Dr. Veena L. Thomas -

CEO & Drug Target Strategic & technical CONSULTing

Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences & Pharmacogenomics, UCSF

Postdoc in Computational Pharmacology, Stanford University

B.S. in Biology, MIT

Former Director of Therapeutic Strategy at Redesign Science

Ph.D. Thesis at UCSF - Dr. Brian Shoichet's lab

Postdoc at Stanford - Dr. Vijay Pande’s lab

Undergraduate research at MIT - Dr. Vernon Ingram's lab

Dr. Veena Thomas is a strategic visionary and company builder, specializing in directing therapeutic strategy for drug discovery. She specializes in biophysics-based first-principles AI-for-drug-discovery structure-prediction companies — especially involving drug target protein dynamics and conformational change, protein flexibility, and drug resistance mutations — and novel drug target companies.

Dr. Thomas is a former x-ray crystallographer, structural biologist, enzymologist, biophysicist, and protein thermodynamicist with a Ph.D. from Dr. Brian Shoichet’s lab at UCSF (Ph.D. in Pharmaceutical Sciences and Pharmacogenomics). She is a computational pharmacologist, atomistic pharmacologist, & mechanistic pharmacologist who did her postdoctoral research in Dr. Vijay Pande’s lab at Stanford University, where she developed a hybrid ligand- and structure-based computational pharmacology protocol for drug discovery and drug repurposing for neglected diseases — and determined the mechanism of action of a fatal drug side effect. She did her undergraduate degree at MIT, with a BS in Biology.

At MIT she worked on Alzheimer’s Disease in Dr. Vernon Ingram’s laboratory, the “Father of Molecular Medicine”. She is also the former Director of Therapeutic Strategy at Redesign Science, an AI-for-drug-discovery structure-prediction company using molecular dynamics for investigating protein dynamics, conformational changes, and cryptic site inhibitor binding.

Dr. Thomas has an unusual multidisciplinary background & expertise in both computational and experimental pharmacology, structural biology, biochemistry, mechanistic and atomistic pharmacology, and biology. In Dr. Vijay Pande's group, she strategized, developed, and used a hybrid ligand- and structure-based drug discovery computational protocol to discover and repurpose drugs against neglected diseases like malaria and the Toxoplasma parasite. She also used her computational approach to determine the mechanism of action of a fatal drug side effect in FDA-approved drugs — and unexpectedly linked it to a drug target of active interest to the pharmaceutical industry at the time.

In Dr. Brian Shoichet’s lab, Dr. Thomas investigated antibiotic resistance from a structural, thermodynamic, and enzymological perspective, in order to develop strategies to combat the urgent problem of drug resistance mutations. 

An outgoing and charismatic scientist, leader, and communicator, and quick-on-her-feet thinker, Dr. Thomas has also performed improv comedy for the past 5 years — making her bold, dynamic, and engaging professionally, in presentations, and in pitch meetings.

She is very passionate about scientific strategy, bold ideas, and writing, and accordingly was awarded both an NIH National Research Service Award (NRSA) postdoctoral grant and an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship for her idea proposals. Her students voted her “Teaching Assistant of the Year” at UCSF for her skill and enthusiasm for teaching and mentorship.

Interesting facts: Dr. Thomas worked in forensic science for the FBI in Quantico, VA, where she received an FBI top-secret security clearance; did a summer intensive training in improv comedy at Second City Chicago; wrote a weekly column for MIT’s newspaper for 3 years; was a co-organizer and event host for one of the largest hobby social meetup groups in the Bay Area for 3 years; was a certified conflict mediator in the state of Massachusetts; and spun off a passion project of hers — strategic business marketing consulting and company-building to help small business owners during the pandemic — into second and third consulting companies of hers, Pivot In Place Consulting and Leg Up Strategic Consulting.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/veena-thomas-15579425/