting Inflammation"), which was generously funded for six years by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF) and the Tyrolean Future Foundation, earning him significant national and international recognition.
In 1992, Hermann Stuppner received the Biochemistry Prize, the Herba Prize and the City of Innsbruck Prize (1992), in 2005 the Phoenix Pharmacy Science Prize. In 2013 the Houska Prize, in 2017 the PSE Award of the Phytochemical Society of Europe, in 2017 the Science Prize for Exceptional Research Achievement from the South Tyrolean Savings Bank Foundation and in 2019 the ICSB Award from the University of Mississippi, USA.
His research interests include:
Isolation and structural elucidation of secondary metabolites from higher (medicinal) plants with anti-inflammatory, anti-tumor and anti-microbial activities. Analysis and quality assessment of (medicinal) plants and phyto-pharmaceuticals. Discovery of pharmaceutically active natural products by means of computer aided modeling and datamining. NMR-based metabolic profiling. Establishing structure-activity relationships of natural products as well as in phytochemical analytics using HPCL, GC/MS and CZE techniques.