Robert Allen Copeland

Robert A. Copeland, Ph.D. is President, Chief Scientific Officer and Co-Founder of Accent Therapeutics, Inc. and President of the independent consulting firm Ki Consultant, LLC. Dr. Copeland serves on a number of advisory boards, committees and editorial boards in industry, academia, professional societies and professional journals He received his B.S. in chemistry from Seton Hall University, his doctorate in chemistry from Princeton University and did postdoctoral studies as the Chaim Weizmann Fellow at the California Institute of Technology. His research interest is in elucidating the determinants of drug recognition by their biological targets, and the use of this information in the discovery and design of new medicines. He has contributed to drug discovery and development efforts leading to 19 investigational new drugs entering human clinical trials. These include the cancer drugs Tafinlar (dabrafenib), foretinib, afuresertib and Mekinist (trametinib), tazemetostat and the antibiotic Altabax (retapamulin). Dr. Copeland has contributed more than 200 publications to the scientific literature, holds 14 issued U. S. patents and has authored 5 books in the areas of protein science and enzymology. His most recent book, Evaluation of Enzyme Inhibitors in Drug Discovery: A Guide for Medicinal Chemists and Pharmacologists, 2nd Edition (Wiley, Hoboken, NJ), published in March 2013. In 2016 Dr. Copeland was elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).