Ross L. Stein

Ross Stein received his PhD in physical organic chemistry from Indiana University in 1978, after which he conducted post-doctoral research in mechanistic enzymology at the University of Kansas. His career has included positions at Merck, where he headed the Enzymology Department, and ProScript (acquired by Millennium in 1999) as vice president of biochemistry. At ProScript, Dr. Stein was instrumental in the pre-clinical development and co-inventor of the drug Velcade, a proteasome inhibitor used to treat multiple myeloma. In 2001, he accepted a position at Harvard Medical School to establish and head the Laboratory for Drug Discovery in Neurodegeneration. Leaving Harvard in 2009, Dr. Stein became Vice President of Discovery Research at Sirtris Pharmaceuticals where he and his team elucidated the mechanism of activation of the sirtuin family of protein deacetylases. In 2011, Dr. Stein accepted the position of Deputy Director of the Institute for Advancing Medical Innovation of the University of Kansas Medical Center. Dr. Stein's drug discovery responsibilities at the University of Kansas also included directing the High-Throughput Screening Laboratory, and the Laboratory for Early Stage Translational Research, which he founded. In 2013, Dr. Stein joined Targanox (Cambridge, MA) as Chief Scientific Officer.